The following is based mainly on Robert Jensen’s article “What White People Fear” (2010). Jensen, a professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, is one of the most notable white anti-racists alive in America.
Despite the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, which overturned racist laws in America and brought an end to its apartheid, whites and blacks are still clearly unequal on things as simple as home ownership, education and even infant mortality. Change has been slow over the past 40 years, so slow that at present rates it will take tens if not hundreds of years for whites and blacks to become equal.
Why is change so slow? After writing and speaking about racism for more than ten years Jensen concludes that it is fear: whites on both the right and the left are afraid of living in a world without racism.
On the right whites are afraid of losing white privilege, what some call “our way of life”. It would mean giving up wealth and power. Even poor whites, who see very little of said wealth and power, agree. Yes, they are that brainwashed by the rich, who have long used race to divide the poor against each other.
On the left it is a bit different. They talk the talk – equality blah blah diversity blah blah multiculturalism blah blah – but do not walk the walk. They say the right things but have done precious little to change anything.
In the end whites on both the left and the right believe the same thing: “I’m white and I’m special.”
At the heart of their fears is a “fragile sense of white self-importance”. Their history runs with blood: they did not get to where they are through fair play but through naked violence. Whites do not want to face up to it but at some level they all know it is true.
Whites have opened up some of their institutions to people of colour in the name of diversity, but only to the degree that whites feel comfortable and only on their terms. So it is no accident that power and control still lies largely in white hands. Diversity becomes window dressing, not a change in the power relationship between whites and others.
Jensen himself knows first-hand that it is hard for whites to give up control to those who are not white, to those who do not share a white-centric worldview.
Hard but worth it:
I have a choice: I can be white — that is, I can refuse to challenge white supremacy or centrality — or I can be a human being. I can rest comfortably in the privileges that come with being white, or I can struggle to be fully human. But I can’t do both. Though the work is difficult, the choice for those of us who are white should be easy.
See also:
- Robert Jensen: What White People Fear – read the whole article
- Tim Wise: On The Creation Of Whiteness – another white anti-racist
- Fanon: The Black Man and Psychopathology – also about white fears
- How White America got rich
- white privilege
- white pride
- How racism helps and hurts white people
Yada, Yada, Yada. White people are unwilling to give up “privilege?” Then why did they vote for Obama in huge numbers? Yes, he did not get a majority of the white vote, but no Democrat has in decades.
Instead of constantly harping on white “privilege” and how it supposedly generates inequality, how about a new tactic? Why not reflect on what changes can be made within the black community (or Hispanic community, Native American community, …) to improve the current situation? Are whites responsible for the family instability that wreaks so much havoc in the inner cities? I don’t think so.
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@FG how about we stick to the subject, you know the topic of the post and if you want to talk about that , then go into the search banner and find those post alright luv?
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I’m sure his points have some basis on reality, a minority of whites could feel this way, but come on – I’m so ready for black people to have more control over their destiny’s so they can stop blaming everyone else for their problems. In my professional experience I’ve worked with poc in high level directorships and their white subordinates didnt conspire against them or harbor fears due to their success. I hired and managed poc because they were the best candidates for the job. His arguments have merit, but generalizing casts a white cloud over positives and undermines personal responsibility.
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I have a choice: I can be white — that is, I can refuse to challenge white supremacy or centrality — or I can be a human being. I can rest comfortably in the privileges that come with being white, or I can struggle to be fully human. But I can’t do both. Though the work is difficult, the choice for those of us who are white should be easy.
OK, here’s the sticker, though…
As any anthro- or sociologist can tell you, identity is a two-fold process: you are what you declare yourself to be AND what others declare yourself to be.
A few weeks ago, I gave Jensen’s advice to a student of mine who believes himself to be white (though he’s pretty obviously nothing that the KKK would ever consider to be white). He was asking why, for example, it was OK for a black student to use a “I’m black and proud” t-shirt but not OK for him, a white student, to use an “I’m white and proud” t-shirt.
I told him, “Well, why would you want to take on the ‘white’ identity? It exists for one thing and one thing only: to proclaim itself as superior to non-whites. There’s no history of ‘white’ anti-racism, though many people adjudged ‘white’ are and have been anti-racists. So why would you take up that identity for any reason other than to articulate a position of ‘I am superior’?”
As I explained this to him, however, I knew I couldn’t really get at what was nagging him, which is the following problem…
In a world where racial identities are understood to be a fundamental component of human psychological and cultural identity, where one is constantly and always going to be classified based on the color of one’s skin, HOW can anyone, in good conscience and without being a hypocrite, tell young white people that they should throw away racial identity?
I mean, I have probably gone farthest along this route of any person I know. (Certainly farther than Jensen and Wise, who seem to make a personal identity out of bearing a public cross for the white race’s sins. I don’t think they’d have a reason to live if tomorrow the Jubilee suddenly arrived and we were are magically propelled into post racism. They are very much one-trick ponies.) I frankly do not believe that racial OR NATIONAL identites needs must be a part of our psychological and cultural makeup and I try to walk that walk as much as possible.
But dealing with smart black anti-racists like J, for example, make me realize that this is probably going to be very much a personal and idiosyncratic decision. No matter what I personally choose in my life, I’m going to be valanced by others as “white” and treated as such. My opinions are going to be validated or dismissed as such. I’m going to catch priviledges or (rarer) hell as such. What I consider myself to be ultimately doesn’t change what others consider me to be one damned bit.
In short, it’s futile to call for people to “give up” whiteness when identity is as much socially defined as it is personally defined. It’s doubly futile to do so in a scenario such as that of the U.S., where racial identity is generally cast as absolutely determinative of identity. To call for someone to give up “whiteness” in the U.S. is all well and good, but what do you suggest should take its place, given the fact that the citizens in your country – whatever their color – seem devoted to the concept of absolute determinative identity based on bioological make up and appearance?
Are you in favor of humanism, as Jensen suggests?
Correct me if I’m wrong here, Abagond, but don’t you and J believe that humanism is just another illegitimate white shuck, made up to protect white priviledge?
I think whites – at least American whites – are going to have to take a long hard look at constructing a useable whiteness. The deeply-rooted American belief that blood determines individual destiny won’t permit any other option.
As for me, I’m happy blending my personal genetic line into Brazil, which has a very usable, flexible and shifting national racial myth. I’m going to teach my kids that they should adopt whatever ethnic idenity allows them to be the freest and that they shouldn’t get too deeply attached to any one ethnic identity in particular. I’m also going to encourage them to marry Chinese, which will get THEIR kid’s foot into another ethnic door which will probably be of determinative importance before the 21st century is over.
As Yakota scholar and philospher Vine Deloria Jr. puts it, “Identity is a white myth. Only white people need to be constantly questioning who they are in order to feel secure”.
In this sense, the U.S. is probably going to remain a “white” country for a very, very long time.
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By the way, here’s a an interesting quandary for you…
Jensen would have no soapbox to stand upon at all if he weren’t white. His anti-racist message isn’t particularly novel or useful – except for the fact that a relatively powerful white man is saying it.
In short, neither Jensen (nor Wise, for that matter) would be getting even the slightest attention for saying what they say EXCEPT for the fact that they are white.
This, among other reasons, is why I consider these two gentlemen (and certain similar specimens) as being the cleverest white supremacists of all: they’ve found a way to redeem whiteness for themselves – a way that pays, incidently – while simultaneuosly telling the rest of the white world to let go of the bottle.
If racism didn’t exist, Jensen and Wise would probably have to become evangelical Christian preachers. 😀
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Even if what you say is true Thad, there are many both Black and White who are glad such individuals have decided to take some form of stand, rather than not attempting to make a ‘difference’, by choosing not to do anything, irrespective whether they are or they are NOT getting the attention, based upon the colour of their skin.
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Thaddeus,
I see Jensen and Wise as squelching the arguments, so that one could move on to a more thoughtful discussion. They remind me of a Physical Anthropology professor I had, that stated the first day of class, that man had an ancestor in common with other primates, that it was a fact and for this class one had to accept it. This was done to stop the subsequent religious arguments from his Bible Belt student body, during a time when it was still illegal to teach Darwin’s theory in Tennessee.
I would much rather that they be race hustlers saying what they say about white privilege than the other race hustlers who propagate the lie of Black privilege.
In the internet age whatever lie is told the most appears to be the truth, I rather it be their truths.
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I see Jensen and Wise as squelching the arguments, so that one could move on to a more thoughtful discussion. They remind me of a Physical Anthropology professor I had, that stated the first day of class, that man had an ancestor in common with other primates, that it was a fact and for this class one had to accept it. This was done to stop the subsequent religious arguments from his Bible Belt student body, during a time when it was still illegal to teach Darwin’s theory in Tennessee.
Appeal to authority, while it may have its uses, generally does not convince – which is what Wise and Jensen are supposedly attempting to do.
Your teacher was trying to get beyond the BS and teach anthropology to students who really wanted to learn it. Wise and Jensen are in the position of having to preach Darwin from the pulpit of a very conservative Baptist Church. If they use the “appeal to authority” method, they have no utility at all.
I suspect that Wise and Jensen are in almost every single instance preaching to the converted, which tosses their ostentatious racism into a completely different light. They only white people they can browbeat with their “authority” are white folks who more-or-less agree with them and find it chic to be publically berated for their presumptive racism.
I would much rather that they be race hustlers saying what they say about white privilege than the other race hustlers who propagate the lie of Black privilege.
The problem is that they are hustlers. They are telling people to put aside whiteness when even the most brain-damaged member of their audience has to perceive that their social and political role is PREDICATED UPON whiteness. This sort of hustling ends up reinforcing the other sort because it’s obviously insincere. When your only allies are the likes of Wise and Jensen, YOU HAVE NO ALLIES.
And you shouldn’t fool yourself about that.
In the internet age whatever lie is told the most appears to be the truth, I rather it be their truths.
If that’s the case, then we have truly reached the end of times. Think about this, then, Hathor: your simple physcial comfort – the food you eat, the electricity that runs your computer, the sewage system that keeps you from drowning in your own s¨&t – is all predicated on the notion that there are some truths that are effectively inescapable.
If we’re going to toss our hands up in the air and say “May the loudest voice win,” then we are fuc%ed, plain and simple, because there is no way in hell that anti-racism is going to be the loudest voice.
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Mmm Im a UT student…I willl have to check out Jensen’s classes for next semester.
Back to the article, I must say white American liberals are the biggest fakes known to mankind, full stop! Of course not all but most. They talk a big game and love to get on their high horse about racist conservatives but I truely believe they feel that same as racist conservatives.
When white liberals are racist, they do it differently than racist right wingers. When conservatives see non-whites moving into their neighborhoods they participate in white flight. Not only do liberals actively participate in white flight but they go a step further and gentrify lower income, predom black(and Hispanic) neighborhoods. The will go in and set up there little SWPL enclaves and drive the taxes and cost of living up so only those like them can afford to live in those areas.
They do this under the guise of being “urbane” and hip.
White liberals will fight racism in only to keep up appearances. They will do whatever it takes to not be called a racist but thats about it.
Aw anyway…that my off topic rant for today : )
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@ Tuesday,
1) You’re making the classic mistake of making this post about you personally. For example, when I read a WP talking about “a loud black woman at the supermarket”, I don’t take it personally. I understand that there are some loud black women, and that there aren’t. I get annoyed with those who are and I suggest to ones I meet that they cut that shit and quit making the rest of us look bad.
Why is it sooooooooo hard for WP to do the same with each other? Why are you all sooooooooo scared of each other?
2) If a WP can marry a person of color and still be racist, then you can imagine where voting for a president of color falls. *blinks*
@ Thaddeus
I disagree (of course).
1) These two don’t preach to the choir (POC implied); they go after white audiences and are branded self-hating race traitors
2) Wise in particular flat out tells people that his information doesn’t come from him, that the only reason he’s standing at the podium in the first place is that he “fits the aesthetic”, and that he does what he does in hopes one day that he – and those who look like him – won’t have to play messenger boy/”translator” to their fellow white people.
3) You’re not “helping” by going after white guys like Jensen and Wise. The blogosphere is already filled with clueless WP crying about not knowing what to do or where to start or how to behave themselves and why POC don’t like them. Jensen, McIntosh, Wise, and even Ferber are models for WP like that. If you tell WP, “Look…even these WP suck and are useless, etc.” how the hell does that motivate WP to examine and dismantle white privilege…if it will all be for naught? *blinks*
@ Abagond,
*blows a kiss*
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Where are the rest of the white people who feel this way? When millions of them stand up to racism on a daily basis. Then I will have some faith in white anti-racists.
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Y so are you promoting separate but equal neighborhoods to keep whites out, segregation? Would you say that white schools have better facilities than non white? Don’t property taxes pay for a school districts expenses? Check out highland park in Dallas or West U public schools in Houston…. excellent – check out Oak Cliff schools in So. Dallas, crummy. Why is it that blacks want equality in every way except those that cost them to work for it? And yet not all blacks are so naive and do work, and do get an education, and do the things that make them succeed. Liberal whites gentrifying neighborhoods isnt a form of subjugation.
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No Im not…. Im against going in and uprooting the less powerful so whites can create their little SWPL n*gger and sp*c free utopias. When white liberals go to the inner city and set up shop, the dont do it to improve the plight of the people there, the go so they can get land cheap and when they get what they want they drive up taxes so the poor black people cant live there anymore. THAT is segregation!
Property taxes as a means to allot public school funding is very damaging and its one of the many reasons why Texas k-12 education is a FAILURE. If America is all about equal opportunity why penalize children that were born poor? Why is it okay for the public to extend benefits to the children of the rich will allowing poor kids to attend FAILING schools with BAD infrastructure and HORRIBLE facilities.
Why is it that white people get defensive and ANGRY when you point out their hypocrisy? How come the majority in this country does NOT want to see a level playing field for ALL PEOPLE? Why do the people in power do the bare minimum so they can say they tried?
Why do people DEFLECT and ask stupid, out of nowhere questions like “Why is it that blacks want equality in every way except those that cost them to work for it?” when nobody said blacks should get something for nothing?
Ill tell you why, because they want to cling onto their white privilege to the bitter end, thats why.
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” or I can be a human being”.
I’ve heard this “human being ” canard from several “anti-racist” gurus. What the hell does this mean?? To me it sound like another multi-cult mantra like “diversity is strength” or “white privilege”. Also notice how this only applies to whites. Blacks and Latinos (in the US) are always encouraged to nurture their factionalism and clan mentality. The whites are supposed to resign to being some sort of faceless labor drones producing taxes and wealth to be “spread” to the deserving masses. As for the whining that America is based on a white value system, what system would they rather have?? An African system (known for it’s galactic level success) or maybe a Latino system (a alternation of fascist baron robbers or ruinous communist populists).
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thaddeus, you wrote:
As Yakota scholar and philospher Vine Deloria Jr. puts it, “Identity is a white myth. Only white people need to be constantly questioning who they are in order to feel secure”.
I get the feeling you and Deloria are both confused about the definition of “identity.”
It seems readers at this site believe “identity” for whites is defined by race and nothing else. Of course, in truth, identity for whites is everything except race.
Meanwhile, there’s a popular maxim addressing the identity concept. One of those wise Greeks once said, “the unexamined life is not worth living.”
The funny and ironic aspect of Deloria vs Socrates appears here at this site as blacks demand that whites examine themselves and confess to having racist feelings of superiority while blacks refuse to perform the same introspective act.
Where does that lead? It leads to blacks having little knowledge of themselves vs other individuals and vs other races.
No matter how many tests are taken, no matter how often performance in every aspect of life is objectively measured, there is a widespread, but individual unwillingness among blacks to accept the facts as they are.
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y, you wrote:
Why is it okay for the public to extend benefits to the children of the rich will allowing poor kids to attend FAILING schools with BAD infrastructure and HORRIBLE facilities.
Obviously you cannot provide a single example of children of the rich receiving public-school benefits denied to the poor. But I suppose you can give it a try.
The latest public-school figures for New York City were released a couple of weeks ago.
Bottom line — IN the current school year New York City will spend slightly more than $19,000 per student.
Guess where the highest spending occurs? In the schools with the worst performance. Moreover, the schools with the worst academic performance are schools that are heavily black and hispanic.
On the other hand, the best public high school in New York City — Stuyvesant High — spends about ONE-THIRD less than the poorly performing schools, which are populated by blacks and hispanics.
Why is the bill so much lower at Stuyvesant? Because the kids do not need endless remedial help and they all speak English, even though some were born outside the US.
The student body at Stuyvesant is almost 60% asian and almost 40% white. Blacks and hispanics account for less than 5% of the students.
How do students get into Stuyvesant? Study, study, study — and then passing the entrance test. Money makes no difference. It’s about proving to be a good student long before actually attending the school.
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@Ankhesen, lol- Recounting my experiences and p.o.v. isnt me being scared, it is me attempting to relay my thoughts and be heard. I am not scared of a UT professor, his book or opinions. Funny enough his claims dont make me cringe or want him to change his opinion of white peoples fears. Do I think he is generalizing, yes. Do I think you wanting to hush up loud black women shows a disdain for your own race, yes. Are you afraid of what white ppl will think, yes, and that says more for your own fears of your own race than you may want to admit.
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Robert Jensen and Tim Wise are the white counterparts to Al Sharpton, though they are probably less clownish.
Recently I was on 125th Street in Harlem where I passed a sidewalk vendor selling books from a rack on his card table. I noticed one authored by Tim Wise.
That’s the best Wise can do — getting his books peddled by black street vendors. Moreover, when I see these street vendors in Harlem it occurs to me they get their inventory from the Nation of Islam, then spend their days hoping for a few sales.
Meanwhile, if I wanted a drum to beat, the easiest one to grab is the one beaten by Jensen and Wise. Whites ranting that whites are racists have a ready audience among blacks and probably among a meaningful percentage of college students of all races.
However, these two white hucksters are no more than a combination of the Music Man, Elmer Gantry and the Pope. Total frauds.
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Just for laughs, I went to Wise’s website and read the most recent essay posted there. It is dated June 20, 2008. In other words, he gave up writing essays about two years ago. Probably because readers were catching his lies.
Interestingly, on his site is another example of his work. He wrote a monograph about the abuse of statistics. Obviously he used his knowledge well. The essay of his that I read liberally abused statistics and then created false comparisons.
There’s a reason he is ignored by the vast majority of whites. Like other white and black crackpots, he’s out of his mind.
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Thaddeus,
If you say the sky is blue or Rush Limbaugh says the same, does it matter who says it, since most perceive the sky blue. I don’t care about the motives. There are very few people who are intellectually or ethically pure.
You see I didn’t see the white people who joined the Civil Right movement as a threat either. I didn’t question their motives for wanting to risk their lives. When they were beaten or killed, it knocked a lot of white folks into the reality of racist hate.
I don’t ask for a racist or ethnocentric free world, I ask that
people act ethically and restrain themselves from what may be their natural impulses. People don’t have to like someone to treat them with respect and as a equal.
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“Whites have opened up some of their institutions to people of colour in the name of diversity, but only to the degree that whites feel comfortable and only on their terms. ”
good post
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NS
I dont give a damn what people do in New York, I live in Texas and that is the perspective from which I will speak. From what I hear the NE makes education and learning a priority. As I am typing this the state is trying to get textbooks rewritten to discredit evolution and push a right wing political agenda.
The people running this state dont CARE about EDUCATION, full stop.
A few weeks ago I had dinner with a bunch of students that lived on my resident floor, that opened my eyes to the shameful Texas education system. I had people telling me they went to high schools with NO computer labs, while I went to a high school with at least five. My peers told me about having to share textbooks that were 15+ years old while my high school was allowed to give each of us textbooks in good condition. Not only did we get relatively new textbooks to keep at home but the school had classroom sets so we didnt have to lug our books back and forth.
Why the discrepancy? Because of property taxes. Luckily I was born to parents that could afford to pay high property taxes, these who werent so fortunate were out of luck. Children have no control over who they are born too. In a country that advocates equal opportunity we are doing a piss poor job of practicing what we preach. There are schools all over HISD that are falling apart while money is being wasted building new football stadiums for high schoolers.
If Texans cared about education as much as we cared about football the state would be in much better shape.
Texas Taxes at work!
60 million dollar stadium: http://thepigskindoctors.com/2010/04/texas-high-school-gets-60-million-football-stadium/
HISD barely afloat: http://www.hcnonline.com/articles/2010/04/08/west_university_examiner/news/wu_supt_roundtable.txt
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Y – whites don’t need to move into black and hispanic neighborhoods to create their all white utopias, they already exist. Whites who move into black/hispanic neighborhoods do it for a couple of reasons you already mentioned, to invest and to renovate a cool house.
Whites who gentrify also do so to get the diversity of races the white utopias are lacking. We enjoy being able to hit up the local taquiera or dollar store a lot easier than if we lived in Plano or Allen, Tx – we enjoy seeing more than soccer moms and dads coming home in suits. We enjoy talking to our neighbors about more than summer camp. We do it precisely for the OPPOSITE reasons you proclaim. You don’t have a very good understanding of the white man as you think you do.
Whites don’t want to cling to privilege to the bitter end, some of us do want the diversity we are so accused of being afraid of.
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Y – people who want to create a better situation for lower income neighborhoods can be found in the white community – see Habitat for Humanity as one instance.
Anyone who buys a new home for themselves isn’t moving in for the reason of bettering a neighborhood – is it the job of white people to help save the black neighborhoods? shouldn’t the black folks who destroy their own do that for themselves? There is a bigger issue at hand when a neighborhood falls apart – -blame it on the folks who live there and not on the failure of whites to save them.
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This is something that caught my eye:
“This, among other reasons, is why I consider these two gentlemen (and certain similar specimens) as being the cleverest white supremacists of all”
= (??)
“However, these two white hucksters are no more than a combination of the Music Man, Elmer Gantry and the Pope. Total frauds”.
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Look, I don’t know who this Jensen guy is, and I only recently learned about Tim Wise. But I must admit I like the message:
I can rest comfortably in the privileges that come with being white, or I can struggle to be fully human. But I can’t do both.
To me, these are beautiful words. And that is reality. You can’t do both- and all the white people who claim they are against racism must understand this. You can’t do both, and if you choose anti-racism, you must really choose anti-racism and fight against white privilege.
But here’s the thing Thad mentioned… Being human vs being white. I understand what Thad is talking about, but the way I see it: if we all want to be seen as humans (no race attached) then we- all of us- must forget about the concept of race. Completely. White people must unlearn white privilege and forget about it, unlearn any identification with being white. But the thing is, blacks and other non-whites must do the same- they must be ready to stop identifying as black or Asian, if we truly decide that race doesn’t exist anymore.
Now, if blacks and other non-whites are not into this, that’s another story. But the way I see it, it’s the only way to go.
(Needles to say, I don’t think this can work. As much as I’m personally not a fan of ethnic, racial or national identity, most of the people on the world are. It is naive to think whites can unlearn their supremacy “just like that”- and similarly, you can’t just expect blacks to forget about their black identity. It… I don’t think it could work. Or am I misinterpreting Jensen here?)
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y,
As far as I know, Every State pays its education bills through property taxes.
Moreover, spending those property tax funds is NOT a matter of local geography alone.
However, one thing is true, property owners who live in high-tax districts do see a fair share of their tax dollar spent in their district.
But the difference between per-student SPENDING in wealthy areas and poorer areas is not nearly as large as the difference in TAXATION of property owners. The wealthier property owners get hosed.
In any case, schools are a function of the students who attend them. Harvard’s greatness has nothing to do with the campus buildings.
Meanwhile, your complaint about teaching or not teaching Evolution is a red herring. It is meaningless with respect to actual learning. Studying biology is unaffected by any Biblical silliness. Moreover, other than mentioning the ages of various figures, the Bible steers clear of mathematics.
The Bible, other than its passing statement on the formation of the planet, has virtually nothing to say about science and math. Fortunately, as idiotic as Texas school boards may be, the University of Texas seems to be a well regarded state university.
In other words, the impact of the idiots is limited, unlike the idiocy of muslims who effectively forbid higher learning over in the middle east in their theocratic states.
Furthermore, nothing about basic high school chemistry, physics, geometry, algebra, calculus, foreign languages, English or any other subject you can name has changed in the last 20 years.
It is simply a fact that most high school text books are disastrous. So what? If we’re lucky, college will undo some of the damage. But probably not since too many students think there’s good reason to earn degrees in useless subjects that are mainly collections of opinions.
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I find it interesting how No Slappz (white conservative) and Thad (white liberal) BOTH took pains to bash Jensen and Wise.
The idea that Jensen and Wise are in it for the money, that if racism died away they would be out on the street, is laughable. Men as well spoken as they are could easily find much quieter and better paid employment than in arguing against white racism.
Jensen is a PROFESSOR. If he wants an easy life all he has to do is just what MOST WHITE PEOPLE DO – KEEP HIS DAMN MOUTH SHUT.
And what is so wrong with being a one-trick pony? Emily Dickinson, Christopher Columbus, Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin – all one-trick ponies. People who were NOT one-trick ponies: Ronald Reagan, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, Dwight Eisenhower. So what?
Calling Jensen and Wise one-trick ponies is pure ad hominem.
Jensen, by the way, argues against more than just racism. He is against all forms of hierarchy, so he has written against sexism, capitalism and imperialism too. People wanted him FIRED when he said that 9/11 was no worse than what America has done to others: Dresden, Hiroshima, Hanoi, North America.
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Tues
you are intentionally missing the point. I never said whites had to save anybody… Im saying property taxes ARE NOT a good way to allocate money for PUBLIC schools. Does it make sense to claim equality of opportunity while giving UNEQUALLY distributing resources? It doesnt make sense to me.
I dont have a good understand of “the white man” because I dont look at all white people a like. Im specifically talking about white that go to the inner city and drive out the poor, Im talking about white liberals that do this under the guise of being “urbane” when they know full well they want to drive out most of the poor folks. I never claimed to understand the proverbial “white man”
PS: Habitat for Humanity doesnt only help black people, and white people are not the only ones working for Habitat for Humanity
You seem to think Im asking “the white man” for something, which Im not, that your white guilt playing tricks on you.
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With regard to:
“But here’s the thing Thad mentioned… Being human vs being white. I understand what Thad is talking about, but the way I see it: if we all want to be seen as humans (no race attached) then we- all of us- must forget about the concept of race. Completely. White people must unlearn white privilege and forget about it, unlearn any identification with being white”
The only problem with this analysis it is much more than unlearning ‘white privilege’.
Much more of concern is that there is no evidence that Whites intend to give up their ‘power base’. Let alone there does not even appear to be a suggestion of ‘remorsefulness’ either.
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No Slappz:
The New York City public schools are NOT a functioning meritocracy. AND MOST OF THEM SUCK BIG TIME. It is a HUGE REASON much of the MIDDLE-CLASS both WHITE and BLACK have LEFT THE CITY.
If the schools are bad because the students are bad, like you seem to think, then whites would not leave in part for that reason. And neither would blacks since moving would not make things better. BUT IT DOES.
Schools like Stuyvesant and Bronx Science are fine schools but they can let in only so many students. What about the ones who just barely missed the cut? What do you say to them? Better luck next lifetime?
Like in Texas and much of the country the schools in and near New York for the most part reproduce the class structure, making America the land of UNEQUAL opportunity.
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Often when Whites talk about redressing the past. There is often talk of ‘peace’ but what is omitted is the ‘justice aspect’.
As if to continue as perusual with the ‘disparity’.
As the late Peter Tosh sung
“Everyone crying out for peace…none is crying out for justice”
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Jensen, by the way, argues against more than just racism. He is against all forms of hierarchy, so he has written against sexism, capitalism and imperialism too. People wanted him FIRED when he said that 9/11 was no worse than what America has done to others: Dresden, Hiroshima, Hanoi, North America.
Wow! I like his way of thinking.
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I find it very strange how whites WHINE about blacks wanting SOMETHING FOR NOTHING when that is JUST WHAT white privilege is, what taking land from the natives was, what making blacks into slaves was: SOMETHING FOR NOTHING.
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For my part, the bottom line is that white people cannot be trusted at all. Listen to them, but kid yourself that it means times are changing or anything like that. Reality is things are getting worse.
They are not to be trusted. I don’t even know why you (Abagond and other POCs here) waste your time with these people. Why give them yet more space when they spill their venomous lies every time, everywhere on the Internet. There is not single forum where POCs can have some peace.
I pin my hope for the future I won’t see on the fact that their numbers world wide are falling.
PS: Abagond, I wanted to suggest that you do a piece on Michelle Alexander. She’s brilliant and precious to us. Her message needs to be spread.
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People wanted him FIRED when he said that 9/11 was no worse than what America has done to others: Dresden, Hiroshima, Hanoi, North America.
Ha. Same thought I had when it hsppened.
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abagond, you wrote:
The idea that Jensen and Wise are in it for the money…
Neither is a volunteer. Moreover, no one suggested they chose to build careers around this topic as a way to get rich. However, when it comes to making money at bashing whites, Al Sharpton has done reasonably well for himself. His problem is to keep the IRS from taking the money he’s bamboozled people out of.
Meanwhile, Jensen, as you said, is a professor, and I’ll bet he’s tenured, which means he can shoot his mouth off just about any way he likes without worrying that he will upset his boss. As a professor of whatever non-technical subject he professes, it is his job to stir up controversy.
At the very least, in his ivory-tower university setting, controversy can be good advertising. In most settings, ranting about race has no connection to the job at hand. Like on Wall Street, where there are very few blacks holding visible positions. Complaining about the complexion of the staff is simply foolish.
Meanwhile, the notion that Jensen argues against heirarchies is hilarious. He’s the beneficiary of a hierarchy. And it seems many people — like you — appreciate his work. Hence, it is hard to criticize the hierarchy that makes it possible for him to do what he does.
As for people demanding his firing? So what? They have as much right to call for his firing as he has to make his ridiculous statements. However, due to tenure, he faces no risk of job loss, which means his right to free speech is greater than the same right for others who work in untenured positions. But I can accept that.
As for what the US did in Dresden and Hiroshima, well, the point was to win a war fought on two fronts against two enemies with enormous power and the willingness to use it as ruthlessly as possible.
If the US had developed the atomic bomb in 1942, WWII would have ended in 1942, at a considerably smaller loss of life — for all sides. That’s what idiots like Jensen can’t handle.
Meanwhile, bombing in Vietnam was done to win the war and prevent the onset of what ultimately happened — the communist purges after the US quit.
How is Vietnam doing today? It is one of the world’s poorest countries and it is poor because it is a marxist economy run by the usual incompetent marxists who are desperately trying to establish profit-oriented relations with the US. If they dropped the marxism and embraced democracy and capitalism, everything would come up roses. But…
And yes the 9/11 attack was worse than the others. It was an attempt to destroy this country. The 9/11 death toll is not the chief issue. The issue is what the attack says about islamic ambitions. Just like the opening moves by Hitler and Tojo.
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Exactly Natasha W
Hate to get all Rev Wright but 911 was “chickens coming home to roost”
The US thinks we can go around bombing and killing as we please and their will be no retaliation??? No excuse me WHITE Americans thought there would be no retaliation. Notice all the clueless whites on TV after the attacks saying dumb ish like “Why do they hate us”…”We never knew what it was like to be hated for who we are”…
Pure buffoonery.
911 Reaction: Greatest display of white American Oblivion in the nation’s history.
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dsc said:
“PS: Abagond, I wanted to suggest that you do a piece on Michelle Alexander. She’s brilliant and precious to us. Her message needs to be spread.”
I will be doing a post on her soon.
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Y said:
“Hate to get all Rev Wright but 911 was “chickens coming home to roost””
I agree. It was a terrible thing – a friend of mine lost his cousin – but it was long in coming. The “why do they hate us” stuff and the “they hate our freedom” made me want to throw up. But that is what you get when you are blind to your past and deaf to what others say.
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abagond, you wrote:
The New York City public schools are NOT a functioning meritocracy. AND MOST OF THEM SUCK BIG TIME. It is a HUGE REASON much of the MIDDLE-CLASS both WHITE and BLACK have LEFT THE CITY.
Whites left NY City in big numbers when bussing was instituted. Blacks, on the other hand, are growing as a percentage of NY City’s population. This growth is most evident among the youngest. The school population is 70% black and hispanic. Roughly 35% black and 35% hispanic.
Say what you want, but — and I speak as someone who has been in the public schools — way, way, way too many black and hispanic kids are problematic students, and there is no school system in the world that can save them from the neighborhood and life pathologies that affect them.
YOu wrote:
If the schools are bad because the students are bad, like you seem to think, then whites would not leave. And neither would blacks since moving would not make things better. BUT IT DOES.
All the whites I know have stayed in NY City and sent their kids through the public school system. That includes me.
The blacks who move out of the city for better schools are moving their kids away from the black kids who destroy the learning environment. It’s that simple. Let me know when you hear about blacks taking their kids out of schools attended by mostly white and asian kids.
YOu wrote:
Schools like Stuyvesant or Bronx Science are fine schools but they can let in only so many students. What about the ones who just barely missed the cut? What do you say to them? Better luck next lifetime?
There are 250,000 kids in NY City high schools. There are five elite high schools and they are all large schools. There is another tier — hierarchy? — of good schools. Then there are more specialized schools like Automotive High School and Fashion Industries High School, and there is an engineering and science high school on the edge of the City College campus.
The options for kids who are not good enough for Stuyvesant but who are decent students are good. Meanwhile, the Department of Education is attempting to open more Charter Schools, but people like Bill Perkins are standing in the way. In other words, black leaders like Perkins have been bought off by the Teachers Union and parents like you get hosed.
YOu wrote:
Like in Texas and much of the country the schools in and near New York for the most part reproduce the class structure, making America the land of UNEQUAL opportunity.
The best middle school in Brooklyn is Mark Twain. Each class has about 400 students. When those kids leave for high school about 100 will go to Stuyvesant and almost as many will go to Brooklyn Tech.
The trick to getting into Mark Twain is no trick at all. Those who get in — there are special tests just for this school — have to be good. Money and class do not open the doors to this school. Family priorities do.
Part of a kid’s success in the NY City school system is determined by having a parent who knows how things really work. You can complain as much as you want, OR you can give a kid the guidance he needs to get where he ought to go. This is how real life works.
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if i’ve said it once i’ve said it a thousand times, white people HAVE to feel special, what else would the ugly white skin be good for? it HAS to have meaning. the other people of the world are blessed with beautiful color. white people will work hard to make that pale nastiness mean something.
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abagond, you wrote:
The “why do they hate us” stuff and the “they hate our freedom” made me want to throw up. But that is what you get when you are blind to your past and deaf to what others say.
Oh. What does your statement mean? Does it mean you think the muslims in al Qaeda were angry at America and took action against US civilians because Americans had earlier attacked members of al Qaeda?
You seem remarkably naive about this issue. Do you know anything about Islam and how its believers see the world?
Do you find it odd, or not, that Islamic theocracies are sometimes headed by kings and their royal families?
Do you wonder why Islamic countries are so backward? Do you wonder why they have laws with respect to non-muslims that make Jim Crow laws seem pleasant?
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I agree it was devastating but to say it would never happen?
Never say never, especially when you behave like the American government…
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Thad & Mira:
Jensen makes the point elsewhere that since whites created the races they can uncreate them. No one is FORCING THEM TO BE RACIST JERKS. It is THEIR RACISM that makes race seem so “determinative of identity”.
Blacks and Latinos on their own could not force a colour line even if they wanted to. And why would they want to? It does them far more harm than good. It is WHITES who have a SELF-INTEREST in maintaining the colour line. Do you think blacks LIKE being judged by the colour of their skin and will fight tooth and nail to keep racism in place? I doubt it.
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abagond, you seem to have two of my comments tied up in “moderation.” As usual, there’s nothing unusual in them. How about posting them?
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no_slappz said:
if I wanted a drum to beat, the easiest one to grab is the one beaten by Jensen and Wise. Whites ranting that whites are racists have a ready audience among blacks and probably among a meaningful percentage of college students of all races.
Menelik replies:
for what its worth, mate, I don’t think whites are racist; not a bit of it. I think (actually, I can prove!) they suffer from a RACIAL ENVY COMPLEX. Just as the fabled ‘ugly sisters’ envied Cinderella her beauty and sought to deny her basic human rights, whites have done the same to African peoples.
African-Americans are under the illusion whites feel uncomfortable in their presence…they are half right. Whites actually feel uncomfortable around Blacks because they cause them to FEEL white, pasty and anemic.
The best time for African-Americans to be around whites is when they’re deeply brown with a tan. Only then would they FEEL happy to compare or boast of being as dark as a Black person. Ironically, it’s at such times that Blacks feel uncomfortable around whites lol
Menelik Charles
London England
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abagond, you wrote:
Do you think blacks LIKE being judged by the colour of their skin and will fight tooth and nail to keep racism in place? I doubt it.
There’s a reason whites have moved out of cities and away from blacks. There are reasons why few whites move to sub-Sahara Africa.
The potential for vast prosperity exists in many parts of Africa. But there’s a little problem with the people who live there as well as the leaders who control day-to-day life, and that problem goes a long way toward ensuring that most whites steer clear of that part of the globe.
This is where the problem lies. Inasmuch as Africa is resource rich, whites expect to see the exploitation of those resources. Whites expect to see economies prospering from selling those resources on world markets.
Whites believe there should exist a few affluent African nations.
However, those nations do not exist. That says nothing good about the people of those nations and their leaders.
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With regard to the comments:
“Thad & Mira:
Jensen makes the point elsewhere that since whites created the races they can uncreate them…so and so forth”
Here I am reminded of Fanon on the issue of ‘objectivity’ and ‘injustice’ and how it is in fact a ‘handicap’ that helps to distort reality and does not in essence redress matters.
Fanon in Ch4 states:
“‘Physically and affectively. I have NOT wished to be objective. Besides, that would be dishonest: Its not possible to be objective’ [with regard to ‘injustice’ – my emphasis]”
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menelik charles, you wrote:
Whites actually feel uncomfortable around Blacks because they cause them to FEEL white, pasty and anemic.
Keep trying. Like a broken watch, you will be right once in a while. Not this time, however.
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“On the left it is a bit different. They talk the talk – equality blah blah diversity blah blah multiculturalism blah blah – but do not walk the walk. They say the right things but have done precious little to change anything.”
This is especially true of LGBT whites. They kill me how they romanticize the struggle of the civil rights movement of the sixties, but in reality, they don’t really want to have to struggle themselves. After all, they’re WHITE. And they have money. I don’t know about you, but poorer black gays can’t just take off from the work in the middle of the day and go down to a fundraiser where they can DISRESPECT the President of the United States.
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Jensen makes the point elsewhere that since whites created the races they can uncreate them.
Yes, but that is… highly unlikely. Most of them are not interested in destroying racism. Oh, sure, there are many who don’t hate black people, but it’s all down to blah blah blah if they want to be both anti racist and keep the privilege. It doesn’t work that way. Sadly, if presented with a choice, most of them choose white privilege.
No one is FORCING THEM TO BE RACIST JERKS. It is THEIR RACISM that makes race seem so “determinative of identity”.
Yes. White people were the ones who created race as a social category and an identificator. I am confused by your need to bold that to me, as I am sure I already said that somewhere. I know whites were ones who created the race.
Blacks and Latinos on their own could not force a colour line even if they wanted to. And why would they want to?
I am not saying they want to, they are forced, so to speak, to notice race and identify with their race in a way. What I tried to say is that, if racism is erased somehow, both whites and non whites will need to build new identities- that is whole point of it, isn’t it. To not build your identity on your race anymore. Sounds good? Yes. But, is it?
Maybe I am completely missing the point of black identity, but I was under the impression slavery and Jim Crow laws and history are very important for forming black person’s identity. I honestly thought black people might not want to let that go, to forget it, to unlearn all those things. What I’m saying is, in a world without racism, talking and reminding of slavery and Jim Crow stop making sense, except for strict historical studies. You can’t say “they raped us” anymore, because there is no “us” and “them” anymore. You can’t identify with those black slaves anymore, because black identity doesn’t exist. That is the thing I thought that black people might not want to forget.
In a world free of race as a category, blacks would not be able to maintain their identity and remember suffering of their people – because there would be no “their” people anymore. Like I said, I was unsure if blacks would be happy about it, about forgetting all of it.
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Y – I don’t have any white guilt and neither do most white people. The invention of white guilt lies solely in the minds of blacks. We just don’t have it. I don’t, and I never will.
I’m not intentionally missing your point, I just am unable to reply to all of them…. sorry!
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Don’t get me wrong, I would love to live in a world where race doesn’t exist. But then again, I am not a fan of collective identities (I think I made my position on that clear), so I wouldn’t mind if ethnic or nation identities stop existing as well.
To try to explain better with nationalism. There are many people who hate war. (Why can’t we all live in peace? Why can’t we all be humans?) Ok, that’s great. Let’s say we are all humans, period- and nations don’t exist anymore. There are no conflicting identities and interests. Sounds wonderful. It would be wonderful. But that would also mean that Americans can’t identify as Americans anymore, and that France is the same thing as Germany (after all, nations don’t exist anymore). I am not sure if many today’s Americans, French or Germans would like that. Yes, even with the peace on the world.
That’s why “let just be humans” is way too naive, in a way. Not many people want to be just humans, because it means forgeting about their collective identity.
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A quote for some white suburban random commenting on Africa:
“When developing countries export to rich-country markets, they face tariff barriers that are four times higher than those encountered by rich countries.”
What world markets? Its the stupid assumption of white people that they understand everything that irritates me the most. All of sudden a commercial expert on Africa?
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we’ve always been human though. black,white or asian we’re still human. i don’t think humanity is negated by claiming a race as your own…that’s backward thinking to me. I agree with Mira on her mindset.
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Its all well and good to talk about us being ‘human’, but for a period of nearly of 500 years a large portion of races (ie People of Color) have been classified as something ‘less’ than human
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With regard to:
“But dealing with smart black anti-racists like J, for example, make me realize that this is probably going to be very much a personal and idiosyncratic decision. No matter what I personally choose in my life, I’m going to be valanced by others as “white” and treated as such”.
Personally, I see you the way I do is because of the ‘attitudes’ you express here.
And some of the things you say are euro-centred and with implications for Black people ‘very dangerous’. The problem is that you cannot see it.
And whenever it is pointed out by me, you think I am being sort of ‘disingenuous’ etc.
Somehow you need to step ‘outside the box’, but for most of us and I am not only including a race analysis here, that is something very hard and impossible for the majority to do..
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@ Abagond
People that say “white people are afraid to lose white privilege” is a joke. What will I lose if all people became equal? There is already a bi racial president in office, black congressmen and women, and equal rights. What do I have to fear abagond? What will I lose? POC will have much to gain, and white people will have next to nothing to lose. White people are more afraid of losing their culture, than their “privilege.”
I have said this many times, but most white people don’t care if all people have equal rights, it has more to do with white people not wanting to except minority culture and language. You could be black, Hispanic, or Asian, and it would not matter to most white people, as long as you act, think, and speak like them then they are fine. The problem starts when minority cultures clash with majority white culture.
Why do think the Tea Party and extremist right wingers are throwing a fit and screaming socialism? It has little to do with higher taxes and government spending, or even socialism, and almost everything to do with what they see as their culture slipping away.
Bottom line abagond they are more afraid of diversity and losing culture than losing privilege. I know that if a bunch of people moved to my area of Appalachia, black or white and started changing my culture I would get angry, but if they move here and accept mountain culture it would not bother me.
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In other words, [Tim Wise] gave up writing essays about two years ago. Probably because readers were catching his lies.
Or it could be because he was working on his new book “Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity” coming out in June. Available for pre-order from Amazon!
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but most white people don’t care if all people have equal rights, it has more to do with white people not wanting to except minority culture and language. You could be black, Hispanic, or Asian, and it would not matter to most white people, as long as you act, think, and speak like them then they are fine.
Equal rights IS the right to act, think and speak as you please. That’s privilege right there: that everyone is expected to adopt your norms.
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Thats ok
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btw
I really like the discussion here. This post has really taken off!
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Bingregory
Yes, you are correct, but it is also a persons right to not want to associate with people that are different from them. I think that is a lot of the reason why white flight happens, they see their neighborhood and culture start to change so they leave.
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Bingregory
Essentially what they are saying is, you can have all the equal rights you want, but if you want to integrate into a white society try to act like the majority.
It would be like waves of American immigrants moving to Japan, now Japan is a quiet, humble society. It would not make sense if loud arrogant Americans tried to integrate, it would be disrespectful to their culture. I could not expect to move to Japan and speak only English, I would have to completely change how I acted if I wanted to gain respect from the the majority of the population. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have equal rights in Japan, it just means I would have to adhere to their culture in order to be respected.
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A nation of colonists and immigrants does not have a right not to associate with people different from them. Not having to deal with different people is not a human right.
That white American culture has remained pure and constant and that every immigrant european has disappeared without a trace into that is a myth. White America has changed again and again in ways big and small as Irish, Jews, Italians etc etc have contributed their piece. It’s just that after a while we come to consider that part of who we are, but the contributions of non-whites are not.
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Bingregory
“That’s privilege right there: that everyone is expected to adopt your norms.”
Minorities have this same type of “expectation” in their neighborhoods. I had a friend drive through a black neighborhood, he was driving a pickup and listening to country music and a group of black folk yelled out “you better get out of here honky.” So it has little to do with privilege and more to do with the fact humans are territorial, don’t like change, or anything different from the norm.
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@Thad
I think whites – at least American whites – are going to have to take a long hard look at constructing a useable whiteness. The deeply-rooted American belief that blood determines individual destiny won’t permit any other option.
I don’t see how this follows from what you wrote above it. What is preventing whites from seeing whatever cultural particulars they have as just another American background that anyone can participate in or pick and choose from as they like? More so when any specific white cultural artifact is already shared by any number of other American people.
I appreciate the dilemma you raise of being trapped in whiteness by the surrounding society, but it is precisely white people who have the greatest freedom to self-define and the least pressure to conform.
I think you had this exactly right the first time: ‘white’ identity? It exists for one thing and one thing only: to proclaim itself as superior to non-whites. Casting about for a “usable” or positive whiteness is more difficult than abandoning it all together. I’d like Abagond’s thoughts on that though, because he has in the past allowed for a hypothetically non-racist “white pride”. Has anyone spotted such a thing in the wild?
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Bingregory
“That white American culture has remained pure and constant and that every immigrant european has disappeared without a trace into that is a myth. White America has changed again and again in ways big and small as Irish, Jews, Italians etc etc have contributed their piece.”
Yes and if you look at America you have places like little Italy, Chinatown, and the Irish districts in the south end of Boston. All Americans not just white have the right to distance themselves from people they don’t want to associate with, and they do it often.
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Yes, you may have a particular culture that you value and want to preserve, with it’s specific diet and language and music and religion etc. There’s nothing immediately wrong with that. But that culture is not “White Culture”, it is not something shared by every white-skinned American, it is not something impossible to be appreciated or shared by any non-white American, there’s nothing white about it except that a color line is used to keep out other people. So I am saying, white people do not have the right to distance themselves from other people because white skin is not what distinguishes or identifies the specific culture they may hold and value from the cultures of other American people.
You may respond, yes as long as non-whites adopt that specific culture held by this group of white people, they can come in, as per your “act think and speak” comment. The point here is that other white people do not have to do that to be accepted.
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OD,
I still think your definition of racism is way too simplistic. This is not a playground fight, it’s not about who likes whom. Your point about social distance is misguided, because you’ve taken a logical leap over how the distance is formulated and what it entails. No one cares if you don’t hang with the Black people in the neighborhood, but it makes sense for them to care if said Black people aren’t allowed to move in and to question your motives for refusal.
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bingregory
“You may respond, yes as long as non-whites adopt that specific culture held by this group of white people, they can come in, as per your “act think and speak” comment. The point here is that other white people do not have to do that to be accepted.”
That is incorrect, if you are a liberal in a predominately conservative area, regardless of skin color you will have a hard time being accepted. The same goes for white gays, white Atheists, anti gun, or pro choice. These type of white people would have a real hard time living in Texas anywhere outside of Austin, or West Virginia.
I guess I should rephrase my statement. If you can not adopt a regional culture you will have a hard time fitting in, but most regions in America are predominately white, so I used the phrase white culture.
I agree with what you are saying though, white people should not distance themselves based on skin color.
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I didn’t know you could look at people and tell they were gay/atheist/anti-gun/pro-choice. I also didn’t know that people were fighting for the right to live in Texas and WV. (No offense to anyone from there, but it’s two states. Really?)
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if you are a liberal in a predominately conservative area, regardless of skin color you will have a hard time being accepted
Don’t kid yourself: the social disapproval a non-conforming white person will face is not even remotely close to racism experienced by poc. And even if it’s not useful to get into which -ism or -phobia is worse, they are fundamentally different in important ways. Homes in straight neighborhoods don’t get put up for sale the moment a gay guy moves in.
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Jasmin
“No one cares if you don’t hang with the Black people in the neighborhood, but it makes sense for them to care if said Black people aren’t allowed to move in and to question your motives for refusal.”
I never said I care that black people move to my neighborhood, I have black family members so black people don’t bother me just because they are black. I said I don’t like people that move in and try to change my culture regardless of their skin color.
My original comment was not about me, but how I think most white people think. Most white people stereotype POC, they see a bunch of black people move into their neighborhood and they assume that crime will sky rocket, and their quiet little neighborhood will fall to pieces. So they move out, or try to prevent them from moving in. I think that it is ridicules, and people are misinformed, but if people start moving in and changing the levels of crime or bringing a culture that is not wanted, then people have the right to distance themselves.
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“if you are a liberal in a predominately conservative area, regardless of skin color you will have a hard time being accepted”
Don’t kid yourself: the social disapproval a non-conforming white person will face is not even remotely close to racism experienced by poc. ”
Thank you bingregory…unlike being gay or liberal I cant hide my blackness…Its not the same thing. I wish white people would get that trough there heads
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bingregory
“Homes in straight neighborhoods don’t get put up for sale the moment a gay guy moves in.”
No but most white people don’t start moving out when one black person moves in either. If a large group of gay people started moving in you better believe the conservatives would start moving out.
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Y
“unlike being gay or liberal I cant hide my blackness…Its not the same thing. I wish white people would get that trough there heads”
Yeah I got, my point was anybody outside the norm gets discriminated against, maybe not as bad as POC, but they do.
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@Y
Back to the article, I must say white American liberals are the biggest fakes known to mankind, full stop!
Well Y, enjoy the next round of U.S. elections because those “fakes” are going to probably be put out of power and you can go back to enjoying enlightened conservative government. Those Republicans are notoriously solicitous of the welfare of black America.
@Ankhesen
[Wise and Jensen] don’t preach to the choir (POC implied); they go after white audiences and are branded self-hating race traitors.
First of all, Wise and Jensen’s main audience are anti-racist WHITES. This is what I mean about “preaching to the choir”. White people who are comfortable in their racism ignore them completely. And the only people who call them “race traitors” are the nutters over on Stormfront – people with close to zero power in the society Wise and Jensen are living in.
Who, precisely, are they educating, Ank? Liberal white college students?
Wise and Jensen thus practice a very convenient form of anti-racism, one in which they are lauded PRECISELY for doing the right thing WHILE BEING WHITE. If they were black, no one would even notice them.
Wise in particular flat out tells people that his information doesn’t come from him, that the only reason he’s standing at the podium in the first place is that he “fits the aesthetic”, and that he does what he does in hopes one day that he – and those who look like him – won’t have to play messenger boy/”translator” to their fellow white people.
Yes, and I cry big, heartfelt tears for Tim’s manly sacrifice. He’s surely changing those ofey minds out there by the bushel load, isn’t he? It takes a lot of guts to play the reformed racist and publically berate oneself with mea culpas when that’s exactly what 95% of your audience wants to hear in the first place. Let’s see him take the gospel out to your average trailer park, truckstop, or biker bar. Now THAT would be impressive.
Furthermore, Tim has taken upon himself this role of ‘splainin’ white people. From what I’ve read of the man’s work, he begins by dismissing pretty much everything that white people actually say as being the result of brainwashing. That’s real good organizational strategy there: tell the people you hope to influence that they are full of sh1t and that you, in fact, are an authority on their lives.
Yeah. That’s gonna a turn a lot of redneck heads. Fer sher.
You’re not “helping” by going after white guys like Jensen and Wise.
“Going after”? I’m simply telling the truth about what they are doing: they are NOT educating whites to be less racist.
@Hathor
My point isn’t that Wise and Jensen are bad for being ethically impure: my point is that they counsel white people to give up an identity which they themselves cling to, which is, in fact, the basis of their fame. They are insincere. This is the problem.
As Mira reminds us, Tim’s tagline is “I can rest comfortably in the privileges that come with being white, or I can struggle to be fully human. But I can’t do both.” And yet this is PRECISELY what he’s trying to do: he’s approaching racism as a white guy. He’s trying to dismantle racism by consistently reminding himself and others that, as white people, they are different. The fact of the matter is that Tim CAN’T walk away from being white: it’s too much a part of what his ideology of self is. He’s hooked on that particular bottle.
So amen, Brother Tim! Why don’t you tell us all here at Racists Anonymous how long you’ve gone without thinking of yourself as white while writing your new book about racism from the perspective of a white man?
@Abagond
I find it interesting how No Slappz (white conservative) and Thad (white liberal) BOTH took pains to bash Jensen and Wise.
I find it interesting that you think I’m a white liberal, as if liberal and conservative were the only two possible flavors whiteness could come in. There’s your old demon binary thinking biting you on the a$$ again, Abagond.
The idea that Jensen and Wise are in it for the money, that if racism died away they would be out on the street, is laughable.
No, I believe that they are in it for their own identitary reasons. I doubt they make much money on their positions. My view of them was quite clearly articulated above and I’ll say it again, because you obviously didn’t get it the first time around:
Wise and Jensen have found a way to redeem whiteness FOR THEMSELVES while publicly calling on everyone else to give it up.
That’s my problem with them, Abagond, not the presumptive fortunes that they are making off their hustle.
Furthermore, I think there’s a quite simple test here, Abagond: do you SERIOUSLY think either of these two gentlemen would be famous for saying what they say IF THEY WERE BLACK?
Jensen is a PROFESSOR. If he wants an easy life all he has to do is just what MOST WHITE PEOPLE DO – KEEP HIS DAMN MOUTH SHUT.
I hate to break this to you, Abagond, but professors don’t get paid for keeping their mouths shut – journalism professors in particular. We get paid for making well-placed controversies.
Nor do I think Jensen and Wise should keep their mouths shut. I’ll say it again: my problem with them is that they counsel other people to do something which they themselves manifestly WON’T do. They could easily talk about racism and even critique white racism without the song and dance routine about how they have a special understanding about it, being white and all… But that – while it might do a lot to educate people about racism – wouldn’t give these two men the stage they desire.
Calling Jensen and Wise one-trick ponies is pure ad hominem.
Not at all. It’s a pondered opinion of their talents when it comes to this issue. Their fame is due to their being white. Being black and decent writers against racism just wouldn’t cut it. YOU are a far more insightful and interesting writer than either of these two guys, but “black blogger critiques race and racism” just doesn’t grab the headlines, you know? THAT’S the one trick these guys bring to the game: being born with a white skin.
Jensen, by the way, argues against more than just racism. He is against all forms of hierarchy, so he has written against sexism, capitalism and imperialism too. People wanted him FIRED when he said that 9/11 was no worse than what America has done to others: Dresden, Hiroshima, Hanoi, North America.
Good on him, then! His commentary on 9/11 is far more incendiary than what he says re: race. But again, the man is a polemicist.
Jensen makes the point elsewhere that since whites created the races they can uncreate them. No one is FORCING THEM TO BE RACIST JERKS. It is THEIR RACISM that makes race seem so “determinative of identity”.
Unfortunately, if that’s their vision of the history of race, it’s a silly-a$$ed one. It presumes that races act as historical agents in the same way that people do, as if whites all got together one lazy Sunday over in the Pope’s apartments, after mass, and thought up racism for a lark.
I missed that meeting, let me tell you.
If either Wise or Jensen can actually SHOW the world how to uncreate racism, then that would be great. Grandstanding as anti-racist WHITES while telling white people to forget about whiteness won’t do the trick, however: it’s like f$%king for virginity or shooting heroin to get little kids to say “no” to drugs.
@Bingregory
What is preventing whites from seeing whatever cultural particulars they have as just another American background that anyone can participate in or pick and choose from as they like?
Because as Jensen points out, whiteness – unlike Italianess, or Germaness, or even angloness – only makes historical and ideological sense in the context of white supremacy. There IS NO POSSIBLE historical model for an anti-racist whiteness. They can be German-Americans, but they can’t be WHITE Americans, not according to the rules Jensen is playing by (and which I, incidentally, agree with).
Casting about for a “usable” or positive whiteness is more difficult than abandoning it all together.
Oh, I agree. But the problem is, the U.S. in general is hooked on race. You can’t say, “OK, this group over here can have it and be proud of it and this group over here had better not even think about it”. You, me, Abagond and Jensen might very well understand the historical logic which makes that position ethically sustainable but you are NEVER going to get that sort of thing to pass for common sense out there in East Sheepshag, Montana or the Avalon Hillsdale Springs suburb complex, where most American whites live.
I’m presuming we’re talking real and viable strategies for social change here and not just whacking each other off, correct? Well, Wise and Jensen’s mea culpas and ethnic exceptionalism just ain’t gonna work in flyover country. Appeals to common justice have been known to work out there, however.
Historically proven fact.
You’d think maybe that these two gentlemen would realize that, being experts on racial history and all…
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“Homes in straight neighborhoods don’t get put up for sale the moment a gay guy moves in.”
Straight blacks don’t get fired as school teachers for being caught kissing their mates.
People who think that “gayness can be hidden” have obviously never listened to gay people talk about what it’s like to try.
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Menelik said:
Whites actually feel uncomfortable around Blacks because they cause them to FEEL white, pasty and anemic.
no_slappz replied:
Keep trying. Like a broken watch, you will be right once in a while. Not this time, however.
Menelik says:
struck a nerve there, didn’t we? Would it make you feel more comfortable if I cried racism like the rest of them on this board? You know, like giving you the opportunity to insist “I’m not racist, I’m a realist!”?
Top up that tan, white boy…conceal the evidence lol
Menelik Charles
London England
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Thad said:
People who think that “gayness can be hidden” have obviously never listened to gay people talk about what it’s like to try.
Menelik replied:
really? Is there no such thing as a ‘straight’ acting Gay? Are all Gays camp and into Lady Gaga and Julie Garland?
Menelik Charles
London England
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menelik charles, you wrote:
Top up that tan, white boy…conceal the evidence
You are truly lost in your own imaginings of what occupies white minds.
For whatever it’s worth, to me skin and skin color are outward, visible features of the human body and nothing more. Some people have good skin and some have great color. Some are lucky and have both.
But to me, with respect to how I view its esthetic quality, whether skin is white, black, yellow, red or any shade in between is irrelevant.
With respect to my own skin, its shade is influenced by the fact that I am descended from English, Austrian and Swedish forebears. As far as overall skin coloration and quality are concerned, I’ve never felt any disappointment with my birthday suit.
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Thad:
I do not understand why you think Jensen and Wise are hypocrites. You yourself admit that way more whites will listen to them than to blacks who say the very same thing. I would think that would be a good thing – and given the present state of white racism a necessary thing. Like Jesus drinking with the tax collectors and prostitutes.
If their message is wrong or delivered badly, that is a separate issue. Unless it is their very whiteness that causes them to screw up. If that is the case, then how so?
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Mira said:
“Yes. White people were the ones who created race as a social category and an identificator. I am confused by your need to bold that to me, as I am sure I already said that somewhere. I know whites were ones who created the race”
That was more directed at Thad who seemed to be saying that whites cannot step outside of their whiteness. I am saying that it is their very racism that creates their whiteness to begin with. It is self-caused.
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Mira:
The black identity is as strong as it is because of racism. If whites become less racist over time then the black identity would become less strong over time until it reaches the level of “I am Irish American and proud of it” – a mere ethnic identity that is a matter of food, customs, history, etc.
And then maybe one day farther in the future skin colour will be at the level of eye colour and hair colour: mere physical description without any political or social overtones. That people with dark skin or kinky hair once came from Africa will become an Interesting Fact, like how people with freckles come from the Celts.
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Menelik said:
Top up that tan, white boy…conceal the evidence
no_slappz replied:
You are truly lost in your own imaginings of what occupies white minds.
Menelik replies:
what occupies this blog owner, and those who post here, are issues surrounding race; what occupies your nation, and has since its inception, is the issue of race; and the issue you use to bait people on here with is that of RACE!
This one subject, race, is played out according to one’s colour or lack thereof, together with one’s physical appearance and facial features. The social consequence is an American caste system every bit as insidious as that on the Indian sub-continent.
One does NOT, therefore, need to imagine any of this, captain, for it is fact…as is your enduring infamy on this blog!
All that aside I’m pleasantly surprised at how restraint your response to me. Normally you enter the fray as though you’d just one a war, and leave it as though weary of burying the dead!
I shall return below.
Menelik Charles
London England
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I think “white or human” is a false choice. Instead the thing whites and blacks and others in America should be aiming for is a common TRANSRACIAL national identity: American. The division of Americans into “races” benefits whites materially but it hurts the country as a whole – by the huge waste in human capital that it leads to if nothing else.
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menelik charles, you wrote:
The social consequence is an American caste system every bit as insidious as that on the Indian sub-continent.
As I said, your imagination is in high gear, overdrive, in fact, as you show how deeply you’ve fallen for black victimology and excuse-making.
Once again, if there were a successful black nation in the world whose existence demonstrated a level of national competence similar to the leading white and asian nations of the world, whites might show some agreement with you.
But as long as virtually every black nation in the world is a nightmare compared with the world’s leading white and asian nations, your complaints and criticisms are meaningless.
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No Slappz said:
“For whatever it’s worth, to me skin and skin color are outward, visible features of the human body and nothing more.”
I have to assume you misspoke because your whole purpose here seems to be to inform us how screwed up blacks and Muslims are.
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In today’s NY Post, there are two editorials and one or two articles about schools in NY City.
Bottom line — the schools with problems have problems for two reasons.
1. They are attended by kids who bring huge problems with them.
2. The Teachers Union and local black politicians fight parents who want educational alternatives, like charter schools, for their kids.
In NY City there are lots of good public schools. But more would exist if more students and more parents understood what school can actually accomplish and how those accomplishments are obtained.
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abagond, you wrote:
I have to assume you misspoke because your whole purpose here seems to be to inform us how screwed up blacks and Muslims are.
Every comment I have made reflects only the mental workings of blacks and muslims (and whites). Nothing more.
However, you are right about the “screwed up” part.
Again, the evidence supporting my view is found in the absence of successful black and islamic nations.
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OD,
“You” is the general you. And you are still making assumptions that aren’t fully explained by your arguments. I’m confused as to these cultural differences that are affected solely by race (not social class, upbringing, etc.). Who has money to move? Middle class people. So what kind of culture do middle class Black people bring that middle class White people don’t like?
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With regard to:
“Every comment I have made reflects only the mental workings of blacks and muslims (and whites). Nothing more.
However, you are right about the “screwed up” part.
Again, the evidence supporting my view is found in the absence of successful black and islamic nations”
You are being ‘dishonest’ here No_Slappz, presumably because you are backed into a corner.
In your world you refer to ‘mental workings’ and also
‘behaviour’ and then you attribute it to ‘skin colour’.
With Whites (specifically White Western) being the most civilised etc.
So even though you appear to be anti-Hitler, in taht you always seems keen to defend the Jews. paradoxically you are very simniliar to him in at least your reasoning.
I do not know about anybody else here but I am getting tired of your mantra about Black nations and Muslims.
The answer in a few word is the system of White Global Supremacy and its effectiveness to mantain a social order, which was not the case about 500 years or so ago.
And if you have any doubt, you do a historical survey in the world 1500, and examine at what level ‘European civilization’ was at vis-a-vis People of Colour.
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The black identity is as strong as it is because of racism. If whites become less racist over time then the black identity would become less strong over time.
I agree with this, and I see this as a positive thing. However, I am not sure you completely understands what it really means.
… until it reaches the level of “I am Irish American and proud of it” – a mere ethnic identity that is a matter of food, customs, history, etc.
See, here’s what I’m talking about: food aside, what would customs and especially history mean in that world? I give you a white example. French Americans and English Americans (those whose families came from France and England) might not hate each other today. Hey, even French people and English people don’t hate each other today. But historically, they had centuries of antagonism, war and hate. In the process of changing their identity, they had to forget about that history, in a way, to minimize it, to minimize its impact on today. (And even today it’s impossible for some people). The same would happen with blacks in the world without racism. Black history (slavery, Jim Crow) will be minimized in a way that nobody would see that as a part of his or her identity. Are blacks happy to do that, even if it means living in a world without racism?
I don’t know if they are, and I do believe historical narrative is less important than the actual world of equality. But I don’t know how black people feel about it. Some people care about their culture and, especially, their identity (even if it’s forced and controlled) more than anything. THAT is why I wasn’t sure if all black people would love that or not.
I can only speak about my part of the world, but people here care more about identity than equality and acceptance. Serbs are ready to never join EU if it means they have to forget about some important things about their identity. I am not necessarily one of those people, but I know there are many people who would stick to their identity no matter what. I thought that, maybe, non-whites in America are like that. (Not that I think they are, I just asked if that might be the case).
And then maybe one day farther in the future skin colour will be at the level of eye colour and hair colour: mere physical description without any political or social overtones. That people with dark skin or kinky hair once came from Africa will become an Interesting Fact, like how people with freckles come from the Celts.
Yes, and I’d love to live in that world, but I don’t think it’s realistic.
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I think “white or human” is a false choice. Instead the thing whites and blacks and others in America should be aiming for is a common TRANSRACIAL national identity: American.
This is funny, because that’s how the world sees Americans, more or less. I am not saying non-Americans don’t see race, but you are seen as American first, race comes second. Period.
Now, there are exceptions to this rule, namely with Neo nazi groups AND people who are interested in race relations in America*. But most of the non-Americans are not like that: if you are American, you are seen as American, end of story.
* Neo Nazi groups are white supremacist and they are ones who care about race more than about nationality (paradox, given the history of Nazism, but ok).
People interested in race relations in America, on the other hand, understand power imbalance in American society and see that white Americans and non-white Americans are not “the same thing”, so being non-white can be seen as a little plus by those who are not fans of American government.
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j, you wrote:
I do not know about anybody else here but I am getting tired of your mantra about Black nations and Muslims.
Best bet for you is to skip any comment with my name at the top.
Meanwhile, discussing the state of world in 1500 may be interesting, but social structure of the world in 1500 is as valid today as is the science of the same period.
At least you can see that the white world has come a long way, while the predominately black segments of the world have lagged. The same is true for muslims and muslim countries.
Them’s the facts. Too bad if the facts disturb you.
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ha ha ha…
Thanks for the advice my friend…
Sometimes I do enjoy your comments – since you do have much that what is useful, perhaps much more than what people recognise here.
Only when you let your intellectual standard drop, then I have ‘concerns’, and then you may see an interjection from me.
Otherwise I do not have a problem with what you have to say.
Nice one
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Menelik said:
Top up that tan, white boy…conceal the evidence
no_slappz replied:
You are truly lost in your own imaginings of what occupies white minds.
For whatever it’s worth, to me skin and skin color are outward, visible features of the human body and nothing more. Some people have good skin and some have great color. Some are lucky and have both.
Menelik replies:
and my point was that white people do not like being white and feel inferior when around people of colour. Weirdly, you are sounding like a procrastinating liberal! Nice go at deflecting though lol
no_slappz continued:
But to me, with respect to how I view its esthetic quality, whether skin is white, black, yellow, red or any shade in between is irrelevant.
no_slappz said:
With respect to my own skin, its shade is influenced by the fact that I am descended from English, Austrian and Swedish forebears. As far as overall skin coloration and quality are concerned, I’ve never felt any disappointment with my birthday suit.
Menelik replies:
what on earth has this response got to do with my claim that white people have a racial envy complex, Mr? Again, you are avoiding the point I made…. see next post below.
to be continued…
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Menelik said:
for what its worth, no_sslappz, I don’t think whites are racist; not a bit of it. I think (actually, I can prove!) they suffer from a RACIAL ENVY COMPLEX. Just as the fabled ‘ugly sisters’ envied Cinderella her beauty and sought to deny her basic human rights, whites have done the same to African peoples.
African-Americans are under the illusion whites feel uncomfortable in their presence…they are half right. Whites actually feel uncomfortable around Blacks because they cause them to FEEL white, pasty and anemic.
The best time for African-Americans to be around whites is when they’re deeply brown with a tan. Only then would they FEEL happy to compare or boast of being as dark as a Black person. Ironically, it’s at such times that Blacks feel uncomfortable around whites lol
Menelik Charles
London England
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@abagond you said something about skin color one day being akin to eye color or hair color, yet when whites do say they already think that way they get called liars, etc. Why is that a goal yet the ones who say and feel it are derided?
Y- The problem in Tx schools should be changed, however you and I know it won’t as long as Tx is Republican.
OD – It’s not hard to live as a liberal gay in Tx funny enough, even with a conservative majority there is widespread freedom of expression. Tx is underrated – even abagond noted that his friends from the NE wondered why they hadnt moved to Tx sooner.
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no_slappz has a point about African nations – which one is a model that African Americans would prefer over the US democracy? Which does stand out as exemplary? If we were to replace our current system which country has that model? Also, if you havent had a chance to visit a third world, less industrialized country it is eye opening. Most people, even the poor here, live with opportunity and resources unavailable in the third world. Whether you are PWT or POC in the US your ability to make your own success lies in your own hands- regardless of school funding issues or skin color.
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@no_slappz,
the above was the issue I raised and one in which you very carefully avoided confronting! I understand why: you seek a racist identity even as you may deny the tag. For inherent within such a label is the notion that the white person behaving in an uncivil(ized) manner is some how racially superior to his downtrodden victim.
This is utter nonsense, and Martin Luther King showed such whites for what they were i.e. far from feeling superior to, your ilk could only feel this way by ascribing and enforcing this status on people of colour.
It was King who emerged the symbolic ‘superior’ so much so that his movement can claim to have forced human rights on white American society! hence, why VIP whites seek to attach themselves to his legacy since therein lies their humanity!
For all the problems African-Americans have inherited from their historical condition (oh, sorry, I’m contextualizing stuff, you don’t like that do you?) they still represent America’s moral backbone despite the mass media’s consistent attempts to dislodge them from this hallowed status.
Is it any wonder that Obama is seen as a super hero in Europe. You should thank him (you wont) as you guys are no longer seen as ignorant, warmongering bigots in Europe.
On the home-front likes of you will seek self-esteem in so-called intellectual racism (a racism which rarely speaks directly of race) in the vain hope that some self-pitying Black or another will validate you and call you racist.
You are nothing of the sort, sir. you are white. I am a man of colour and you seek an identity by rendering men of colour inferior. It will not work with me, sir. I know what plagues you since it covers your whole body!
Good day!
Menelik Charles
London England
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tuesday said:
no_slappz has a point about African nations – which one is a model that African Americans would prefer over the US democracy? Which does stand out as exemplary?
menelik replies:
US democracy did NOT work, and could said to have worked, until African-Americans were entitled to vote unmolested. An entitlement they fought for, remember?
Menelik Charles
London England
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menelik, yes I have read the history books and seen the videos. I am the generation of affirmative action and quotas- I am a supporter of those and think they should be universally mandated and monitored closely so that we are certain all races are given their due in the workplace and schools… and why not enforce it in neighborhoods as well?
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@ Tuesday
I am not scared of a UT professor, his book or opinions.
Ahem, “LOL” – I wasn’t talking about Jensen.
I’m actually amused – and not even remotely surprised – you zeroed on him. For the record, I’m talking about racists. I’m talking your family, your friends, no_slappz, coworkers, significant others, etc. who display racist tendencies. Why are you here when you should be out there ripping them a new one? When you see a Confuckerate flag on some asshole’s truck, what do you do? When someone you know fairly well is comfortably conversing with you and dropping racial slurs, how do you handle it?
And why is it soooooooo hard to take your mind in that direction when you come on a blog like this? When MILLIONS of POC have complained about white behaviors for CENTURIES…why is it sooooooo hard to get off your ass and go after such white people, instead of coming on blogs like this to try to subtly “correct” POC?
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@tuesday,
then if you know the history why do you write out of context? African-Americans put the ‘D’ in American Democracy and made it work or else the world would have laughed at the US if they attempted to impose democracy on some far off land while Blacks were not entitled to vote unmolested.
Context is everything…a fact no_slappz never fails to ignore in his utterings!
Menelik Charles
London England
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Abagond,
Jensen is a PROFESSOR. If he wants an easy life all he has to do is just what MOST WHITE PEOPLE DO – KEEP HIS DAMN MOUTH SHUT.
EXACTLY. As Hathor stated, when WP like Wise and Jensen – or those who fought to abolish slavery, or those who marched in the Civil Rights movement – do what they do, they knock fellow whites into an uncomfortable reality, and so the automatic instinct is to discredit them as quickly as possible.
Jensen, by the way, argues against more than just racism. He is against all forms of hierarchy, so he has written against sexism, capitalism and imperialism too. People wanted him FIRED when he said that 9/11 was no worse than what America has done to others: Dresden, Hiroshima, Hanoi, North America.
Correct – again. Jensen writes extensively about exposing American hypocrisy, and since those like him who came before were often silenced by any means necessary, no one should most expect most white Americans to roll out the red carpet for him.
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Tuesday,
I don’t have any white guilt and neither do most white people. The invention of white guilt lies solely in the minds of blacks. We just don’t have it. I don’t, and I never will.
POC didn’t come up with white guilt – white liberals came up with that bullshit. And we don’t give two shits about it. It’s self-indulgent and derailing.
Let’s just clear that up righ tnow.
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Ó Dochartaigh,
People that say “white people are afraid to lose white privilege” is a joke.
Dismissive and derailing.
What will I lose if all people became equal? There is already a bi racial president in office, black congressmen and women, and equal rights. What do I have to fear abagond? What will I lose? POC will have much to gain, and white people will have next to nothing to lose. White people are more afraid of losing their culture, than their “privilege.”
Why are you making this all about you?
As long and as often as you’ve posted on here, what’s with all the classic no-no’s?
White privilege exists. White people are aware of its existence. 1 + 1 = 2 – if “most white people” really did want white privilege to vanish, it would have vanished by now. But it hasn’t, and it’s here, and it’s arrogantly being displayed on this blog right now.
Which is all fine by me. More patients for my case files.
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Menelik Charles
Is there no such thing as a ’straight’ acting Gay?
You think this is easy, MC? That it’s generally successful? That it doesn’t create HUGE emotional problems, even on the occasions when it works?
We’re constantly enjoined on this site to listen to black people when it comes to racism. I would suggest that the same advice applies when it comes to gay people and homophobia.
@Abagond:
I do not understand why you think Jensen and Wise are hypocrites.
Let me put it in an even simpler form, then:
Wise and Jensen urge whites to give up whiteness while making a name for themselves as anti-racist whites. That’s like junkies telling kids to “just say ‘no’ to drugs” while they are busy shooting up.
Like Jesus drinking with the tax collectors and prostitutes.
Jesus had the very good sense to distinguish between prostitutes and tax collectors. Read that part of the Bible again, Catholic man. Furthermore, the point of Jesus hanging out with the prostitutes was not that Jesus himself was a prostitute who was telling other pros to give up tricking as a bad job.
Unless it is their very whiteness that causes them to screw up. If that is the case, then how so?
They preach the abandonment of whiteness. Fair go. But their preaching is predicated on the fact that they themselves are white and that they use said whiteness to achieve a privileged position in the anti-racism debate that their talents as writers and social critics would not achieve for them on their own.
YOU are a better writer and social critic than Tim Wise, Abagond. Why don’t you have a national rep as an anti-racism guru?
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White people are rewarded by God for their righteous conduct. White people have a 1700 year history of practicing Roman Catholicism. Ethnic minorities are godless sinners, in poverty because of their own sins. People who don’t practice marriage, and women who don’t practice chastity, fail in all endeavors.
Minority males promiscuously mate, gaining perhaps 10 mothers of their children. The government will support mothers and their children, but not males. However, the male can come to visit his children. And I have heard of this happening time and time again.
Part of the African American culture is performing sodomy as birth control. The promiscuous male will sodomize one of his women. Because she is now morally filthy for committing godless abomination, the male beats her until she gives him all the cash she has on hand.
Then the male goes to visit his kids by another woman, and does the same thing. The minimum number of female welfare recipients the black man can make a good living off of is seven.
Now I ask, why should people who live like this be equal to god-fearing Christians? And why should government, under penalty of imprisonment, take away the financial rewards given by God to white people, and use it to subsidize the sin of the godless.
Treating minorities like victims damns them to continue in the same sins that got them into poverty in the first place, damning their souls to hell. Poverty is a signal that something is wrong with a persons behavior or beliefs.
White people obey The Lord God Almighty, and are rewarded for it. You can’t make people equal. You can make every man born equal to every other, but only in the sense that all human life has equal value, and no one, no matter how mighty, has the right to deprive another of his life.
But that doesn’t mean everyone has to be nice to each other and love each other. Government cannot bring equality between races. It is the responsibility of each person to obey God, and be rewarded accordingly. If individuals fail in this pursuit, God will let them know they are doing wrong.
Ethnic minorities need to stop committing sin, especially fornication, sodomy, stealing, killing, abortion, drunkenness, and battery. If they can do that, they won’t need to be jealous of white people anymore.
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wow…. interesting point of view fragileswan….
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Jasmin
“Middle class people. So what kind of culture do middle class Black people bring that middle class White people don’t like?”
In my opinion, they don’t really have a different culture. The problem is the media portrays most black people as violent drug pushers rather than upstanding citizens. Most white people hardly ever even speak to black people to get to know them, they only get the Fox news portrayal of black people. So you have Bill O Reilly and Glen Beck telling them minorities are going to take their neighborhoods from them and turn them into slums. It is all based on ignorance and fear.
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OD,
So you are saying most White people are sheeple?
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Jasmin
Yeah pretty much.
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@Fragileswan
Part of the African American culture is performing sodomy as birth control. The promiscuous male will sodomize one of his women. Because she is now morally filthy for committing godless abomination, the male beats her until she gives him all the cash she has on hand.
I think you got it backwards. Everyone knows that more whites take it up the butt than anyone else. I remember many white girls in my high school who spoke about how they took it up the ass so that they can remain virgins and not get pregnant. Black men even speak about how white women are the sluttiest and more promiscuous. One male I know had videos showing his ex white girlfriend while she sucked a dogs d*ck. Now if that aint morally filthy then I dont know what is. I can name many white males who take it up the ass too.
White people obey The Lord God Almighty, and are rewarded for it
Whites Obey God LOL It seems to me whites disobey more with all the evil whites have done and some things still do slavery, rape, genocide, adultry, lie, cheat, steal, fraud, oppression, bigotry, jealousy, sodomy, idolatry, incest, the list goes on forever. BTW the devil gives you things too.
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sorry, i didnt mean to say “all” blacks just… blacks.
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tuesday
I have continually used the phrase Most white people. Not all white people, apparently you do not fall under the category of Most white people.
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Fragile Swan:
There is much wrong in what you said, so just three points:
1. The main thing is that you are seeing blacks through stereotypes. In my experience blacks are way more God-fearing than most White Americans even PRETEND to be (though most whites I know are middle-class, liberal North-easterners, not the Bible Belt sort).
2. From everything I know white people practise sodomy way more than anyone else. In fact if you speak against it many White Americans (and some blacks too) will call you a homophobe – as I have been called.
3. If God was so good about punishing people for their sins in this world, why does he allow white people to live AND PROSPER on land they took from Native Americans? Where is THEIR punishment?
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Ankhesen said:
“EXACTLY. As Hathor stated, when WP like Wise and Jensen – or those who fought to abolish slavery, or those who marched in the Civil Rights movement – do what they do, they knock fellow whites into an uncomfortable reality, and so the automatic instinct is to discredit them as quickly as possible.”
As shown on this very thread.
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Ankhesen, the people in my life who use racial slurs are the POC, not the whites, not my family and not my friends. When a Puerto Rican calls a stranger a white F*** because he drives too slow or a black friend calls a black dude a N***** I am left wondering what is goin on. Asking them about their racism is clear and I do. It’s perplexing to hear the ppl who want an end to racism to act contrary, and that’s what fascinates me about this site. The stuff that gets said about white people is the most negative I have come across in a long time. I read the comments blacks say about whites on The Root also and am floored. If my family were to be racist I would call them on it, but they are not proponents of racism and value their friendships with POC from all over the globe – we have a habit of spending time in third world countries and investing in the friendships we make. People are people and it would be great if ppl walked the walk instead of talking equality and then sayn n*** in the next sentence
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No Slappz said:
‘Every comment I have made reflects only the mental workings of blacks and muslims (and whites). Nothing more.”
And how is it that you understand the mental workings of blacks better than the living, breathing blacks who comment here, nearly all of whom disagree with you? Particularly when you seem to understand blacks through Hollywood stereotypes, particularly when you understand the mental workings of blacks in ways that AT EVERY TURN makes American society appear just – even bits of it as screwed up as the public schools and the police in New York City?
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The last paragraph of the blog says basically that whites have to choose and the road less traveled is giving up white privilege. Can someone please clarify how whites are to give up white privilege? Its unclear to me the steps involved. Also, please explain exactly what it is that blacks would need to feel and believe they are equal citizens in the US. I am unclear how parity is viewed in the minds of black americans.
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Tuesday said:
“@abagond you said something about skin color one day being akin to eye color or hair color, yet when whites do say they already think that way they get called liars, etc. Why is that a goal yet the ones who say and feel it are derided? “
Because their racism comes out in other ways that shows that they do notice skin colour and draw conclusions based on it.
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Tuesday,
tuesday
Ankhesen, the people in my life who use racial slurs are the POC, not the whites,
Yeah…I’ve heard that one. A lot. Naturally, I’ve experienced the opposite. All the POC I know personally and/or who write/comment throughout the blogosphere also report the opposite of what you report. Studies – sociological, psychological, you name it – also find in favor of POC.
Gee…wonder why that is (and don’t even bother crying “double standard” to me) ? Not when we still experience shit like this.
Notice how WP tend to respond.
So again…why aren’t you out there ripping folks like these a new one? Why aren’t you telling them to ball up (like this commenter here)? Why aren’t you on that blog calling out white commenters or Macon himself when he gets it wrong? Why is it that white commenters shy away from doing that? Even as you’re hanging around here, you could be on a blog like that, but like most whites you’d rather chew off your own arm?
Fashion tip:Whenever white people who “claim” to be anti-racist go on POC blogs strictly to dismiss/derail/discredit POC views, experiences, and/or, they are being arrogant racists. They are invoking white privilege. They have basically appointed themselves as foremen to keep POC race dialogue “in line”.
Do I think you wanting to hush up loud black women shows a disdain for your own race, yes. Are you afraid of what white ppl will think, yes, and that says more for your own fears of your own race than you may want to admit.
Question asked; question answered. Ladies and gentleman…Cluess White American Guy strikes again.
Now, Tuesday….listen closely, ’cause this concerns you. When people of color see fellow POC misbehaving and being a disgrace, we seek to CORRECT that behavior as it shames the group. Shame and humility are core variables in Old World cultures, going back thousands of years. Wait, wait, wait…let me translate that for you: It has nothing do with looking bad in front
of white people (very arrogantly presumptuous of you, by the way), so much looking bad in front of people…period (you know…remember the rest of them?)
To not care how members of your skintone misrepresent you to the world is a classic example of white privilege. Whites generally dismiss what POC think, because to them, our thoughts, opinions, observations, and knowledge don’t matter. If we disagree with them, they’ll just have to “correct” us.
Talk about excellent case file material here…not to mention a GREAt Ankhesenology moment….
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White people are rewarded by God for their righteous conduct. White people have a 1700 year history of practicing Roman Catholicism. Ethnic minorities are godless sinners, in poverty because of their own sins. People who don’t practice marriage, and women who don’t practice chastity, fail in all endeavors.
[Pisses himself laughing]
Very nice troll. 😀
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As shown on this very thread.
Get over it, Abagond. There’s not a single racist out there discomfitted by these two self-acclaimed white anti-racists.
Again, here’s my point: I think it’s great Jensen is an anti-racist and talks about this stuff.
I think it’s hypocritical that he calls for people to abandon whiteness while he himself uses it to his advantage.
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Mira:
I do not know if Black Americans would continue to “live in the past” even after racism died away. Given how Americans are about history in general I highly doubt it. In fact, until your comment, it never even crossed my mind that people could do that – apart from a few crackpots that is.
I am not sure if you saw this post, but it lays out how and why the past matters as much as it does to blacks:
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Poverty is a signal that something is wrong with a persons behavior or beliefs.
Whatever happened to ‘the poor shall inherit the earth’?
Now I ask, why should people who live like this be equal to god-fearing Christians? And why should government, under penalty of imprisonment, take away the financial rewards given by God to white people, and use it to subsidize the sin of the godless.
Why not? the money has to be spent on something! Better the fornicators, it more fun!
Then the male goes to visit his kids by another woman, and does the same thing. The minimum number of female welfare recipients the black man can make a good living off of is seven.
You seem to be conversant with sinnin, give it a try, you may enjoy it!
Part of the African American culture is performing sodomy as birth control. The promiscuous male will sodomize one of his women. Because she is now morally filthy for committing godless abomination, the male beats her until she gives him all the cash she has on hand.
Part of the white American culture is using abortion as birth control, pumping animals, molesting children, etc. What’s even worse, is they come on a blog spouting filth about what other groups do, or so they think. Tell me, are you writing from personal experience?
Then the male goes to visit his kids by another woman, and does the same thing. The minimum number of female welfare recipients the black man can make a good living off of is seven.
thanks for the financial advice! I suggest all the females in the equation go out and pump seven rich white men, have as many children for them so 'god-fearing white folk do-not have to foot these illegitimate children' upkeep! What say you?
Poverty is a signal that something is wrong with a persons behavior or beliefs.
Being poor, Jesus was the biggest failure of all, by your definition!
Minority males promiscuously mate, gaining perhaps 10 mothers of their children.
Perhaps the minority males should be humping all the white women instead. What say you?
As far as overall skin coloration and quality are concerned, I’ve never felt any disappointment with my birthday suit.
Fascinating! What skin products do you use to keep up your healthy birthday suit. Do you go out in public with it on? After all why hide it?
Lastly, what do all these absurd statements have to do with the post at hand? Discuss.
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Hathor ” I don’t ask for a racist or ethnocentric free world, I ask that
people act ethically and restrain themselves from what may be their natural impulses. People don’t have to like someone to treat them with respect and as a equal.”
I agree with this
abagond
“I think “white or human” is a false choice. Instead the thing whites and blacks and others in America should be aiming for is a common TRANSRACIAL national identity: American. The division of Americans into “races” benefits whites materially but it hurts the country as a whole – by the huge waste in human capital that it leads to if nothing else ”
This is a statement I can follow and lock onto
Y
“Back to the article, I must say white American liberals are the biggest fakes known to mankind, full stop!”
Thad “Well Y, enjoy the next round of U.S. elections because those “fakes” are going to probably be put out of power and you can go back to enjoying enlightened conservative government. Those Republicans are notoriously solicitous of the welfare of black America.”
I agree with this., also.
I dont really agree with the 9/11 statements, but, to answer would be derailing this post and some long winded statements on my part. Ive been through it on another blog , so , I wouldnt even participate on a post on that subject…I dont like reliving blog experiances…so , Ill just say , I dont agree….
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Ha, herneith, your post came in while I was writing….
I agree with you also !!
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Lastly, what do all these absurd statements have to do with the post at hand? Discuss.
Not a damn thing. Abagond posted about a white man who’s NOT blaming POC for shit, AND airing dirty white laundry while he’s at it.
Talk about the ultimate bait for draptos. It’s always these posts where the discussion becomes heavily infested.
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Here’s another great piece for Confederate History Month. A letter from a freed man to his former slaveholder.
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/04/commemorating-chm-the-jourdon-anderson-edition/39383/
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Yes Ankhesen Mie, infested is the right word
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Not a damn thing. Abagond posted about a white man who’s NOT blaming POC for shit, AND airing dirty white laundry while he’s at it.
I guess these clowns have to have a hobby! I am slightly familiar with both writers and had hoped to get some opinions on their writings. Then someone like ‘fragileswan’ chips in with bizarre ramblings. I suppose it serves as comic relief if nothing else!
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Ank – haha, ok, I read it… yet I don’t agree with your conclusions. I do insist that my life experiences are valid and may not be in the majority of the studies you mention – regardless they are true for me otherwise I wouldn’t share them.
To interpret White privilege based on your post (which may be a stretch) White Privilege is the ability to see yourself as an individual, the ability to choose and build your life as you see it, and to choose whether or not to follow lockstep with those of your race – to watch others embarrass themselves and choose not to internalize it or concern myself with changing their behaviour. I wouldn’t trade it for cultural limitations or Old World shame any day. Being white is being an individual with the entire world open to experience.
White privilege truly is freedom if the converse is having to be like the Old World and get shamed into submission. Thanks for the education.
The reason I am here on this blog: after reading the posts about how white people interpret these posts, how to talk to white people, the white guilt, white privilege, I guess I have never really known what blacks think of whites – or SOME blacks think of Some whites. I, like most white people, see blacks in college, in politics, in business, leading the RNC, at work, living in predominately white neighborhoods, succeeding in life and work and think things look positive – I never knew that the success wasn’t so successful and that black people feel so incredibly negative and untrusting of white people. I’m not trying to change or subtly correct, but it would really be fascinating to be heard without bias and prejudice.
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Abagond: “whites on both the right and the left are afraid of living in a world without racism.”
People are afraid of change, period. People are forced into change – as Menelik said, Democracy became a reality when blacks voted unobstructed – and they learn to accept it’s required, they learn it’s not what they expected, they learn it’s not as bad as they thought, they learn to accept it as a better way of life, and then they forget why they were afraid. It becomes part of the standard way of life and going back to inequality isn’t an option because people won’t accept regression.
People can accept others success and achievements as facts, but that doesn’t mean they necessarily empty their minds of their negative biases. Is that possible? If blacks achieve the parity they think they are lacking is it possible for them to dislodge their own “racism” and live without it? Is there a point, a standard of achievement that will let them eliminate their racism as well?
I think the only way to change racism is for people to truly talk to each other and listen – again, why I am here. I had no idea of how black people truly felt about whites… and no wonder, why would they tell me – it’s a lot easier to write on a blog about loathing white people and their privilege than it is to tell someone face to face, isn’t it?
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Jensen & Wise are not the problem. It’s the institution of white supremacy which guarantees that the voices of POC go unheard & acknowledges only white voices as authority on everything including race & racism.
When I read the reviews for The History of White People by Nell Painter (credit to Thad), one review got me laughing hysterically. This particular reviewer was outraged at the fact that a black person had the nerve to write a book about white people. SMDH : )
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This is what I meant when I said white people are more afraid of losing their culture than their losing privilege.
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“I never knew that the success wasn’t so successful and that black people feel so incredibly negative and untrusting of white people. I’m not trying to change or subtly correct, but it would really be fascinating to be heard without bias and prejudice.”
tuesday–
The stories of black success are definitely true. And, so that we don’t make the mistake of trivializing the accomplishments of black people & POC, these successes are “in spite of/in the face of” the reality of racism & institutional racism. Not as the result of some myth of a color-blind society. You’d be horrified at how bone-tired most POC are after spending the day in a white-centered world. Could be that some of those ass-tired POC are your friends.
Also, for someone who wants to be heard without bias & prejudice, you don’t seem willing listen without bias & prejudice.
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temple:
“You’d be horrified at how bone-tired most POC are after spending the day in a white-centered world. Could be that some of those ass-tired POC are your friends.”
Nah, it’s probably a lot like I feel having to listen to hetero americans discuss their weddings, baby showers, and dating life.. annoying as F – always happy to go home.
“Also, for someone who wants to be heard without bias & prejudice, you don’t seem willing listen without bias & prejudice.”
Noted.
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With regard to:
“Get over it, Abagond. There’s not a single racist out there discomfitted by these two self-acclaimed white anti-racists…”
I am not sure if you saw things this way Abagond, but whilst reading I came to the following:
This is a very strange statement to make. Since the way it is written it pre-supposes that
Since there is no way Jensen can affect ‘White racists’
=
Then why is he bothering,??
=
Give supports to the contention of Akhensen Mie that many Whites feel the need to fight against such an individual.
Hmmm!!!
“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.
Martin Luther King, Jr”.
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Abagond, First of all white privelge is an opinion not a fact. You’re an affirmative action baby. Don’t talk to me about privelge, when most blk folks get into elite colleges while getting only 1000 on their SAT’s. As far slaves go, why don’t you ask your African people why they sold you into slavery and are still selling Africans into slavery today. No land was stolen. Nothing was claimed by so called native Americans. This land was a big public park. Survival of the fittest.
Abagond, you’re a conquered man, part of a group that was dominated. Should blks be treated fairly? No, because you’re conquered people.
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@J:
That’s how I understood it as well.
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J:
I am with Ankhesen on this one. Seeing both Thad and No Slappz jump on Jensen was one of those amazing moments. Jensen must have struck a nerve, which means he is righter than I thought. Which means I should probably read his book on whiteness.
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Nancy:
Affirmative action may get you into a good school, but you still have to do the work and pass the courses just like everyone else. No one but you is there to take your tests for you or write your papers. It gives you a chance but not a free ride. And then even after you get your degree it is not taken as seriously by employers as the very same degree held by a white person. So it is harder to find work and you will get paid less than a white person with the same degree from the very same university.
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Nancy said:
‘Abagond, First of all white privelge is an opinion not a fact.”
Then why is it that poor whites live LONGER on average than middle-class blacks?
Or why do whites get paid the same as a black person who has TWO MORE YEARS of education?
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Tuesday said:
“it’s a lot easier to write on a blog about loathing white people and their privilege than it is to tell someone face to face, isn’t it?”
It is way easier: I can say whatever I want and not care about who gets angry at me. I cannot do that with whites that I have to work with (that is why I use a pen name). And even with white friends you can only go so far.
But even on the Internet all the white defences are still there in full form, so it is still hard to be heard and understood.
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@ Nancy:
“No land was stolen. Nothing was claimed by so called native Americans. This land was a big public park. Survival of the fittest.
Abagond, you’re a conquered man, part of a group that was dominated. Should blks be treated fairly? No, because you’re conquered people.”
Nancy next time you hear about a black person murdering or stealing from a white person, are you going to shrug your shoulders and say “survival of the fittest” as well?
And what about Native Americans deserves the label “so-called”?
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Nancy said:
“Abagond, you’re a conquered man, part of a group that was dominated. Should blks be treated fairly? No, because you’re conquered people.”
Well, at least you are honest. Many white commenters seem to think the very same thing but try to dress it up with a ready supply of lies and excuses.
But please notice what you are saying: that might makes right, that there is no such thing as good and evil, right and wrong – just cruel, naked power. Jesus and Jefferson were deluded fools. There was no reason to free the slaves, to fight the civil war. There was nothing wrong with Hitler. Etc.
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@ Abagond:
“2. From everything I know white people practise sodomy way more than anyone else. In fact if you speak against it many White Americans (and some blacks too) will call you a homophobe – as I have been called.”
It’s probably true that open homosexuality is much more common in white Americans than black. But in large part, that’s because elements in the black community are so incredibly homophobic that black gay folks are more often forced to keen it on the down low.
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Nancy,
You’re an affirmative action baby. Don’t talk to me about privelge, when most blk folks get into elite colleges while getting only 1000 on their SAT’s.
BS. And an insult to all black people who worked hard to get where they are despite all the obstacles. You clearly know nothing about elite college admissions other than what you read in an article or two.
If you want to discuss SATs and college admissions, we can do that. I have plenty of information on the subject. While we’re at it, we might want to include all the white legacies and white athletes that enter Ivies with subpar scores. Just to be fair, since I know whites love it when things are fair.
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Nancy “Abagond, you’re a conquered man, part of a group that was dominated. Should blks be treated fairly? No, because you’re conquered people.”
That is really lame and disgusting.
Black people in America should be on the defensive with white people running around saying things like that
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Nancy,
Why is it that you think that only white people had any sense of property rights, because they didn’t buy and sell property in lots?
Your comment shows your white privilege speaking to justify genocide and slavery. We can take your land because you don’t own it like we do and slavery is OK because black people did it too. How tired.
Jim Crow was Affirmative Action for hundreds of millions of white folks that lasted 3 times as long as any civil rights laws. And if in your ignorance think that “separate and equal” was Jim Crow, that was only the Supreme Court justification not the actual laws.
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That is really lame and disgusting.
Black people in America should be on the defensive with white people running around saying things like that
Many white people do have that mindset, it’s just that few are bold enough to say it aloud. It is disgusting, but I’m too jaded at this point to expect any better.
I wonder if a minority revolution ever happens and whites are marginalized, as the paranoid whites fear, if they will be saying the same thing.
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natasha,
We can cover — again — the territory of black college admissions and the easy-acceptances conditions blacks enjoy at top schools.
As you already know, a black high school student with a GOOD high school record has a big edge over white or asian student with a GREAT record.
Though there many many examples — enough to prove the point — I will share with you a personal example.
A relative of mine is about to graduate from Stuyvesant High School — New York City’s top public high school. My relative achieved near-perfect SAT scores and has almost a 95 average. We”re talking calculus, AP bio, chemistry and physics. No lightweight stuff.
My relative was accepted at many superb colleges. But NONE were Ivy League. My relative’s first choice was Brown.
On the other hand, a classmate who scored 250 points lower on the SATs and has a substantially lower grade-point average was accepted at Brown.
The only obvious reasons are the other kid’s ethnicity and the fact that her father — a former major Bronx political leader — now works for Obama.
My relative will survive. But this is how the game is played.
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No_slappz,
You example doesn’t match your initial statement.
Who you know or who you are, is different than how easily it is for blacks to get in the best schools.
I doubt that you can personally back up that first statement.
I personally know black people who went to the top 10 schools even before there was any such thing as Affirmative Action. They even got scholarships at that.
Do we know how many times your nephew took the SAT and what were the differences in his scores or if he been tutored since middle school?
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abagond, you wrote:
Then why is it that poor whites live LONGER on average than middle-class blacks?
With this apparently rhetorical question you are truly moving into the realm of the absurd.
The life expectancy of blacks in most sub-Saharan African nations is about 50. Why? Because disease is rampant AND public health is a nearly non-existent concept in Africa.
Meanwhile, here in the US, black lives are shortened by various pathologies that are also preventable. Most of the diseases killing blacks in Africa are preventable through purification of drinking water and the eradication or control of insects such as mosquitos and tse-tse flies.
However, since it takes work and organization for public health programs to succeed, in Africa, they fail. The stunningly high prevalence of HIV/AIDS in black Africa is merely the latest proof.
Unfortunately, even if African leaders were organized enough to wipe out a lot of the mosquitos carrying various diseases — easily done with DDT — the AIDS epidemic will more than enough to keep life-spans short.
What are the leading causes of death for blacks in the US? I know. Do you? More importantly, the mortality rate of all the causes can be pushed back through life-style improvement alone. Once gain, you should look inward. Whites are NOT responsible for the self-infliction of bad health that occurs among blacks.
You wrote:
Or why do whites get paid the same as a black person who has TWO MORE YEARS of education?
Let’s see. Everywhere in the country Teachers start at the same pay — the local rate. In NY City starting pay is about $40K for those with a BA degree. By obtaining a master’s degree, pay gets bumped up a bit. Race has no impact.
Newly graduated lawyers? Every firm starts its associates at the same pay.
NYPD? Same pay for all. But obtaining some educational credits can lead to raises at various points in one’s career.
Wall Street? Most people are paid on a performance basis. There are few blacks on Wall Street. Meanwhile, few blacks have attempted to start black firms. There have been a few, however all but one or two have crashed.
Where is this Unfair income disparity you mentioned?
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no_slappz your anecdote means nothing. Nothing at all.
Should I share the story of the black honors student I know whp had near perfect SAT scores and was rejected from Harvard? And the white athlete that was accepted form the same high school with lower stats? We can go through this all day… no one is accepted purely on their ethnicity.
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no_slappz
A relative of mine is about to graduate from Stuyvesant High School — New York City’s top public high school. My relative achieved near-perfect SAT scores and has almost a 95 average. We”re talking calculus, AP bio, chemistry and physics. No lightweight stuff.
I went to college with several top Stuyvesant graduates and I can’t say they were any brighter than the majority of students. Simply being a good student at Stuyvesant doesn’t mean you have a red carpet to any college of your choosing. Ultimately, college admissions are largely a crap shoot.
Hathor,
You example doesn’t match your initial statement.
Who you know or who you are, is different than how easily it is for blacks to get in the best schools.
Indeed. Too bad his nephew wasn’t a legacy, huh?
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hathor,
The facts surrounding acceptances of blacks at top colleges are not in dispute. Top schools often give 200 bonus points to the SAT scores blacks when evaluating them. There are plenty of studies you can easily access through the Internet confirming this fact.
As for my relative, the kid is smart, worked hard, and took an SAT review course before nailing an impressively high score.
As for blacks going to Ivy League schools before Affirmative Action, of course. We all know that.
The chief issue is something other than the displacement of a more qualified white or asian student.
The chief issue remains the same: Black academic achievement lags. Standardized tests at every grade level and in every part of the US show the lag.
Moreover, by the absence of relevant facts, we know Michelle and Barack had unimpressive SAT and LSAT scores. In fact, Michelle admitted as much, though compliant journalists have avoided the subject.
We now have an Affirmative Action president who voters claim is highly intelligent without the slightest shred of proof. Based on the healthcare legislation, we know he is poor at math. Lucky for him that many voters are too.
With his attacks on Wall Street, he’s trying again to prove his innumeracy.
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natasha, you wrote:
I went to college with several top Stuyvesant graduates and I can’t say they were any brighter than the majority of students.
Unless you saw their college grades, overall GPA and were able to evaluate their college experience, you are right — you can’t say.
Simply being a good student at Stuyvesant doesn’t mean you have a red carpet to any college of your choosing. Ultimately, college admissions are largely a crap shoot.
As usual, you establish a silly premise — being a good student at Stuyvesant doesn’t mean you have a red carpet to any college.
If the competition for admission to top colleges is NOT dependent on high SAT scores, high grades and graduation from a highly respected high school, exactly what matters?
A crap shoot? Perhaps true for many black students who can jump ahead of better qualified whites and asians.
However, inasmuch as the Ivy League accepts about 7% of the students who apply, it is obvious that top black students enjoy better odds than whites and asians.
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Mira:
I do not know if Black Americans would continue to “live in the past” even after racism died away. Given how Americans are about history in general I highly doubt it. In fact, until your comment, it never even crossed my mind that people could do that – apart from a few crackpots that is.
Well, that was just an idea, because people DO do that, and it’s a common pattern here (and not only here). That’s why I thought it might be, perhaps, the same with black people.
But it was only a thought; please don’t think I want to derail this topic or suggest that blacks are doing better with racism because at least they have their unique identity now (or something).
I guess the whole thing is highly hypothetical, because it tries to predict what would world without racism look like. And it’s not something that looks even possible at the moment, so any discussion about it is no less hypothetical than “what would world with frequent contact with aliens from Alpha Centauri look like” discussion.
But back on topic. This is all nice and good, and people might like Jensen’s words… But there’s still a huge problem: NOW WHAT? Since anti-racism is, despite everything, still in its formation, the big deal of today is to even make people think (and rethink) about it.
This is all good, but what about the second step? Now what? Acknowledging the problem is a huge step many white people still need to do, but once when you pass that step you are entering into a confusing state, because you absolutely have no idea what to do next. Which is dangerous, because it can led you to doing nothing.
I found one of your quotes especially interesting here (the article on growing up white):
You still cannot shake the idea that America is racist and unfair. Now you wish you were not white! To escape the shame and guilt you try to become part of the black world or some other world of colour. But it does not work: They do not understand what you are going through, so they cannot help.
This is what I’m talking about. Now, I don’t really mind being white and I don’t have any guilt about it, and I don’t even flatter myself I reached stage 4 (because, let’s face it: in many ways concerting racism I am at stage 0: pre-contact). But seriously, sometimes I feel like these anti-racists don’t have a clue about the next step, about what to do when you realize the injustice and when you decide you don’t want to hide behind your white privilege anymore, when you really, really decide you want to unlearn the racism and prejudice. Like I said, it’s a dangerous territory, because it can backfire into doing nothing, or into thinking that Jensen and others are just another of those who do “blah blah blah”, but don’t have any ideas where to go after that.
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no_slappz
Top schools often give 200 bonus points to the SAT scores blacks when evaluating them. There are plenty of studies you can easily access through the Internet confirming this fact.
That is where you are wrong.
No one is actually given points in that manner; that much should be obvious. The articles and studies are making estimates about how much points a person/group is afforded as compared to others. But calculating points this way is very misleading.
Unless you saw their college grades, overall GPA and were able to evaluate their college experience, you are right — you can’t say.
Actually, I did, thanks for wondering. I worked in the admissions office at my college. I saw nearly all the stats for accepted students in the years I was there. I’m not speaking from my rear end, unlike you.
If the competition for admission to top colleges is NOT dependent on high SAT scores, high grades and graduation from a highly respected high school, exactly what matters?
All of those matter, but essay, life experience, extracurricular activities matter just as much. When you have a group of students who are clustered around the same range GPA-wise and grade-wise, you have to see what else they have going for them. I’m not saying that ethnicity is not taken into account, but is does not trump inadequate preparation. Ivies don’t accept those that are unqualified to be there, that’s why they have such excellent graduation rates.
A crap shoot? Perhaps true for many black students who can jump ahead of better qualified whites and asians.
Like I said, not true. And the black student who was rejected from Harvard thought the same way — “I am a top black student, of course I’ll get in!” The rejection letter left a bad taste in her mouth, to say the least.
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Actually, AA isn’t that likely to get you into a good school, because the difference in high school grades between alleged AA recipients (Black/Hispanic students) and White ones is the difference between an A and an A-.
I would’ve gotten into school even without AA (I don’t know if they have it at my school), but I support the policy done the right way. Incidentally, one of my professors has written a lot of books on AA, and he suggests cutting out the biggest form of AA in colleges–legacy preference.
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Wow Natasha, how cool to work in Admissions!
I think a lot of people missed out on (or maybe slept through) high school Stats. High school grades and such (like everything else) lie on a bell curve. Given that elite schools average between 2-4% Black, most of the people at the bottom of the bell curve (> 2 standard deviations away from the mean) must be White. So most of the people getting relatively poorer grades in school are White.
And as far as I understand it, admissions isn’t a boxing match. They don’t hold up profiles of 2 people and pick who’s better, and all of the paper stats in the world are subject to biases. Someone might reject you because you have typos in your essay, or they might accept you because you have the same name as their granddaughter. It really reeks of entitlement, and (IMO) is pretty pathetic to receive a rejection letter and think there’s no way you could have possibly been rejected (and then sue–talk about time on your hands). Are those the same people who haggle with professors over every little point on a test? If you never accept the possibility of personal failure or rejection, you will eventually have a long and hard fall, because one day someone will just have to tell you about your mediocrity, and that has to sting.
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Natasha W and No Slappz: The University of Michigan litigation addressed a point system similar to that described by No Slappz. The University of Michigan gave “bonus” points to applicants based on various things in their background, including points for certain “immutable” factors of the applicant’s personal description: being black, coming from a poor family, coming from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, etc.
As I recall, the combined “bonus” (or “Affirmative Action”) points available to a poor white Yooper from public schools exceeded those available to an upper middle class black kid from Cranbrook.
In other words, though the point system did give a slight boost to black applicants simply for being black, it was not a significant boost and, at the end of the day, every admittee to the University of Michigan is a highly qualified individual (with the possible exception of a handful of athletes and legacy admittees).
The Court struck down Michigan’s point-based system. Thus, no university in the nation can legally use such a system.
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No_slappz,
Since you think you know numbers, tell me how 250 points make a significant difference, with the max 2400 and wrong answers counted against you. One third of the test is now graded subjectively. Does those 250 points make a person a better student. If that white person does not get admitted, how can that mean that a black student takes up his space. Let say its the UC system which has only 2% Black enrollment, its would be impossible for Black students to take up the space for every white or Asian person who didn’t get admitted. Tell me what the probability of that.
SHOW ME THE NUMBERS. NOT LINKS!
Do a mathematical analysis here., so some of us ignorant Negroes can challenge your proofs.
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The one thing that I found that was beneficial from going to an integrated college after having gone to a segregated high school, was there many more ignorant white folks than I would have ever suspected. The one thing the internet does is to prove this revelation over and over again. They may continue to feel susperior, but they wont be fooling us any more. May be they should keep their mouths shut, if they fear loosing that edge.
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Blanc2, we’re referring to the Ivies, Little Ivies, and their ilk; they’ve never had an actual points system.
Jasmin,
Incidentally, one of my professors has written a lot of books on AA, and he suggests cutting out the biggest form of AA in colleges–legacy preference.
Since we are on the topic of white privilege, I agree with this. Legacies comprise a much larger portion of the applicant pools than do blacks or Hispanics, which make up a relatively small number of applicants. At any given Ivy, the admit rate for legacies is twice that of non-legacies. At the “good ol’ boy” Ivies like Princeton and Dartmouth, the legacy admit rate can be almost triple the regular.
People should be railing against mediocre rich white students receiving admissions, yet I rarely hear people outside of academia mention this.
Wow Natasha, how cool to work in Admissions!
It was. It helps to have friends in high places [in the admissions office]! I felt speshul, especially when parents tried to bribe me thinking it would help their child be admitted. 🙂
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Interesting point about Dartmouth. I recently saw an article somewhere that said that, of all American universities, Dartmouth grads on average enjoy the highest earnings. I thought to myself when I read the piece that this was due to the fact that Dartmouth grads are more likely to waltz into a swank position in Daddy’s company, or uncle’s, or some family friend.
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Blanc2, do they? I’m guessing they make the most after several years into their career. AFAIK, grads from HYPS and the engineering schools (MIT, Caltech, Harvey Mudd) earn the most upon graduation, and it’s been that way for years.
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Hathor,
The one thing that I found that was beneficial from going to an integrated college after having gone to a segregated high school, was there were many more ignorant white folks than I would have ever suspected. The one thing the internet does is to prove this revelation over and over again. They may continue to feel superior, but they wont be fooling us anymore. Maybe they should keep their mouths shut, if they fear losing that edge.
There’s not enough co-sign in the world.
Here’s the thing: when white people – like the ones humiliating themselves here on this very blog – do and say what they do, some are displaying ignorance. Some are invoking simply privilege because they fear no recourse. Either type feels they are “superior”, that they are demonstrating exceptional intelligence and/or wit.
What neither type realizes is that what they’re saying – and the fact they think and actually say these things – don’t harm POC nearly as much as it reflects negatively on them.
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Natasha,
Spot on. My university is 25% legacy, and it’s been documented that half of them wouldn’t make it in had it not been for legacy preference. That’s 12.5%, or a whopping 1000 students (note that each class is roughly 2000 students, so there are roughly 250 unqualified people per grade level).
I would think people would be even more against legacy preference (if they were actually against it for non-racist reasons, that is), because legacies are people who didn’t meet the university’s standards even with all of the advantages in the world. If you have access to top schools, private tutors, ACT/SAT prep, AP classes, extracurriculars, etc., and you still don’t meet the schools requirements, that school probably isn’t for you. Deal with it.
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Jasmin,
Brilliant!!!
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Most whites who argue against blacks and affirmative action and university admissions SEEM like they are arguing AGAINST unfair, racist policies but IN FACT they are arguing FOR WHITE PRIVILEGE.
If they were so concerned about UNFAIR policies then they would be even MORE UPSET about legacies.
And if they were so concerned about RACIST policies, they would be even MORE UPSET about the way many top schools limit the number of Asians they admit.
But they do not. Why? Because both policies favour whites – in unfair and racist ways. SO it is not the racism and unfairness that upsets them about blacks getting into top schools – it is the weakening of their skin colour privileges.
Most of them swear up and down that they do not benefit from white privilege and YET they are quick to get upset the minute it is threatened.
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Mira:
Jensen and Wise, as far as I know, are big on saying what is wrong but short on what ordinary white people can do about it. Other commenters can correct me if I am wrong. It is a fair point, one that Thad and Tuesday brought up too, but not one that discredits what Jensen and Wise do say.
In their defence they live in a country where most white people do not even think they are racist to begin with. No Slappz, for example, does not think he is racist, even though it is as clear as a bell to nearly every black person here (whom he dismisses as living in a “black alternate reality”).
That level of denial was true even in Jim Crow times, by the way. It took stuff like Selma to get whites in large numbers to wake up and smell the racism.
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With regard to:
Jensen and Wise, as far as I know, are big on saying what is wrong but short on what ordinary white people can do about it. [Other commenters can correct me if I am wrong.] It is a fair point, one that Thad and Tuesday brought up too.
I am not sure it is a fair point by either personally, but rather the pretext to dismiss such individuals who fight against racism.
Why do I say this because there are many Black leaders who do exactly the same as Wise ie talk but they do not have any programmes for change.
I think people like Wise – and I do not know much about him – in real political world is probably trying to agitate and wake people into action, which would be the intial step along the revolutionary path, if you follow…
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@ J
One thing that bothers me about Wise, is he tells white people how horrible they are and how they should change everything about themselves, but at the same time he is laughing his way to the bank with the money he takes from POC from his book sales and speeches. He is making a living by preaching to the choir, and he knows it.
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Here’s a question that only you know the answer to:
1. Are you concerned at Wise’s statements and its implications
2. Are you concerned for People of Color??
or
3 Is there some other ‘contingency’ at work??
Before you answer, remember, we live in a capitalistic society, where nothing is ever done for ‘free’, at some point money is always exchanged.
And if you look at any leaders today whether it be political, or advocating for changethey are all ‘rich’. They very rarely fit the Jesus Christ example of being poor and destitute
So what you say of Wise etc can be applied to any of our leaders across the world.
As long as you are prepared to apply this same standard to all leaders. Then I am in agreement with you (mutatis mutandis)
However, if you are prepared to do this then to all leaders then it begs the question why raise it for Wise only??
Thought I would just mention that – since I am not trying to set you into an ‘intellectual trap’…
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Don’t mention that, O: Abagond will charge you with being “racially disturbed” by Wise’s exceptionally deep message. [Roll eyes.]
Again, my problem isn’t the cash these guys make, which – all things considered – probably isn’t much. My problem is the fact that they urge others to give up whiteness while their fame itself is predicated upon the fact that they are white.
Like I said, it’s like fuc&ing for virginity.
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Abagond sez:
I am with Ankhesen on this one. Seeing both Thad and No Slappz jump on Jensen was one of those amazing moments. Jensen must have struck a nerve, which means he is righter than I thought. Which means I should probably read his book on whiteness.
Why don’t you read PAINTER’s book on whiteness, instead? It’s lightyears beyond the crap Jensen puts out. Take Jensen seriously and don’t give him credit simply for being white: judge him on the quality of his ideas as compared to Painter.
As for something No Slappz and I “agreeing”… Read the posts. No Slappz thinks Jensen’s a loon. I think he’s fundamentally right but wrong to tell people to take a position which he himself cannot and will not take.
If you think those are the same points of view, my friend, you are really not paying attention to what your commentators write.
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J sez:
This is a very strange statement to make. Since the way it is written it pre-supposes that
Since there is no way Jensen can affect ‘White racists’
=
Then why is he bothering,??
=
Give supports to the contention of Akhensen Mie that many Whites feel the need to fight against such an individual.
I have no problem with Jensen trying to educate racist whites, J, if that’s what he’s trying to do. What I am saying is that his strategy isn’t going to work with them. That doesn’t mean that ALL strategies can’t work with them. I highlyu doubt, however, that Jensen really wants to change racist white’s minds.
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@Temple:
ROFLMAO over “Old Jourdan’s Letter”.
How in the helldid I never hear about that before?
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@ J
I think this way about most leaders. I dislike most of the US congress, this president, and the last president for the same reasons.
As far as Wise I don’t always agree with everything he says, but for the most part what he says is true. Sometimes when watching his speeches though he seems a bit like a white uncle tom, like he is milking it to get more money. He is a white Jewish man from the south, yet he gives off this vibe like he can feel the pain of the black community better than all other white people.
There are plenty of white people who care about minority problems, they join charities, protests, and volunteer their time to help in poverty stricken areas, yet Wise is one of the few who is making money off of it.
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Ó Dochartaigh,
POC typically don’t pay Wise. Schools, law enforcement agencies, etc. pay him for trainings, etc – his target audiences are white.
And we don’t need to buy his books. As he himself would say, POC already know what’s in them and he’s not telling us anything new.
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POC typically don’t pay Wise. Schools, law enforcement agencies, etc. pay him for trainings, etc – his target audiences are white.
I bet the L.A. PD cries manly tears and agrees to reform their evil racist ways when ol’ Timmy comes to preach at ’em. [Roll eyes]
Frankly, I’d rather buy a book by an African American scholar than a huckster like Tim.
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Cheers O’D….
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With regard to:
“Frankly, I’d rather buy a book by an African American scholar than a huckster like Tim”.
This is yet another strange statement since it presupposes that there are NO African American ‘huckster’. This coming from an individual who has been keen to impart here and/or at the very least tentatively suggest that there is no such thing as ‘race’, and with regard to being ‘White’ that should be no ‘barrier’ to understanding the race problem.
All this has now been turned upside down.
Its very confusing to say the least..
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With regard to:
“What I am saying is that his strategy isn’t going to work with them”
Maybe the strategy is or is not working?? In the real world you have to take a stand and be accounted for rather than make no difference at all.
“Render unto Caesar what is Caesar, but Give unto God the things that are God’s.”
So if it as you say, the strategy, and personally, if I was in the U.S. and I had both Jensen who I have heard off and you before me discussing such politics.
I would be very wary of your insights and politics for the liberation of Black people. Since there are many aspects of your race politics which are very dubious and questionable in my humble opinion.
Be that as it may, what strategy should Jensen adopt to wrongs the injustice of 500 years of Black people in the US, and if you want you can add Natve Americans too…Your call??
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hathor, you wrote:
Do a mathematical analysis here., so some of us ignorant Negroes can challenge your proofs.
First, what is UC? University of California? A state school?
As for the math. It’s simple.
The percentage of kids accepted at Ivy League schools is less than 8%. However, the Ivies blacks now account for over 9% of acceptances. Pushing 10%.
There are 8 Ivies. They each accept about 2,000 kids every year, for a total of 16,000. If 9% are black, then about 1,450 blacks are accepted.
As you know, the number of black students scoring above 700 on each part of the SAT is less than 1,450. Hence, a black student with high SAT scores and good grades is almost guaranteed an acceptance at an Ivy League school.
On the other hand, the number of white and asian students scoring above 700, while still a small percentage, nevertheless adds up to a number that is far higher than 16,000. Thus, the white and asian students with high SATS and top grades are most likely to be among the 92% who are rejected.
To achieve their goal of “diversity” the Ivy League has to compete for blacks with top credentials. There are simply too few to fill the spaces the schools have made available.
Bottom line — whites and asians are denied acceptances so the Ivies can meet their artificial and self-imposed diversity quotas.
Inasmuch as the Ivies are private schools, they can set any standards and admit anyone they like. As private institutions, setting racial quotas is permissible, and there is no doubt that is what they do.
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Thad said:
People who think that “gayness can be hidden” have obviously never listened to gay people talk about what it’s like to try.
Menelik replied:
really? Is there no such thing as a ‘straight’ acting Gay? Are all Gays camp and into Lady Gaga and Judy Garland?
Thad replied:
You think this is easy, MC? That it’s generally successful? That it doesn’t create HUGE emotional problems, even on the occasions when it works?
Menelik replies:
my point was (see above) was that not all are gays are stereotypically camp. Thus not all gays have to supress/hide their camp side as no such element exists in all gays, right?
What is the problem with you accepting this. Would you rather I stereotype all gays as camp?
Thad said:
We’re constantly enjoined on this site to listen to black people when it comes to racism. I would suggest that the same advice applies when it comes to gay people and homophobia.
Menelik replies:
I listened. I responded. You didn’t agree with my response. Is that thus tantamount to not listening to the plight of gays?
Jesus!
Menelik Charles
London England
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no_slappz
So much to refute here:
“The percentage of kids accepted at Ivy League schools is less than 8%.”
Isn’t that a straight lie. The only Ivy that has an admissions rate lower than 8 percent is Harvard, at 7.9 percent, and most are well above 8 percent.
“There are 8 Ivies. They each accept about 2,000 kids every year, for a total of 16,000.”
UPenn and Cornell accept much more than 2,000.
“However, the Ivies blacks now account for over 9% of acceptances. Pushing 10%.”
Pray tell, how did you get the acceptance rate of blacks at Ivies, seeing as they don’t release this data?
Meanwhile a few do release the rate of legacies admitted, which is double or triple the regular, as I said earlier. Much more than this 1-2 percent you’re crying over.
“As you know, the number of black students scoring above 700 on each part of the SAT is less than 1,450.”
Funny of you to put that in raw numbers, because the percentage of blacks and whites scoring over 700 on any portion is very low. The raw numbers are different, the percentages… not so much.
“Thus, the white and asian students with high SATS and top grades are most likely to be among the 92% who are rejected.”
…Because they make up most of the applicants. Blacks aren’t called a “minority” for no reason.
And, don’t kid yourself, SAT scores have a strong positive correlation with income.
When we look at the income disparities in races in this country, it is no surprise that blacks score lower on average. Even so, the difference between the mean score of whites and blacks is only about 6 questions, so about two questions per subject.
“Bottom line — whites and asians are denied acceptances so the Ivies can meet their artificial and self-imposed diversity quotas.”
Only in your utterly paranoid mind. As I said, blacks account for a very small percentage of applicants. The Ivies would be very lucky to have 10 percent of their applicants be black.
Meanwhile, athletes and legacies make up a substantial percentage of applicants. Yet the stats of accepted legacies and athletes are lower on average. So, one could reason that more whites and Asians are denied to accept legacies and athletes. Yet, no one is really “denied” anything, because the colleges don’t owe them a spot in their classes.
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@no_slappz,
the above was the issue I raised and one in which you very carefully avoided confronting! I understand why: you seek a racist identity even as you may deny the tag. For inherent within such a label is the notion that the white person behaving in an uncivil(ized) manner is some how racially superior to his downtrodden victim.
This is utter nonsense, and Martin Luther King showed such whites up for what they were i.e. far from feeling superior to, your ilk could only feel this way by ascribing and enforcing this status on people of colour.
It was King who emerged the symbolic ‘superior’ so much so that his movement can claim to have forced human rights on white American society! Hence, why VIP whites seek to attach themselves to his legacy since therein lies their humanity!
For all the problems African-Americans have inherited from their historical condition (oh, sorry, I’m contextualizing stuff, you don’t like that do you?) they still represent America’s moral backbone despite the mass media’s consistent attempts to dislodge them from this hallowed status.
Is it any wonder that Obama is seen as a super hero in Europe. You should thank him (you won’t) as you guys are no longer seen as ignorant, war-mongering bigots in ‘civilised’ Europe.
On the home-front likes of you will seek self-esteem in so-called intellectual racism (a racism which rarely speaks directly of race) in the vain hope that some self-pitying Black or another will validate you and call you racist.
Not me, buddy!
You are nothing of the sort, sir. you are white. I am a man of colour and you seek an identity by rendering men of colour inferior. It will not work, sir. I know what plagues you since it covers your whole body!
Good day!
Menelik Charles
London England
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Somebody just had his ass handed back to him. lol! 😀
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no_slappz
“However, the Ivies blacks now account for over 9% of acceptances. Pushing 10%.”
Oh, I see what you meant by this — the number in each freshman class. However, this is still incorrect. Blacks account for about 7-8 percent of entering classes at the Ivies. Harvard is once again the outlier, with a little over 9 percent.
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2006/11/8/harvard-ranks-first-in-black-student/
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*Harvard and Coluimbia
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J sez:
This is yet another strange statement since it presupposes that there are NO African American ‘huckster’.
It presumes no such thing. The comment “Tim is a huckster and I would prefer to buy a book from an African American anti-racist” does not logically imply that there are no African American hucksters. They are two entirely different propositions.
But when it comes down to it, I would rather buy a book from an Afican American racialist HUCKSTER – say Farrakhan – than Tim.
But what I REALLY would prefer is to buy a book from an African American who knows what the f$%& they are talking about when it comes to race than a white guy, like Tijm, who’s riding said African American’s coat-tails and personally profitting from that situation.
Is that clearer for you now, J?
By the way, J, given your own often very fractured grammar and syntax, I really feel that it’s dangerous for you to be picking grammatical nits like this and trying to transform them into logical conundrums.
This coming from an individual who has been keen to impart here and/or at the very least tentatively suggest that there is no such thing as ‘race’, and with regard to being ‘White’ that should be no ‘barrier’ to understanding the race problem.
Here’s another strange persumption on your part. I have no essential beef with either Wise or Jensen’s READING of racism. I think they understand it pretty well and have gone to some pains to repeat this AD NAUSEAUM, right here.
So there’s no contradiction: they understand the “race problem” at least as well as you or I do. In fact, the “race problem” is not that hard to understand.
I’ll state my problem with Jensen and Wise for the fourth time right now: as a proposed solution to the race problem, Wise and Jensen call on white people to give up their whiteness SOMETHING WHICH NEITHER WISE OR JENSEN ARE WILLING OR APPARENTLY ABLE TO DO THEMSELVES.
This is hypocrisy. Hypocrites don’t convince many people to changer their ways.
Got it now?
I find it interesting that neither you nor Abagond seem able to grasp my point on this issue. It seems as if a white person has a gripe with Wise or Jensen, you needs must think that it’s Wise and Jensen’s message which threatens them.
Unfortunately, my point is the opposite: Wise and Jensen’s message is not threatening or convincing ENOUGH because it is undermined by their practices.
If you are being confused, J it’s because you wish to be confused. My point is damned clear.
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Be that as it may, what strategy should Jensen adopt to wrongs the injustice of 500 years of Black people in the US, and if you want you can add Natve Americans too…Your call??
To begin with, education shouldn’t be conducted as if it were a religious revival or therapy session, where one supposedly needs to get into contcat with one’s deepest self to learn something.
Secondly, I’d like to see them talking to groups which they are not paid to talk to – in particular white rural and suburban working class groups who are not mandated to come to their “sessions”. I would suggest that they would need to adopt a different tone in order to reach these groups: less “hallelujah brother, I am saved and you can be too, you backsliding sinner”.
Thirdly, they should certainly not call on their audiences to do anything which they themselves are incapable or unwilling to do. “White specialist on race calls on whites to stop thinking of themselves as white”? Let’s get real here.
Fourth, more substantive education on what race is and it’s history, less rhetoric and dogma.
Finally, whether or not Wise and Jensen want to admit, the U.S. believes in race and that’s not going to change in the short term. Because of this, you can’t logically tell one group of people to give up race while praising another’s use of it. Yes, I understand the LOGIC behind this, but most people won’t and the goal is REAL POLITICAL CHANGE, is it not? Purist positions which do not allow people any real place in which to stand aren’t going to work. I’d thus emphasize constructing a useable whiteness, perhaps using as a model what Germany did after WWII. Educate white children to understand whites who worked in civil rights and abolition as heroes. Emphasize the life stories of whites who ent against the grain and paid the cost for it. Alongside this, run the same damned educational program which teaches that whiteness itself is fundamentally flawed.
In short, explore the internal breaches and contradictions in whiteness. Deconstruct it by showing it as potentially non-hegemonic.
That, to me, will give much better results in the short and long term than Wise and Jensen’s current strategy.
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Menelik Charles says:
I listened. I responded. You didn’t agree with my response. Is that thus tantamount to not listening to the plight of gays?
Listened to who, MC? I’m not gay. I HAVE listened to them.
I’ve not heard a single gay person who has said that living in the closet is simple and easy, or even that it can be pulled off long term. The consensus among gays seems to be that the closet does not fool most people, even most of the time, let alone all the time.
So who have you listened to among gays that’s said differently, MC? I’m currious.
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On the home-front likes of you will seek self-esteem in so-called intellectual racism (a racism which rarely speaks directly of race) in the vain hope that some self-pitying Black or another will validate you and call you racist.
I will no longer call No_Slappz a racist! He probably gets off on it, and it fuels his diatribes! Else why would he be here? Perhaps he wishes to to convinced to the contrary when toing and froing with others.
@NatashaW:
For No_Slappz, one black person getting into an ‘Ivy League’ school is too much, hence his arguments and nit picking.
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I think generalizing is dangerous.
Feminists believe that the sexes won’t be equal until men can wear skirts. The reason for this argument is that the people without power (presumably women) always mimic the people who have the power (men), hence the invention of woman’s business suits and shoulder pads, even heels which mimic a man’s stereotypical height. Okay, so look what styles of clothing and music are most popular, and look at their roots. Black culture is not the subculture, it’s the dominant culture. White kids dress in ways that were popularized by black kids. Pop, rock, rap, jazz, the blues, have all risen from black musical traditions beginning with the spirituals sang by slaves. Spirituals were often based on traditional African styles of music. Tell me, if the people without the power mimic the people with the power, and white people mimic black culture, who really has the power here?
This white girl does not feel like she is special because she is white. Actually, if I’m being honest, the only reason I have even the slightest fears about black people having more power is because of how much so many of the black people I know hate white people and blame them for everything that’s wrong with the world. I don’t think that whites are still a majority, at least not where I live. I think it’s odd that black people don’t see how much power they have. They just aren’t exercising it.
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With regard to:
“If you are being confused, J it’s because you wish to be confused. My point is damned clear”.
Thanks Thad,
Your position is very clear to me of your position.
Can you kindly answers on what strategy should be adopted by White people fighting racism, which will help assist Black people in a meaningful way??
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And again with regard to:
“If you are being confused, J it’s because you wish to be confused. My point is damned clear”.
Your point is very clear but what does not appear to be clear is your understanding of what Jensen has suggested as it relates to this article:
Here are the salient points in my opinion:
1. …To do that [ie challenge racism etc], I (Jensen) have to move beyond the framework of ‘conservative versus liberal’ and ADOPT A TRULY RADICAL POLITICS.
2. I CAN BE WHITE —that is, I can refuse to challenge white supremacy
3. I can rest comfortably in the privileges that come with being ‘white’
4. Or I can struggle to be fully ‘human’ – which derives from ‘a belief in the dignity of all and the struggle to eliminate hierarchy in all forms’
5. BUT I CANNOT BE BOTH (ie be White supporting White supremacy and ‘fully human’ at the same time).
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@ J,
Beautifully stated. Just when I was starting to lose hope with this “discussion”.
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J:
Can you kindly answers on what strategy should be adopted by White people fighting racism, which will help assist Black people in a meaningful way??
Outlined above.
Add to that “Support black authors.”
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Here are the salient points in my opinion:
1. …To do that [ie challenge racism etc], I (Jensen) have to move beyond the framework of ‘conservative versus liberal’ and ADOPT A TRULY RADICAL POLITICS.
2. I CAN BE WHITE —that is, I can refuse to challenge white supremacy
3. I can rest comfortably in the privileges that come with being ‘white’
As Jensen most certainly is doing. Like I said before, his privileged position in this debate comes EXCLUSIVELY from his being white, not from the quality of his ideas or writing.
4. Or I can struggle to be fully ‘human’ – which derives from ‘a belief in the dignity of all and the struggle to eliminate hierarchy in all forms’
5. BUT I CANNOT BE BOTH (ie be White supporting White supremacy and ‘fully human’ at the same time).
If we agree to that proposition, why do you support Jensen, then? He is most clearly trying to be white while struggling to eliminate racial heirarchy. His claim to being white, as I said, is at the base of his current fame.
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Cheers Thad,
I did not see your post.
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With regard to:
“His claim to being WHITE, as I said, is at the base of his current fame.
I am reminded of our previous conversation in Ch
5: Fanon: The Lived Experience of the Black Man
1. “I have a very low tolerance these days for any white person who takes it upon themselves to be the spokesperson for “us”, whether the person is liberal or conservative.
I really don’t buy the concept that 200 million white americans are shaking in their boots over losing “white privilege”.
Most white americans I know are far more worried about losing their jobs.
Racism works without hidden agendas. It works because people accept the way things are. Jensen needs to read Arendt on evil”.
and again
2. “Jensen, to my mind, is attempting to speak for white people. Note his choice of words. I`d feel much better about it if he`d say “Most white people I know…” instead of “Here’s what I’ve concluded about our fears…”
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Sorry, J, that last post of yours is such a hash I can’t follow it. Please clarify what you are trying to say.
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ha ha ha ha…Those are your own very quotes and comments [ie 1 & 2].
I merely reiterated them
At least I am glad you recognised your own ‘hash’
ha ha ha
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Good post, but let me ramble a little.
Yes, Whites did get most of what they have through oppressing other races. But I wonder can an argument be made that there was something weak about the other races and something strong about Whites that allowed this to happen.
Why didn’t Blacks, Asians, etc., go around the world dominating other races? Why did only Whites take this route?
There is no doubt that Blacks, Asians, etc., can be very brutal to their own people (Africans selling other Africans into slavery, Rwandan genocide, Darfur, Pol Pot, etc.).
And there is no doubt that Whites can be brutal to each other (WWI, WWII).
So what is it about Whites that made them decide to go from continent to continent, killing, maiming, destroying, etc., and to develop a whole theory (White supremacy) to support and justify their lawlessness?
How did they get away with so much even to the point where now Blacks emulate them and worship the ground they walk on, Asians emulate them and spend good money trying to be fairer in complexion, everyone wants to look like them, speak like them, etc.?
Whether we want to admit it or not, Whites have won. They do well wherever they go. Their countries for the most part are wealthy. They don’t have people eating dirt, like what you have in Haiti. There are no European countries where huge swaths of people are suffering from disease or famine, like many African countries. I could go on and on.
My point is that Blacks have to focus on being successful regardless of White supremacy. We cannot change history or facts. We have to do the best we can with what we have and not use racism as a crutch. Focusing on what Whites have done in the past does little to help Blacks focus on what we must do now and in the future to live successfully DESPITE whatever nonsense Whites (or others) throw our way.
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With regard to:
“…My point is that Blacks have to focus on being successful regardless of White supremacy. We cannot change history or facts. We have to do the best we can with what we have and not use racism as a crutch. Focusing on what Whites have done in the past does little to help Blacks focus on what we must do now and in the future to live successfully DESPITE whatever nonsense Whites (or others) throw our way.”
This is only part and/or one aspect to the solution.
If you see White supremacy as a ‘continuing process’ along the ‘same’ continuum, then it leads to a different perspective, conclusion and analyses, for
the victimised.
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ha ha ha ha…Those are your own very quotes and comments [ie 1 & 2].
I merely reiterated them
At least I am glad you recognised your own ‘hash’
ha ha ha
J, I recognized my quotes, but the fact that they are thrown together with other, poorly clipped fragments and your own words and bad use of quotation marks makes it difficult to read them in any coherent fashion, let alone scope out what you’re trying to prove with them (given that none of them seem to contradict a single thing that I’ve posted above).
So it’d be easier for me if you just spelled out what you think you see there.
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Making incoherent posts doesn’t mean you’re deep, J. And making them out of poorly clipped quotes of other peoples’ words with no contextualization doesn’t qualify the original author’s work as “hash”.
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Ankhesen Mié wrote
“Fashion tip:Whenever white people who “claim” to be anti-racist go on POC blogs strictly to dismiss/derail/discredit POC views, experiences, and/or, they are being arrogant racists. They are invoking white privilege. They have basically appointed themselves as foremen to keep POC race dialogue “in line”.”
It is a human beings sworn duty to correct ignorance, my lost friend.
POC views? You mean Afrocentric mythical views? smh
I’ve never encountered ignorance as deep as Afrocentrist, I mean a three year old with down syndrome has more comprehension of history then those nutcases..smh
also Tim Wise and the other jagoff are just trying to make a buck off the black obsession with race and skin color. The Afrocentrics do this also. Idiots like Bobby Hemmitt, Molefi Asante and many many other snake oil salesmen feed of the ignorance of black people. It makes me puke, honestly.
The only qualifications you need is to write on a 12th grade level, be somewhat entertaining and be able to make up several different poits of view on various subjects with one goal in mind…..BLAME WHITEY! and you too exploit the lower class of African Americans by filling their minds with “feel good” history whilst you fill your pockets with their hard earned(needed) cash…..smh It’s downright criminal.
Signed,
Reality
P.S.
I’m calling
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Great White:
Again why this strange need to point out that Jensen and Wise make money at what they do? Most of the racist messages Americans receive from television and school have way more serious money behind them – how come you do not point that out? Or what about how the rich use race to divide the working class for their own material gain?
Also, are we to assume from your comment that whites do NOT hold Eurocentric mythical views, that they do NOT fill their minds with a feel-good history and that the people who impart this history make no money at it?
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With regard to:
“So it’d be easier for me if you just spelled out what you think you see there”.
Making incoherent posts doesn’t mean you’re deep, J. And making them out of poorly clipped quotes of other peoples’ words with no contextualization doesn’t qualify the original author’s work as “hash” “.
Preamble:
What I find intersting Thad in your conversation here that it is very rarely based upon the ‘facts solely’. Far too often there is an attempt at ‘sarcasm’ which is definitely not befitting for a lecturer, in my humble opinion at least.
When others you converse with suddenly begin to use your tact, it seems to ‘get up your back’ slightly ha ha ha.
Well there’s one way to resolve this matter follow the ‘golden rule’ ha ha…and see if it makes a difference, when dialoguing here.
Anyhow back to the point at hand.
The Argument:
Your initial comments about Jensen were made several weeks before Abagond’s post here.
I brought them forward to show that they are inconsistent with what you said before and at a more fundamental level for me at least it represents the ‘intellectual dishonesty’ you often bring forward.
With regard to ‘intellectual dishonesty’, I think this comment
“This, among other reasons, is why I consider these two gentlemen (Wise & Jensen and certain similar specimens) as being the cleverest white supremacists of all”.
Furthermore what is also strange, but it seems as if you did not observe the apparent contradiction.
You went on to assert in this thread:
“.. Correct me if I’m wrong here, Abagond, but don’t you and J believe that humanism is just another illegitimate white shuck, made up to protect white priviledge?”
Now when Jensen asserts he is fighting that ‘Whites’ embrace ‘humanism’ the very concept that you suggest that Abagond and I believe is refuting. You suggest incredibly that Jensen et al are the cleverest white supremacist of all’.
As I have said previously (ie euro-centred) and as Abagond hinted at in another post. I think the very fact that you were raised as ‘White’. Its the very thing you cannot let go off, and this is the same thing Jensen is calling on you to do and it causes you an offence, because of its revolutionary implication.
And this is in essence the position you attempt to bring here – but obviously you cannot say that
I hope this has clarified to you what I am thinking at this time. Since you did ask:
“So it’d be easier for me if you just spelled out what you think you see there??
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From Robert Jensen… “A third fear involves a slightly different scenario — a world in which non-white people might someday gain the kind of power over whites that whites have long monopolized…. Many whites fear that the result won’t be a system that is more just, but a system in which white people become the minority and could be treated as whites have long treated non-whites. This is perhaps the deepest fear that lives in the heart of whiteness. It is not really a fear of non-white people. It’s a fear of the depravity that lives in our own hearts: Are non-white people capable of doing to us the barbaric things we have done to them?” http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/%7Erjensen/freelance/fearsofwhitepeople.htm
Abagond: “At the heart of their fears is a “fragile sense of white self-importance”. Their history runs with blood: they did not get to where they are through fair play but through naked violence. Whites do not want to face up to it but at some level they all know it is true.”
I admit that I have often deeply thought in some instances that there would be an all out race war in the US… my imagination does go that far… before Obama was elected I did wonder if he didn’t win what would happen in the US, how black Americans would respond, how race relations would play out. I don’t think we are a country (white majority) who is ready yet for truly accepting people of color as equals, and I don’t think people of color feel accepted as equal.
I will say that I agree mostly with the above comments in my post by Jensen and Abagond. White people fear retaliation. Even though white people who live now were not the enslavers of the past centuries, and black people now were not the slaves – there is in my opinion as it has crossed my mind, the true fear of what happens when the scales of power tip.
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Thad quoted me as saying:
“I am with Ankhesen on this one. Seeing both Thad and No Slappz jump on Jensen was one of those amazing moments. Jensen must have struck a nerve, which means he is righter than I thought. Which means I should probably read his book on whiteness.”
Then he said:
“As for something No Slappz and I “agreeing”… Read the posts. No Slappz thinks Jensen’s a loon. I think he’s fundamentally right but wrong to tell people to take a position which he himself cannot and will not take.
If you think those are the same points of view, my friend, you are really not paying attention to what your commentators write.”
I did not say you AGREED with No Slappz but that you both JUMPED on Jensen.
What made it AMAZING was the very fact that while I expected No Slappz to mostly disagree with Jensen I expected you to mostly agree. But despite that No Slappz called him and Wise “hucksters” and “frauds” while you called them “hustlers” and “one-trick ponies”. And you yourself called Tim Wise a “huckster”, the very same word that No Slappz used.
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Patriica Kayden said:
“Yes, Whites did get most of what they have through oppressing other races. But I wonder can an argument be made that there was something weak about the other races and something strong about Whites that allowed this to happen.”
It is called guns and sea power.
If it was something inborn in whites it would have made itself plain thousands of years ago, not just during the past 500. If there were a true “master race” it would be as plain as day because the rest of us would have been slaves to it since the beginning of civilization.
Genetic time – tens of thousands of years – is on a much vaster scale than historical time, so genes cannot explain the ups and downs of history. It is like trying to say whether it will rain tomorrow morning based on tree rings.
“My point is that Blacks have to focus on being successful regardless of White supremacy. We cannot change history or facts. We have to do the best we can with what we have and not use racism as a crutch. Focusing on what Whites have done in the past does little to help Blacks focus on what we must do now and in the future to live successfully DESPITE whatever nonsense Whites (or others) throw our way.”
This is like the advice that Booker T Washington gave a hundred years ago: keep your head down and do the best you can – complaining about racism or thinking about it too much is a waste of time. A good thing not all blacks followed his advice – otherwise there would have been no civil rights movement.
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With regard to:
“What made it AMAZING was the very fact that while I expected No Slappz to mostly disagree with Jensen I expected you to mostly agree. But despite that No Slappz called him and Wise “hucksters” and “frauds” while you called them “hustlers” and “one-trick ponies”. And you yourself called Tim Wise a “huckster”, the very same word that No Slappz used”.
I am not in the least surprised.
Those of the ‘Black Nationalist’ and/or at least those of the more ‘radical’ tradition who may not describe themselves as such, often suggests Whites (from all different persuasions, countries even) will often fight amongst themselves. However, they will stop the ‘in-fighting’ and draw a ‘concensus’ if their ‘country and/or White hegemony’ etc is at stake and being threatened. In this instance they will rally together, irrespectives of their views, politics etc.
This is just another example but on the micro-level, in my humble opinion.
Notwithstanding that I was alerted to Thad’s position several weeks in advance on the thread on Fanon.
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Tuesday said:
“White people fear retaliation. Even though white people who live now were not the enslavers of the past centuries, and black people now were not the slaves – there is in my opinion as it has crossed my mind, the true fear of what happens when the scales of power tip.”
I do not think retaliation is likely, but what is likely is a weakened form of the racial oppression that whites practise now. Because that is just what whites are teaching by their example. Just like how the Palestinians are suffering for the lessons Hitler taught the Jews.
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J:
I agree. And so does Jensen in effect: there is a certain rock-bottom racism that nearly all White Americans share.
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abagond, you wrote:
Just like how the Palestinians are suffering for the lessons Hitler taught the Jews.
You obviously, obviously know absolutely NOTHING about Jews, Israel and the so-called Palestinians. Really. You know nothing.
Your views on whites are driven by the standard black victimology neurosis. But when you get into the Jewish subset of whites, your views slide into psychosis.
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Irrespective with regard to retaliation is possible or not.
My mind is reminded of the principle of the karmic force or in scientific terms ‘to every reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction’
Be that as it may….
The Palestinians are treated cruelly in ‘Palestine’. I would describe it as a process of genocide
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No Slappz:
In 1960 the three most racist Western states were South Africa, America and Israel, in that order. South Africa and America have made a good deal of progress since then, but Israel has not, making it now THE most racist Western state. What Black Americans go through these days is NOTHING compared to what Palestinians go through.
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And with regard to the comment:
“You obviously, obviously know absolutely NOTHING about Jews, Israel and the so-called Palestinians. Really. You know nothing.
Your views on whites are driven by the standard black victimology neurosis. But when you get into the Jewish subset of whites, your views slide into psychosis”.
I would aver that your view about the Jews/Israel is in keeping with upholding ‘White Supremacy’.
On a personal level, European Jews have always been a part of teh White racial Supremacy hegemony.
And this book is a good starting place to explain why:
Edward Said: The Question of Palestine
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*waiting for ad hominem rant about Edward Said from No Slappz*
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Jesnsen wrote:
From Robert Jensen… “A third fear involves a slightly different scenario — a world in which non-white people might someday gain the kind of power over whites that whites have long monopolized….
Inasmuch as Jensen is a silly professor of journalism or something related, he is one of the masses who cannot and does not grasp the true meaning of science, engineering and technology.
He does not understand the power of science and engineering. Due to his massive ignorance of this dominating aspect of life, he offers his utterly silly thoughts on what he believes scares whites.
Even if a few whites agree with him, their agreement means nothing. Why? Because whites are remarkable innovators and builders.
Here’s how it works. Blacks and muslims do not know how to build anything. Not ships, not planes, not cars, not cell phones, not computers, not buildings. Can’t produce energy. Can’t farm. Nothing. Nothing.
The difference is stunning.
However, this widespread ignorance is self-imposed. Hence, as long as blacks and muslims live as they have for the last few centuries, they will never achieve dominance anywhere except in the regions where they are already the majority of the population.
Meanwhile, whites, asians and non-muslims will simply move away from blacks and muslims if the climate for living becomes unacceptably oppressive.
As I have said, every year in sub-Sahara Africa, drinking dirty water kills 5 MILLION Africans.
People who are too ignorant and too disorganized to develop large-scale clean-water systems for the benefit of their nations are obviously incapable of challenging predominantly white countries in any way.
Of course this sad state of affairs also means black and muslim nations will remain too poor to become major trading partners to the white and asian worlds.
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With regard to the comment:
“And so does Jensen in effect: there is a certain rock-bottom racism that nearly all White Americans share”.
I nearly forgot to say…spot on (that Jensen may well conclude in effect)
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j,
Edward Said is despicable.
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With regard to:
“waiting for ad hominem rant about Edward Said from No Slappz*”
ha ha!!
Personally, and I have learnt never to ‘under-estimate’ what some-one may or may not know (ie a dangerous form of ‘arrogance’).
However, I would expect a ‘rant’ like the one above but not an ‘intellectual debate’ with regard to the topic at hand
ie Blacks and muslims do not know how to build anything and on the mantra goes
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No Slappz:
Blacks can’t farm? Get a grip.
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abagond, you wrote:
What Black Americans go through these days is NOTHING compared to what Palestinians go through.
Because you know nothing about Jews, Israel and the Palestinians, I will keep my comments brief.
In short, muslims and blacks have some delusions about non-muslim whites that are similar. I’ll leave it at that.
But muslims have taken their silliness many steps further, which is possible because of their concentrated locations in the middle east and the fact that muslims do not permit the existence of a free press in their nations.
The absence of a muslim free press is probably why you believe there is a people whose nationality is Palestinian.
However, to have a nationality, you first need a nation. Surprise, surprise, there has never been a nation of Palestine.
It is merely a region on the globe, like the North Pole.
Anyway, the so-called Palestinians who live in Israel are — get this — Israeli citizens. As Israeli citizens, they have the same rights as any other Israeli citizen.
There are 1.5 million arab Israelis who are muslim. There are about 5 million Israelis who are Jews.
The nations neighboring Israel — Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon — refuse to let the so-called Palestinians become citizens, even though many of those so-called Palestinians were born in Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.
Inasmuch as you have expressed your views on Israel and that your views toe the line drawn by the anti-Semitic muslim lobby of CAIR and every crackpot muslim leader in the world, it does not surprise me that you have zero idea of the realities of life in those muslim countries.
Due to your ignorance of life in those muslim nations, you are easily fooled into believing that Israel is the bad actor in the region.
But as I have said, muslims are incompetent at everything. Well, almost everything. They have done well in public relations. They can do nothing except rant about Jews and America. But they cannot produce clean water. The price of Islam is ignorance.
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@no_slappz,
what is your definition of Black victimology?
BET YA DON’T ANSWER!
Menelik Charles
London England
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abagond,
Show me a black nation in which black farmers produce enough to meet domestic needs and then have some left over for export.
I am not writing about subsistence farming that dominate most African nations. Meanwhile, the agricultural exports from Zimbabwe — mostly flowers — were cultivated on white-owned farms, which Mugabe seized and gave to blacks who ran them into the ground.
Blacks and muslims have never developed any technology of consequence.
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menelik charles, you asked:
what is your definition of Black victimology?
This website is it. The endless claim that every problem endured by blacks was or is caused by whites.
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abagond,
Looks like one of my posts was shot into space somewhere.
With respect to black farmers — virtually all are subsistence farmers.
Where are the black farmers who produce enough to meet the domestic needs of their nations with a little left over for export?
The agricultural exports from Zimbabwe were produced on white-owned farms that were seized by Mugabe who gave them to blacks who ran them into the ground.
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No Slappz said:
” The endless claim that every problem endured by blacks was or is caused by whites.”
I never said that.
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No Slappz:
Subsistence farming most certainly counts as farming. Unless, that is, you want to make a wild-ass claim and then when someone calls you on it you move the goalposts – just like you do with your mantra of “no successful black nation”.
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And still while we on:
“On a personal level, European Jews have always been a part of the White racial Supremacy hegemony”.
Before the formation of the Israeli state, European Jews were given opportunity to ‘colonise’ other areas of land in the British Empire like Guyana and Tanzania but these were rejected in favour of Palestine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_a_Jewish_state
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This thread is derailing. I am going to delete any comment after this point that is not about the post or comments ABOUT the post. No Muslims, no drinking water, no Palestinians, no Africa-bashing, unless you can relate it to the post.
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Menelik asked:
what is your definition of Black victimology?
no_slappz replied:
This website is it. The endless claim that every problem endured by blacks was or is caused by whites.
Menelik replied:
I asked for YOUR definition of Black victimology! Can I have it please?
Thanks
Menelik Charles
London England
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Abagond when you delete posts…I sincerely wish you would also take out the words of the troublemaker’s post.
Its so annoying, and in a way replicates what happens n the real world so often
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And if you want to know specifically what I am referring to:
“Do you want to know my humble opinion, J? It’s not befitting that an intelligent man with a university degree finds it impossible to write a simple, coherent English sentence”
I don’t see how you can leave this comment in, take out my response without their being a ‘disparity’.
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I don’t see how you can leave this comment in, take out my response without their being a ‘disparity’.
What, so you can tell my what you consider to be dignified behavior but I can’t do the same?
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@ The “Great” White Man
It is a human beings sworn duty to correct ignorance, my lost friend.
Funny story…I was just saying that. The echoic acoustics in here are fabulous!
Signed,
Reality…But for Real this Time
PS – Stop pretending to be me. Look, I know you’ve been told you can pose/pass as anyone or anything, O Great White Man, but alas…you can never be me or even remotely like me…no matter how hard you desperately try.
*smooch*
@ Abagond,
Do you ever get the feeling that, ahem, “some” people on here are simply fanboying you? Like, seriously…I’ve just noticed they are here A LOT. They don’t like you. They don’t agree with you. And yet…they just can’t keep their hands off you.
*blissful sigh* It’s so adorable!
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Here is the essence of my post which Abagond deleted – and I sincerely hope he does not do so again
As a lecturer, your ‘intellectual abilities’ are so incredibly poor. I suppose this is why you have to be so ‘arrogant’ to cover this inadequacy. Since you cannot hold or string a reasonable conversation with diverting into your own ‘mad’ oops I mean ‘Thad’ world
In the world of academia it is referred to as ‘critical thinking and reasoning’ – something which you lack.
On the issue with regard to my English, I had wrote previously had it ever occurred to you that the following could be the cause:
1. internet problems
2. dodgy keyboard
3. multi-tasking
4. I have more important things to do than proof-read what I type.
With your lack of critical thinking I would suggest no.
Abagond erred in my opinion to delete my post and what I had to say about you.
My point was leaving your ‘put down’ of me and whilst removing my ‘defence’, in essence is creating a disparity’ whcih cannot really be justified. This is what I was referring to, and it is not the first time Abagond has done it in this respect
However, again I do not expect you to be able to follow this line of reasoning.
As I said, ‘no wonder people are complaining about a fall in the standard of teaching’
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And with regard to:
“Sup? Not speaking English much these days or what?”
This reminds me of the type of thing that the White racist (even if he is married to a Black woman or one who is POC) over here would say in the UK, when describing a ‘foreigner’ who has difficulty with English.
Sums up my view of you Thad…Nicely
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Well golly gosh, J, tell me what you think. 😀
Dude, you’re posts above are unintelligible. No one’s calling for proof reading and grammar nazism, but if you want to make a point, take a look at what your writing, once in awhile, and make sure it’s at the very least a coherent sentence.
You’re really not in a position to comment on the fall of educational standards, J, when you write stuff like “As I have said previously (ie euro-centred) and as Abagond hinted at in another post.”
That’s simple gibberish.
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Co-sign J
Teaching isn’t what it used to be.
*inject sardonic tone of Margaret from UK Apprentice*
Patronising is the way to go when people disagree. A lot of commenters on this board have that particular Thad T-shirt.
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ha ha ha
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menelik charles, you wrote:
I asked for YOUR definition of black victimology! Can I have it please?
I gave it to you. Here it is again:
The endless claim that every problem and pathology endured by blacks was, or is caused by whites.
Again, this website is one place where it is possible to read the repetitious black testimony.
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Whoa, whoa, whoa…everyone on here has typos every now and again.
“It” has typos, and yet I don’t read Thad holding them against him. So…how come J got the “English” comment?
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By the way, Thad –
It’s spelled “condescension”…just FYI.
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No Slappz said:
” The endless claim that every problem endured by blacks was or is caused by whites.”
abagond wrote:
I never said that.
Your blog screams it.
Okay, maybe you admit blacks suffer a few self-inflicted wounds. But more than anything else, your blog says that life for blacks would become a string of sunny days and warm breezes if whites were to disappear.
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Ha ha ha!!
There is a slight difference Ankhensen, with Thad having no real arguments he has to refer to ‘put downs’ as a way to nullify what I say.
As I said, in one of my deleted post…You would not expect such ‘reasoning’ from a university lecturer.
If what I say is wrong, produce facts, and/or cogent arguments to demonstrate and counter the validity of my argument etc.
And personally I think this ‘English’ thing also reflects ‘racial overtones’ for the reason I have stated above
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By the way, Thad –
It’s spelled “condescension”…just FYI.
ha ha beautifully stated Ankhesen
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Thad said:
”Dude, you’re posts above are unintelligible”
speaking of falling education standards, there’s a difference between ‘your’ and you’re’ Thad. I mean, since we’re on people’s cases about proper English, frankly I’d hold my lecturer to a higher standard!
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Ank sez:
It” has typos, and yet I don’t read Thad holding them against him. So…how come J got the “English” comment?
Typos are one thing: everyone makes them. I mkae my share. Sentence fragments that just hang there in space, alluding to nothing, repeated again and again… that’s a problem that should be corrected.
I mean, take an honest look at the following statements and tell me if you can suss out what they mean:
So if it as you say, the strategy, and personally, if I was in the U.S. and I had both Jensen who I have heard off and you before me discussing such politics.
Furthermore what is also strange, but it seems as if you did not observe the apparent contradiction.
Your position is very clear to me of your position.
I mean, this goes far beyond typos, man.
J sez:
If what I say is wrong, produce facts, and/or cogent arguments to demonstrate and counter the validity of my argument etc.
See, that’s the problem, J.
When you cut’n paste a bunch of my quotes on Jensen which don’t contradict each other, then claim that they DO contradict each other while posting incoherent sentance fragments as your “proof” of this…
Well, hell, how can I respond?
So let’s start over. I’ll ask again: what do you see as contradictory in those statements you cut and pasted above?
I’m not asking you to tell me that you think I’m eurocentered. I’m asking simply and specifically: what is contradictory in those statements you cut?
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With regard to:
“So let’s start over. I’ll ask again: what do you see as contradictory in those statements you cut and pasted above”
If you can provide the necessary cut n paste words? I will duly give you a response.
Cheers!!
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J, I clarified that above, correct? You do know that The Pale is a part of Ireland? Or are you going to pick nits and claim that the folks living their in the 16th century “weren’t really Irish”?
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Thad and J:
Questioning each other’s command of English counts as an ad hominem. And, as you can see on this thread, it is completely derailing, which is why I was deleting many of your comments.
No one has perfect English. Even worse, I am the only here who has the power of re-edit. So it is a cheap shot to make the argument about that.
Thad: Your English is probably not as good as you think it is. You make some rather strange mistakes which I assume are Brazilianisms. Like you mix up “sh” and soft “ch”.
If something someone said is unclear, simply ask what the person meant. Simple as that.
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Cheers Abagond
but what you did not do was to to cut each of our posts, or more specifically our respective comments, equally, and thus creating a ‘disparity’
This was my only complaint.
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Fair enough. I went back and deleted some of Thad’s comments. If you notice any I missed, please tell me and I will delete it if it is about your English.
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Thanks!!!
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I also deleted some comments on Jews and Africa – as I declared those off-topic – not because I am AFRAID OF THE TRUTH.
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You’ll note I did ask what J meant several times, Abagond, and only got more fragments for my trouble. I could care less about gramatical errors ot “teh” instead of “the” and the like, but when we come to sentences like “So if it as you say, the strategy, and personally, if I was in the U.S. and I had both Jensen who I have heard off and you before me discussing such politics,”…
Well maybe you want to take a go at interpreting that one?
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It certainly showed up in 16th century Spain:
“Said the frying-pan to the kettle, get away, blackbreech!”
Miguel de Cervantes in Don Quixote.
Personally I think it was your way of attempting to insult Merrimay by the process of ‘innuendos’ something you are not averse to doing here.
I have never insulted anyone here with innuendos: I’ll insult them straight to their face if I think they need to be insulted.
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With regard to your comment Thad, you did not respond so I was unable to answer.
Personally you say you see Jensen and his kind as the cleverest White supremacist of all.
However, with regard to the above, I see you as a ‘White racist’ who is in fact far more dangerous than No_Slappz
in his politics.
This is what I meant if I had to make a choice between Jensen and you…It would definitely not be you with your racist rhetoric.
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And worse still, you married an apparently ‘conservative’ Black woman’ and that you come here as the Great White Man caught up in racist ideologies and think you can speak to black people as if you know it all.
This I state humbly and sincerely!!
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The pot calling the kettle black, or any variation thereof, is most definitely not a racial slur. I believe Shakespeare even used a variation of the phrase in one of his plays. Whether or not Thad intended it to be racist I can’t say, but the phrase itself is not.
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This is what I meant if I had to make a choice between Jensen and you…It would definitely not be you with your racist rhetoric.
And what racist rhetoric is that, precisely?
And worse still, you married an apparently ‘conservative’ Black woman’ and that you come here as the Great White Man caught up in racist ideologies and think you can speak to black people as if you know it all.
This I state humbly and sincerely!!
Well let me state this humbly and sincerely: I have never claimed to know it all.
Your problem with me doesn’t have a think to do with any presumptive claims on my part to omniscience. Your problem is that I don’t agree with you regarding what you call “afro-centrism”.
Period.
You’re simply pissed that I disagree with you.
As for coming off as a “great man”, I’m not the guy who claims I have a deep inner knowledge of what a billion and a half people in the world want and need based upon the melanin content of my skin: that’s you.
You talk a nice line about revolution, J, but I have yet to see you propose anything that could truly be called revolutionary.
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O’D
It is very obvious no-one was asking if the PROVERB was a racial slur – unless it is your intention to come here to ‘defend’ Thad.
However, Thad being the character he is, he used it as ‘racial insult’ against Merrimay.
This is why he re-worded the proverb to suit his own ends.
And even when I asked him do the Irish say it the way he described it to Merrimay??
He had the temerity to say, ‘Yes’!!’, which is the usual ‘intellectual dishonesty’ on his part
This is not the first time he has done this. As I said previously, his posting style is rather predictable
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…and just because it may have been lost in the italics above, would you like to tell me what racist rhetoric I’m supposedly spouting?
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[Roll eyes]
Apparently, J thinks I’m an intellectually dishonest bastard because I used the word “ain’t” in the phrase.
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Better not say anything more, O: you’ll be banned from the cool kids’ table. 😀
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Thanks for the link Thad, but I would kindly direct you to read what I had to say to O’D.
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Still flaming up those strawmen, huh J?
Are you now claiming that I’m “intellectually dishonest” because the phrase isn’t word for word what was said in Ireland in the 16th century?
The saying, as O points out, is essentially the same in Shakespeare. It can be found, as I pointed out, in Cervantes.
The POINT, my dear J, being that this phrase was most certainly not invented in the 19th century U.S. as a put down for blacks.
And YES, the 16th century Irish did indeed have their own version of it, which I have rendered to the best of my ability, my linguistics references (unlike my gender references) not being conveniently to hand.
Now would you like to stop picking nits or do you have some more that you’d like to go for?
(Oh no! I said “picking nits”!!! I guess that must mean that I’m insulting you with innuendos by implying that you’re some sub-human animal that grooms by picking lice! Oh, where will the denigration every end? Oh fuc… I just said “denigrate”! More anti-black insults. Good thing I didn’t say “jewelry”: Then you could get me for being anti-semetic, too.)
😀
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Do a Wiki for “Roberta Close”, Abagond, and realize that the photo is of a 46 year old woman with no make-up.
Not bad.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberta_Close
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We both seem to have our threads switched here.
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Thad said:
“You’ll note I did ask what J meant several times, Abagond, and only got more fragments for my trouble. I could care less about gramatical errors ot “teh” instead of “the” and the like, but when we come to sentences like “So if it as you say, the strategy, and personally, if I was in the U.S. and I had both Jensen who I have heard off and you before me discussing such politics,”…
Well maybe you want to take a go at interpreting that one?”
I had no trouble understanding that comment. This is an unedited medium, unlike books or newspapers. You have to go with the flow and make allowances.
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So maybe you’d like to interpret that one, Abagond? I sussed that he meant “So if it is, as you say, the strategy…” and I think that he means that if he were in the US and was with Jensen and I together discussing politics he’d do or say something. But what that something is ain’t in the sentence. Nor is it in the paragraph.
So what is it?
You get pissed when I put two words in in Portuguese because you say it’s not intelligible to people.
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@ Thad… @ J @ Abagond…. The irony here is that I find this blog to be predominantly anti-racist. We find ourselves on common ground, yet we have different ideas about the topic. It’s ironic. We argue among “ourselves. We’re preaching to the choir (so to speak). As members of the choir, we suffer infighting because our opposition will not engage us. Moreover, mainstream society (our true opposition) is unaware. They are like zombies floating aimlessly through the vacuum of society without ever paying attention to detail.
Nonetheless, I do feel that this blog does cause others who may have otherwise never have considered an “alternative” form of thinking, some chance for “refleciton & pause.” In that, I support this whole heartedly.
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Hey, I’m apparently being flogged up one aisle of the Church of Christ Anti-Racist and down the other because I have the “gall” to opine that Jensen is acting like a hypocrite when he tells whites to give up whiteness, while pitching himself as a white anti-racist.
And you’re right, CoL: mainstream society couldn’t give a wet rat’s a$$ about any of us OR Jensen. Which is one of my main points (though if you say that too loud around here, you’ll be called a racist demagogue).
White people who are anti-racist SHOULD be talking about how to best do outreach. If, however, we say anything that indicates that we dislike Jensen’s way of doing things – perhaps because we feel we have good reason to believe it doesn’t work – we will be denounced as back-sliding racist f#$%s. So maybe we shouldn’t talk about it after all, just follow the duly annointed white authorities on racism, no matter how badly they are blowing the show.
I mean, you wouldn’t want to actually take the risk of disagreeing with a POC about anything having to do with race, no would you?
It seems to me that Abagond and J should praise heaven that they can piss and moan about so-called “white liberals”. If there weren’t any of those around, they’d actually have to deal with the “other” kind of whites, who they apparently find to be so much better.
Well, like I’ve said before, unless a miracle occurs (and I’ll be praying for one), they’ll be getting the good ol’ boys back in the driver’s seat before too long. The inability to create a real grass-roots, transethnic popular politics seems to be killing the Obama administration. Unfortunately.
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Just a question, by the way: given all the complaining about education that goes on here, is there anyone else other than me who posts on this board and who actually tries to bring these sort of discussions into the classroom?
Y’know, actually TEACH people – white people even – about race and racism?
J? Abagond? Merri May…? Anyone…?
(Are those crickets I hear chirping out there?)
Of course, you know, I couldn’t know a damned thing about getting recalcitrant white kids to contemplate race. I mean it’s only one of the main things I do for a living.
how arrogant of me to actually think I might have something to say about this topic.
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@Thad. there are a lot of misunderstandings via the written word. (Especially on blogs and forums) Writing 101 anyone? and still… difficulties in communication remain.
One thing I say to you, Keep teaching brother, keep teaching. The world could and can use more teachers like you.
While you may not condone the blessing, nonetheless you are blessed; GOD BLESS.
& Tchau, boa noite e que Deus te abencoe… Ate amanha.
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I deleted Leigh’s T-shirt comments as ad hominems.
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Cheers ColorofLuv but if we are moving beyond sentiment and trying to get to the facts, NOT in an objective way you see something else here.
With regard to Thad.
Now we are moving this issue merely beyond words on a computer screen and into the realms of the real world.
What I observe about Thad is that the things needed most to advance ‘Black people’ he usually directly opposes
Thad is:
1. Against Blacks having racial pride
2. He is against the idea that there is a ‘cultural unity’ throughout the African continent
2b. He is against the African centred scholars like Diop, which is fine. However, he does not really know anything about his theories except that what he has read .
2c. He constantly asserts a line taken from the ‘eurocentrics’ that I have a ‘romantic’ view of Africa. What does that mean?? In essence one stops forging and making cultural links to whence from you came
3. He refers to Marcus Garvey directly as a fascist
3b. He defends scholars like Gilroy who IS ‘eurocentrist;’ and who has a go at Blacks for maintaining the ideology of race, and who sees Garvey as a facist, and is also against the concept of ‘race’ for Blacks.
3c. His wife instead of writing about ‘unity’ between Blacks in America. She chooses to see ‘division’, just like her partner.
4. He is against the idea of getting rid of ‘White privilege’
4b. He accuses Abagond and I for our lack of support for the concept of ‘humanism’. Here read he does not wish to embrace the appropriate ‘humanism’ that will bring about ‘equality’.
4c. He does not accept that there is a difference in the unemployment rates between Whites and Blacks in U.S
5. He minimizes rape during slavery
5b. He minimises what happened to the Black women during slavery to being the same as the White experience
6. He minimises the genocide of the Native American
7. He is against affirmative action in Brazil
8. He changes a common proverb, so as to score points against one of the Black posters so as to use a racial insult
8b. In a similar way he uses the word gringos at me and others here
There are many more things I could say, about his intellectual dishonesty like when he lied about his Black students being against American Afrocentrics so as ‘score points’ – there were no such students.
When you look at the totality of the aforesaid points. This is just off the top of my head – it sums it up all really. This could well be the Great White Man amongst others here I am referring to:
It would be good for Blacks/POC if Thad did continue to teach his thing – but elsewhere. What he has to say, regarding his own opinion is fine, but when that is applied to the Black race is very detrimental.
If he is serious about challenging ‘racism’, – I do not think he is. A good place for him to start is with places like Stormfront.
Finally and historically, Malcolm X warned of such ‘White individuals’ like Thad who keep trying to define the Black experience and tell us what we should or should not be doing, in the hope to keep us in our place.
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@abagond:
Thank you. I appreciate it. 🙂
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abagond, you wrote:
Again why this strange need to point out that Jensen and Wise make money at what they do? Most of the RACIST MESSAGES Americans receive from television and school have way more serious money behind them
What racist messages?
Or what about how the rich use race to divide the working class for their own material gain?
The Rich? Who?
Bill Gates? Warren Buffett? The Rockefeller family? The Ford family? The Walton family? The Hewlett family? The Packard family? Michael Dell? Steve Jobs?
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Are you serious?
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Quite interesting how J consistently distorts my views.
Let me put them in perspective.
1) I think racial pride is pernicious for ANYONE. White Pride doubly so because it’s based on white supremacy. But any “race pride” is ultimately reaching for fascism in my book. Ditto for ethnic and national pride.
2) I’m against the idea of “cultural unity” at any continental, national, or racial level. Culture’s natural tendency is to split, change and diversify. For you Xtians out there, this is the underlying point of the story of Babel. There has never been African or European cultural unity and there never will be, unless it’s enforced at gunpoint. The last guy to try this at a continental level, by the way, was named Adolf Hitler.
3) I follow black British scholar Paul Gilroy when it comes to Garvey. Like Gilroy, I don’t think Garvey was a fascist per se. I do think Garveyism is based on authoritarian notions of top-down rule which seek to use a vanguardist elite to mold a people into what Garvey considered to be appropriate. In its rejection of cultural diversity and democratic discourse, it’s presumption that there is one “correct” cultural and political model for black people to adhere to, worldwide, and in its cultivation of an exagerated cult of personality, Garveyism is quite similar to fascism on several points. Garvey himsefl found this to be the case and often bragged that he himself had invented fascism only to have Mussolini steal it from him. As Gilroy says “Whether or not this is true – and it probably isn’t – it’s significant that Garvey THOUGHT it to be true”.
3b) Paul Gilroy is currently one of the world’s best known and most respected African diasporists. While J might not like him for his critique of Pan-Africanism, it’s an ad hominem to call him “euro-centric”, a term which seems to be J’s stock insult for anyone who intellectually disagrees with him. Gilroy, as I’ve gone to some pains to explain above and elsewhere, DOES NOT call Garvey a fascist. He does believe that Garveyism is authoritarian and anti-democratic. Gilroy, like me – and, I should point out Wise, Jensen, Abagond and pretty much every modern anti-racist, is against the concept of race as a biological structure which determines people’s behavior, PERIOD.
3c) Ana’s views are her own and can be accessed by anyone who cares to read them on our blog. It’s safe to say, however, that she doesn’t believe that race paves over other outstanding identitary differences such as gender, class and nationality. J apparently thinks that it’s outré that a husband and wife research team have similar views and interests.
4) It is an absolute and complete lie that I am against getting rid of white privilege and, given the discussion above, only a deeply dishonest or cynical person could claim this. My entire critique of Jensen (to mention only one example) is based on the notion that Jensen’s USING white privilege to show-case his rather jejeune views of racism and that this is hypocritical. If you want to get rid of white privilege, you can’t go about saying “Hey! Pay attention to me! I’m a WHITE anti-racist!”
5) “Minimizes”? Gender relations during slavery were actually WORSE than the term ‘rape’ can comprehend. I’ve made that point about half a dozen times now on several discussions here, J. What part of that argument do you not understand? The only way in which this statement of yours could possibly be seen as true would be if you twisted it around in the following sense: it is true that I find the concept of “rape” to be too limited and too small in scope to cover the many different forms of sexual domination which were the rule during slavery. In that sense, yes, “rape” is minimized: the CONCEPT, not the act itself.
6) Again, this is strictly bullsh@#. I follow several Native American scholars such as Vine Deloria Junior and Ward Churchill in trying to use international law and philosophy to quantify what precisely constitutes genocide against the Native Americans as a whole (and not specific Native American peoples, such as the Pequods in the 1600s) by the United States Government (and not by vague socio-political groupings like “white people”). This was, indeed, the context of the original post, as people might remember. In that sense, the strongest case which can be made involves U.S. forced assimilation and reservation allotment policies which stretched from the post-Civil War period to around the late 1930s, with a reprise from 1952-around 1970. People who rail generically about “the white man’s genocide of the Indian” are typically barroom demagogues. I’m much more concerned with ACTUAL, PROVABLE genocide which can be used as the basis for legal restitution.
7) Minimizes? Unlike you, with your nonsense from the sidelines, I’m actually involved in IMPLEMENTING affirmatve action. I would like to see Brazil apply a model more along the lines of that used to good effect in the United States in education the 1970s and ’80s instead of our current model of racial quotas. So if that’s “minimizing affirmative action”, pretty much every affirmative action activist in the U.S., black or white, can be accused of the same, for the model I want is the model they are struggling to protect in the U.S.
8) See above. This is just a lie.
8b) “Gringo” is neither a racial nor pejorative term. It is a term which is a simple synonym for “foreigner” and it’s used in that sense throughout Brazil and most of Argentina. I see no reason to censor that word simply because J – a man who doesn’t speak Spanish or Portuguese and who has apparently never even travelled to South America – declares that he thinks its racist. My suggestion to J is maybe he should stop watching so much American T.V. and listen to how South Americans actually use the term. It is as “racist” (or not) as “latino”, a term which J and Abagond use to consistently lump all non-Canadian and U.S. Americans into one big homogenous boat and which MANY Brazilians find offensive precisely for that reason.
Furthermore, I AM A GRINGO. I’ve used this term to describe myself many times. How I’m somehow being pejorative to J and neutral to myself is beyond me, but perhaps that’s yet another form of mystic understanding which is only available to those, like J, who claim to be non-eurocentric. 😀
But I’ll compromise: censor “latino”, “hispanic” and “Latin American” J and I’ll happily give up “gringo”. It’s hypocritical for you to be able to articulate a “them” but be offended when “they” do it right back at you.
There are many more things I could say, about his intellectual dishonesty like when he lied about his Black students being against American Afrocentrics so as ‘score points’ – there were no such students.
Let’s speak about “intellectual dishonesty” for a second.
For four years, I taught at a school in RdJ with a large African immigrant community. My comments were specifically about my Angolan and Cabo Verdean students during that period, as well as about Ana’s Mozambiquean colleagues and about Mozambiquean and
Angolan students I have met since then in my new job.
NONE of these students believes that American blacks in (and just to remind J, “American” means people who live in the Western Hemisphere, not the U.S.) have a particulalry deep or nuanced understanding of Africa. None of them believe that American blacks “naturally” comprehend African history or politics without studying these, simply because their ancestors came from there. Several of these students have expressed dismay that American blacks seem to think of Africa in condescending terms that they’ve picked up from Hollywood movies and bad literature.
As far as I know, J hasn’t attended any of my classes. He knows none of these students. He doesn’t even speak the language which they communicate in.
J PRESUMES that I’m lying because he’s precisely the sort of faux Pan-Africanist which these young men and women dislike. It’s thus more comfortable for him to write my experiences off as lies than confront the possibility that his Anglo ideology regarding Africa might have some flaws in it.
But here’s the big question I have…
If I’m lying and I’m a cheap racist, why do I post here under my unvarnished, real name? My docs and CV are quite easily accessible.
Unlike pretty much every other poster here, I’m willing to talk about race honestly, to the best of my knowledge and ability and ASSUME the consequences, whatever they may be.
So why would I bother to lie about my personal experiences?
Unlike J, I have nothing to hide.
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I am not going to answer all of your points because what you have said here will still keep Blacks in a ‘subservient’ position to whites.
….However, you did lie when I asked about your students. Eventually you then went on to say that they had never read any Afro-American Afrocentrics, because they do not speak or read English – and in essence you do not have any students that have a ‘negative view’ of Afro-American Afrocentrics
I suppose you are going to deny and distort this reality just like when you used the racial insult
“If that ain’t the pot saying the kettle has a sooty arse”
Indeed you are correct you have nothing to hide because you have revealed clearly who you are.
As I said previously, ‘Whites’ like you are the biggest danger and threat
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abagond,
Apparently you cannot name those Divide-and-Conquer Rich who exploit the “working class.”
Really. Who are these people? If they exist, they must have names.
Toyota? Is that one of the names? Toyota has operated plants in the South and in California. Is that an example of exploiting the working class?
And those racist messages on TV and in school? Really. What messages?
The only message I get from the NY City Dept of Education is the message about student performance on standardized tests.
As you might know, the kids are taking ELA tests today and tomorrow, and next week they take the math tests. If you want to know how the scores, I can tell you now.
Almost all the white and asian kids will score in the top half, and many will score in the top quarter. Meanwhile, most of the black and hispanic kids will score in the bottom half. Some will score in the just above the mid-point and a handful will score in the top quarter. Same old, same old.
TV messages? With respect to TV comedies, dramas, and other non-sports programming, I see no difference between black characters and white characters. With respect to sports programming, blacks more-or-less dominate the TV screen.
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Abagond I really think you need to reign in Thad, he gets out of control, he constantly insults and tries to finnacle his way out of it.
I’m not buying it!
Too bad about the time difference, I missed following up because I was asleep.
I’m not satisfied with his explanation of the ‘sooty’ part
This man uses his self inflicted status as a ‘gringo’ , his anthropology P.H.D and a black wife as a pass to tell us who the heck black people are or what our experiences are supposed to be. Reality revokes it unfortunately, his little theories don’t fit in neatly with reality. How dare I a black woman tell him otherwise. When insults don’t work he reverts to his usual belittling self.
I for one am sick of it!
J, you’re right on the money with this guy.
Abagond you’re almost molly coddling him like No Slappz. Must take a harder line, but hey it’s your blog 😦
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Count me in the pro-Thad crowd.
You’ve got to have people around who are willing and able to point out the strong politically- and culturally-based assumptions underlying your positions (especially on this blog).
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MerriMay, J, Thad:
I deleted nearly all the sooty arse comments.
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@J,
“He is against the idea that there is a ‘cultural unity’ throughout the African continent”
I think one of the first steps in opposing racism against African peoples and their descendants is to emphasize that they aren’t all the same. The cultural diversity of whites is widely recognized and celebrated. People love to discuss the distinctiveness of the French, Germans, Italians, Southerners, and so on. Why shouldn’t black ethnicity (e.g. African American, Hatian, Nigerian) be given the same respect?
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I agree with FG. I don’t know how this will affect racism, but I agree with the idea in general.
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Count me in with FG as well.
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Thad, FG and Natasha, what gets me about some of these positions is it seems it has to be either/or, but sometimes it can be both.
When I have made a point about similarities in SOME drumming and dancing in sub sahara African tribes, it doesnt negate that they all had unique properties to each culture in each tribe.
Same with the point about black Haitions, Cubans, Brazilians, Jamaicans, Puerto Ricans etc. Sure they are all differant, and unique with their own DNA culteral signiture , but the connections of various beats and dances with sub sahara Africa are unmistakable ( for example there was one African youtube I brought in where the solo drummer goes into a beat that is identical and is the predecesor to the 2/3 cascara/clave pattern you find in afro Cuban music).
You know, some modern African music is influenced by James Brown funk and cuban music so its going in reverse now also
I mean, its funny, we all accept that Europe has these differant cultures ,yet ,they all write symphonies, ballets and operas under the banner of classical music, with very similar cultural paramaters in that term classical music.
For me, sub sahara African is the same way. Each tribe has their unique traits and cultural DNA, but, there is a unifying thread about some of the drumming and dancing, that is part of the sub sahara African genius .
Thad, we have talked about how “gringo” could depend on the intent of the user, and , your intent on here is to use “gringo” as a condenscending and flipant put down. You cant hide behind “Im a gringo”, you feel that if you talk to people outside of Brazil that dont have your experiance down there, its ok for you to behave like some people you can see in Rio, who throw out “gringo” as an insult.
I always find that when they do that , its because they have a weak argument and have to retort to these “gringo” insults
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@ FG
I also agree with what FG said. I can never agree with people who say cultural or ethnic pride is a bad thing. I think without pride, cultures would just fade away or adopt new global customs. Then the world would be a rather boring place. Africa deserves to be recognized as a diverse continent, not just one single culture.
@ BR
Classical music may have spread throughout Europe, but you have to remember that each country has it’s own folk music that is very individual. The difference between Scottish music and Italian music is worlds apart. I don’t know anything about African music so it may all have similar drum beats, but I do know a little about European music and it varies greatly between countries.
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”I think one of the first steps in opposing racism against African peoples and their descendants is to emphasize that they aren’t all the same. The cultural diversity of whites is widely recognized and celebrated. People love to discuss the distinctiveness of the French, Germans, Italians, Southerners, and so on. Why shouldn’t black ethnicity (e.g. African American, Hatian, Nigerian) be given the same respect?”
Interesting.. and I agree…nice work if you can get it. Pointing out their differences I’m not sure eradicates racism, worth a try. Might feed into ‘dividing and conquering’ tactics the Boers employed in South Africa esp with Zulus and Xhosa. Can’t count how many times I’ve pointed out my South African roots to then be asked about catfish or yams or grits or plantain(sp?), had to look them up, had no idea what those were!
Aren’t all the same? Historically the context that blacks are given that rhetoric is when one is supposedly better than the other. Worked wonders in South Africa. That idea bombed! The colonial teachers left, tribal war ensued amongst the teacher’s pet tribes!
Or the commom one in London, Ghanains are cool and warm, its those Nigerians you gotta watch or the Jamaican yardies.
J said:
”He is against the idea that there is a ‘cultural unity’ throughout the African continent”
Agreed J, there is a unity amongst African people in London as a collective, bore out in the higher incidents of marriage, two parent homes than any other, higher achieving kids etc
Whites have the luxury of being seen as individual cultures as recounted over and over on this blog. Blacks not so.
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First, I never said that recognition of the cultural differences among those of African descent would eliminate racism, though I think it would help. The idea that there is an essential black way of thinking and acting plays into the idea that blacks are defined by their biological makeup in a way that whites are not.
Second, I’m skeptical that racism and colonialism is so extreme in this day and age that it’s potentially dangerous to recognize black cultural diversity.
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Cultural diversity among Africans? Europeans?
When it comes to reflecting on the past , European ethnicity and culture, the feelings of identification are tied to the contributions each ethnicity and culture has made to the world.
Over the centuries, especially since the Renaissance, every European nation kicked in some share of the intellectual advances that began at that time.
With respect to Africa, the contribution has been zero. Thus, whites do not care.
It boils down to the fact that African cultures have no cultural identity that demonstrates a contribution to the forward motion of humanity.
Very little diiferentiates one African ethnic/cultural group from another in ways that matter to whites.
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Agreed, London for instance is kinda segregated, the middle class powers that be are too segragated to probe deeper into what part of the world blacks in general blew in from though. Within even English culture as I perceive it(10 yrs here in lilywhite SW London) they do recognise a difference between cultures in their intrinsic ways, interestingly, caribbean culture,( Jamaica) they think plantain and weed,jerk chicken, rice’n beans, goat, gun culture, reggae that sort of thing. Whether that’s racist is up to folks to figure for themselves.
Africa, read Safari in SA, Botswana or kenya where a large aristocracy class still resides.
Different culture are further clarified when they jet off to their holiday homes in exotic predominantly african areas. South Africa, Kenya, or the Caribbean.
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With regard to your comments FG
Its a difficult place to start but here is an attempt nevertheless
1. Whites tend to say that POC all look the same and therefore can be reduced as one
2. White Western nations also agree that they derive a common cultural unity through Graeco-Roman civilisations
3. Today you have the EEC, which is based upon this concept – even though it is expanding
4. If you study African history and culture you will see themes that run throughout many African civilisations. and you can piece together as a ‘cultural unity’. This ‘cultural unity’ is in no way similar to the idea espoused in point 1
5. With the consciousness of ‘cultural unity’ then the African continent on a political level would also have cause to unite, especially as the world is moving into trade blocs, and improve their position collectively.
6. And finally with regard to ‘cultural unity’ many aspect of that also reside in the diaspora of the Americas and elsewhere. So for thsoe who wish to re-connect back to Africa, in whatever guise possible. Then that option is also
available for individuals and/or communities to do so.
7. And the reality on the ground is that the African Union (AU) has recognised the diaspora as also part of ‘Africa’. How could this be possible in the real world, without ‘cultural unity’??
I hope this has clarified what the ‘cultural unity’ is and why its also of paramount importance for survival??
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Thad,
You must be kidding me if you think what you (or anyone else types on a blog) is tantamount to great anti-racist work. What people do in their personal lives is none of your business, unless they choose to share, and frankly no one has any reason to believe anything personal anyone else says anyway. If you think posting here makes you some kind of “unique” White person, try again.
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I see that No_Slappz recognises correctly the concept of ‘cultural unity’.
There is also one thing I ommitted, what is dangerous is the idea that the countries in Africa have no ‘cultural unity’ – hence no connection. However, the ones in the West do, or at the very least it is ok not to raise this as a topic of debate.
I think Thad’s reasoning is way off the mark, and as I said in fact dangerous to Blacks in the real world (as opposed to the one of academia)
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Within even English culture as I perceive it(10 yrs here in lilywhite SW London) they do recognise a difference between cultures in their intrinsic ways, interestingly, caribbean culture,( Jamaica) they think plantain and weed,jerk chicken, rice’n beans, goat, gun culture, reggae that sort of thing. Whether that’s racist is up to folks to figure for themselves.
They do the same thing here(Toronto), except everyone hails from the Caribbean. They will ask you for example “what island are you or your family from”. Some things contain commonalities it would appear.
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Speaking of Thad,
Are you goingto post that which you would like me to clarify, since I am not sure what you are referring to specifically??
Cheers
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Good Points J
FG said:
”Second, I’m skeptical that racism and colonialism is so extreme in this day and age that it’s potentially dangerous to recognize black cultural diversity.”
Guess No Slappz has pretty much summed it up for ya, that’s how prevalent it is, he’s hardly in the minority!
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J,
What does African cultural unity consist of? Something more than drumming hopefully?
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FG,
You would have to study scholars like C.A. Diop
And yes music is one aspect
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Hi MMay,
Just to say I did respond to you but my post is in moderation, but I am going to play Cool Hand Luke if you stay online
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Guess your African students had a point Thad if say, a Westerner(black or white) were to make the comments below.
”What does African cultural unity consist of? Something more than drumming hopefully?”
smh
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There is definitely a great deal of cultural integration among the Euro-states. It looks to me like there is a big cleavage between Eastern and Western Europe, though. Furthermore, the Mediterranean (“Latin”) countries are often viewed as constituting their own cultural sphere.
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Well my Cool Hand Luke is not going to work MMay, I tried to give you some more insights but got blocked out again…drat ha ha ha
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With regard to:
“There is definitely a great deal of cultural integration among the Euro-states. It looks to me like there is a big cleavage between Eastern and Western Europe, though. Furthermore, the Mediterranean (“Latin”) countries are often viewed as constituting their own cultural sphere”.
However, Africa and Africa alone must remain divided with no ‘cultural unity’ connection.
Hmmm!!
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I don’t think either continent (or race) has a strong cultural unity. Do you think the average white American has much in common with the average white Serbian (other than those who consume large amounts of American pop culture and comment on American-oriented social issues blogs)?
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Went back and read Thad’s comments.
He’s on here critisizing the likes of Jensen and Wise for profiting off their anti-racist spiel(hey I don’t knock anyone who profits from a talent, its for a good cause;) ) they’re writing books and touring the country, they’re doing something.
Aren’t you doing the same here? point scoring I mean, you don’t need to teach people of color, bet those guys at stormfront are due a lesson, you say you lurk over there anyway.
Quit trying to divide POC, by pointing out that your African students complain of being misunderstood by their American black counterparts smells of rodent to me.
What on earth are you trying to achieve over there?lol
I think you’ll find in a wider context, their differences aren’t as vast as you’d like to make them seem!
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Just to say identity can operate on the micro, macro and global level.
There is a historical and ‘cultural unity’ between U.S and the UK.
At presnt I think the Serbians are not best pleased with US/NATO role in the war in the 90s(??). So maybe not the best of comparison FG.
Maybe Mira can correct me and also comment here.
However, I hope you get my point nonetheless…
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@ J
That’s ok, I’ve lost some comments to moderation too, haha
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With regard to:
“I’m not satisfied with his explanation of the ‘sooty’ part”
Abagond, I think MerriMay at least has the right to know in this respect.
‘The Irish do not say such a thing and it has very racist overtones to say the very least.
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Thank you!!
ha ha
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J:
I do not want another long-winded debate on sooty arse. It is WAAAAYYYYYY off topic. I will allow you and Thad and MerriMay ONE comment more each. After that I am deleting anything else.
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Thank you Abagond…
What you have allowed me is fine. So I guess its over to MerriMay then. I am not sure why this reminds me of a game show ha ha ha??
Though I would like to say just one thing, regarding your observation that it is way off-topic.
In a paradoxical sense although it may be way off topic it nevertheless does bespeak of what Jensen is talking about…if you follow
he he he
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Thanks Abagond, I shall await the response from him, if it comes that is…or if any pro Thad sider steps forward I’d be much obliged haha, just a thought, if I have it, sooty I mean,by that logic they do as well…ah irony
smh
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O, you dont really get my point. I said each sub sahara African tribe has there own DNA cultural imprint, but, there are drumming and dancing steps that have similarities throughout sub sahara Africa.
The exact same way you say there are differances with the Irish, the flamenco of the Spanish, the italian, the Russian, the French, the German, they all have similar parameters in writing ballets, symphonies and operas in classical music.
Why cant it be the same thing in the sub saharan African expresion ? Folkloric customs that are unique to each tribe, and, a common evolving cultural bond in some drumming and dancing expresions that evolved many years ago. After all, these cultural expresions actualy followed African slaves over to the colonising countries and proceeded to dominate their popular beats and dances (after all, European harmony followed the colonisers over and dominated the harmonic concepts , along with pentatonic melodies from Africa and some Indian influences also, though more subtile. ).
My ears can totaly hear this and understand this.
Someone here doubts drumming and dancing as anything less than the highest art or scientific expresion ?
Please think again of the massive contribution to mankind of drumming and dancing and of the massive contribution of sub sahara African in this respect and then the absolurly world dominating contriburtions of things like black Americans with jazz and funk and hip hop , disco /house and rock and roll and Cubans with rumba, mambo, cha cha cha, gua gua co, and Brazilians with samba , bossa, lambada etc and Jamaica with calypso and reggai , Dominican republic with the merengue etc etc
These are world recognised expresions of rhythm and dance that are astounding in their scope and depth and power in the human devlopement of culture and art.
I accept nothing less than ackowledging this in its fullest meaning.
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@ B.R.
Why cant it be the same thing in the sub saharan African expresion ?
Duh, ’cause Africans are, like, inferior or whatever. *twirls hair like a bimbo* You know, ’cause like, drumming and, like, dance steps or whatever, aren’t universal in any way…you know?
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BR
The point I was trying to make was that most cultures share something in common, Africa is the cradle of humankind so almost everything stems from it. The drumming in Africa spread to north Africa then to the Mediterranean and so on, but if I were to say bluegrass music is just a variation of African music, and in reality all music is, is an insult to all the cultures and many many years it took to change the music to what it is today.
So of course all of Africa shares a similar culture, and so does Europe, so I think we are agreeing, but I choose to look individually at cultures because it is more interesting to me. I can hear similarities between Angolan drumming and Irish drumming, so does that mean I should call call Irish music African? Or should Flamenco be labeled African as well? I look at Angolan culture differently than Kenyan culture because they are different and it is fun to learn about the differences.
As a fellow musician I can see why you appreciate the similarities in African drumming, but those similarities spread into Europe as well so you have to draw a line somewhere, I think I just draw that line sooner than you.
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Its not saying blue grass is African derived, its saying that is is informed, in its rhythmic expresion, by sub sahara African concepts that were brought over by slaves, but certainly has been scaled back , like a more simple 101 expresion of those concepts .
Irish drumming is very lively , but, its mostly drumming on the one with out the call responce syncopation of Angola drumming. Look at those River Dance dance steps…they all lead on the one “tickety tickety tickety tickety”, look at the basic tap time step (tap is a black American expresion invented with influences of Irish clog dancing, for sure, but filtered through the sub sahara African concepts of call responce rhythm), it has a syncopation with the strong accent coming in on ” and 4 and 1″.
Try to show me an Irish rhythm that has the call responce candence of the cascara and clave of Afro Cuban 2/3 clave. I can definitly show you a sub sahara African drumming you tube that the soloist plays exactly that cadence.
Flamenco has a syncopated feel, but, quite a bit is based on a 12 beat cycle that has to follow the linear phrase within that 12 beat cycle (more of the Arab influence from the Moors), not a call responce repeated phrase. Big differance in how you feel it.
These great rhythms and dances I mentioned like jazz, samba, mambo, etc , are a direct result of sub saharan African slaves being brought to those countries and how these slaves were influenced by the colonizing culture and how they used the instruments of the colonizers and worked with the harmonies of the colonizers but retained their cultural roots.
As I showed with the cascara and clave, the sub sahara African concept just dominated the rhythm and dance aspects anywhere it went. Yes, it got watered down compared to the original African drumming (rock and roll) or became simple 101 expresions of sub saharan African concepts (disco), but, the basic concepts are unmistakable for anyone who has spent time listening to feild recordings of sub saharan African tribes in the bush.
One has to really study and ask oneself, what are the differances in drumming concepts around the world , from Ireland, to India, to Tahiti, to Ghana,Japan, Nigeria, Kenya etc.Just as you can see a linear thinking concept of druming from Turkey to India, you see a polyrhythmic genius in sub sahara African drumming, a genius that has carried over into today and dominating the world scence.
We can really get to the bottom of this by watching youtubes, I invite you to bring in any that you think might prove your point and Ill analyse it from my point of veiw. Ive brought in various sub saharan African youtubes that proved there is a thread that runs through sub sahara Africa, and has referances to funk and Afro Cuban clave.I have already done my part, you have to prove your point.
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And here is the deep thing about those concepts.
The sub sahara African polyrhythmic drumming and dancing concepts has taught us the most about how, in music , how you can use it to totaly turn off the thinking brain and get in touch with the intuitive feeling side of our conciosness.
Recent scientific studies have showed us what African drumming and dance has expressed to us, that our intuitive subconcious is making our bodies react faster than our thinking brains.
The nature of the call responce ,and, syncopation, and layering of polyrhythms is about holding your part so the groove takes on a life of its own. You dont read a part, you dont follow a linear line in odd time signatures like Arab or Indian classical music ( south India does have some groove oriented beats that are close to some African grooves, but , just not the same, you cant find their cadences in these grooves that dominate the world like funk, hip hop, disco, ,mambo, samba). Even duple meter mid east music has melodies on top that go for uneven bar phrases.
While for sure there are other cultures that use this trance concept , it just isnt as powerful as the sub sahara African concept of getting in touch with feeling rhythm and dance instead of thinking about it (notice how all ballet or broadway dance is cheoreographed every step of the way).
You can see in candomble, voo doo, and santera, a point in the dancing and drumming, where a participant will dance to the beat to get in touch with their feeling to allow themselves to be possessed. They use these concepts of the drumming and dance to get in touch with that feeling.
This concept plays out even on the disco dance floor where we get out there and just let ourselves go and feel the music.Its a basic 101 concept but it relates difectly to the sub sahara African concept.
At its most sophisticated, you have John Coltrane and Miles Davis , delving into making their music more simpler in the harmony , shifting to modal scales so they can let the rhythm get more polyrhythic and not have to think so much about chord changes (European harmony concepts) to get into a much deeper way to “feel ” the music.Improvising over a polyrhythimic base is much more about feeling it than thinking of complex chord changes or linear phrase cycle or reading charts or hitting kicks.Layering syncopated polyrhythms , creating “grooves” and feeling these grooves so the music creates a life of its own ,that you can let subconcious intuition come out at its fullest, are the basis of sub saharan African genius.
Some people will say “every one had spears or every one had drums”…well, everyone in their cultures does have drums, but, its how they used them that is what counts.
By the way, Im not saying any other culture is any less, Im just showing what the genius of the sub saharan African drumming/dancing is about.
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Is this guy really a professor at the University of Texas in Austin. Gee whiz. Let me try to explain the following as simply as I can:
1) This is the internet, dude. It’s a universal medium. Lots of people of all colours all around the world use it. So when you post a piece about white Americans, don’t just call them white people. I am white, but not American. Please include me out.
2) Does the professor seriously believe that all white Americans share the same fears?
3) “I can be white, or I can be a human being.” Can I have that embroidered and framed, to hang up in my toilet? It’ll look very nice next to the article about Dan Quayle’s spelling adventures.
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@J However, you did lie when I asked about your students. Eventually you then went on to say that they had never read any Afro-American Afrocentrics, because they do not speak or read English – and in essence you do not have any students that have a ‘negative view’ of Afro-American Afrocentrics.
First of all, J, “Afro-American” means people of African descent who live in the Americas. We have plenty of Afro-American afrocentrics in Brazil.
Second of all, IIRC (I can’t be bothered to look this up – if you want to, go ahead) I did not use the word “afro-American”, I said “American” and by the context it was quite clear that I was talking about ALL the Americas, not just the U.S. YOU later came in and reduced this scope to the U.S.
I’m not a liar, J, simply because you can’t conceive of America outside the U.S., nor believe that people who read and write in Spanish and Portuguese have anything to say about pan-africanism.
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Thad, we have talked about how “gringo” could depend on the intent of the user, and , your intent on here is to use “gringo” as a condenscending and flipant put down. You cant hide behind “Im a gringo”, you feel that if you talk to people outside of Brazil that dont have your experiance down there, its ok for you to behave like some people you can see in Rio, who throw out “gringo” as an insult.
No, B.R., we haven’t talked about this, if by “talk” you mean really discuss it. I once claimed that your views on a topic were typical of those of an “old gringo”. You took that unilaterally as a put down, for reasons which I can’t fathom, given that comment is exactly as inculting (or not) as saying that someone’s views “are typically white”.
What you see as condescdening there isn’t the term: it’s the fact that I disagreed with your views regarding music in Brazil, categorizing them as typical of a guy who feels he’s in contact with “real” Brazilian culture, when there simply ain’t no such animal. And yes, this is a very typical view of gringos who’ve been here for a long time.
If I were to say “Wow, B.R.’s love of Bahian music is really typically ‘old gringo’. People who just arrived here yesterday don’t even know that stuff exists. You gotta be here a while to find it and enjoy it”, you would have no problem with the phrase.
Am I right? Be honest, please.
The phrase “old Gringo” itself is thus a simple descriptive: there’s no pejorative content to it. Whether or not you find my statement itself to be condescending is another point entirely, but I can’t see how that’s any worse than Abagond saying – as he does all the time – “your view is typical of that of a white liberal”.
Now, you claim that there are people in Rio who use “gringo” – simply and only – as an insult. Can you show me three examples, anywhere in the popular media? If you can, I will agree to stop applying the term for others on this forum.
When I mean “simple” I mean just that, though: the use of the term as an insult, in and of itself. Like, say, the “n word”. Not coupled with “stupid”, or “SoB”, or whatever. And you’ll note that I have never used “gringo” together with said pejoratives.
“Gringo” is used in Brazil like “white”, “black”, “man”, or “woman” as a simple marker of difference: it denotes what’s not us but what is among us. Saying one should ban it is the equivalent of saying one shouldn’t be allowed to talk of “latinos” or “whites” or what have you.
You are making a mistake when you claim that people say you can’t understand something because you are a gringo and claiming that “gringo” itself is thus a pejorative term.
While it’s indeed annoying when someone dismisses your opinion for what you are labled as, that doesn’t make the label itself necessarily offensive. People are saying on this board, all the time, that you can’t understand things because you’re white and male.
Does that mean “white” and “male” are offensive terms?
A term becomes offensive when it, in and of itself, connotates essential inferiority. “Gay” is thus not offensive “fa##ot” is. “Black” is not offensive: “n…..” is.
So, reiterating, if you can show me three examples from the Brazilian popular media where “gringo” is used by Brazilians as an insult implying essential inferiority, I’ll say “OK, you have a point” and not use it as a label for others anymore.
In spite of J’s claims, it really is not my intent to insult people here. Unfortunately, simply DISAGREEING with people is often enough to make them feel insulted.
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Regarding music:
For me, sub sahara African is the same way. Each tribe has their unique traits and cultural DNA, but, there is a unifying thread about some of the drumming and dancing, that is part of the sub sahara African genius .
Well, there are a couple of problems with that statement. First of all, not all peoples south of the Sahara can be classified as “tribes”. some were, in fact, multi-ethnic nations, in the same way that, say, Rome was. Can you see why that’s a problem for a guy who claims that peoples have unique cultural DNA?
Secondly, the DNA analogy itself is just wrong. DNA takes tens of thousands to millions of years change: culture changes in the space of a week. There is NOTHING in culture – not even language itself – which has the staying power of DNA over time. We can trace how one cultural formed EVOLVED into another, but that does not necessarily mean that an “essence” has been maintained between the two over time.
In the specific case at hand, you are claiming that there’s a cultural “essence” preserved in Zulu dancing which hooks up to a similar “essence” in Western Nigerian dancing, despite the fact that the last time these two groups shared a common root was some 7,000 years ago.
Culture simply doesn’t work that way. Nothing in it stays unchanged that long.
But if we take your “cultural DNA” metaphor seriously, we run into a THIRD problem: and that is that, like real DNA, the elements of culture are not “exclusive” to anyone people. Culture is invented and reinvented all the time. Simply because a people over here do a dance step that’s similar to one done by people over there DOES NOT mean that the two are essentially linked in privileged fashion. In the same way, just because certain Olmecs expressed a gene that gave them wide noses and full lips DOES NOT mean said gene needs must have come from Africa (anymore than all human genes can be said to ultimately have come from Africa).
So to reiterate, you claim that watching a Youtube clip and seeing Zulus perform a dance step which reminded you of samba means that there must be some deep essential connection there. No, it doesn’t.
To be fair, it also doesn’t mean that there ISN’T, but science and logic don’t work by proving opposites. For all we knoe, said dance step could have come from Sirius. SHOWING that to be the most likely hypothesis, however, is another thing entirely.
If you want to get into this argument again, though, we should really take it back to Ana’s old thread where it started.
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J sez:
J said:
”He is against the idea that there is a ‘cultural unity’ throughout the African continent”
Merri May sez:
Agreed J, there is a unity amongst African people in London as a collective, bore out in the higher incidents of marriage, two parent homes than any other, higher achieving kids etc
There’s a difference between relative unity among African immigrants in London – where they are all dumped into the same “African” box by the surrounding society – and unity of Africans in general.
In the U.S. and U.K., Brazilians get dumped into the “latino” box and guess what? That, too, results in far better and more intense interaction between Brazilians and other Non-U.S./Canadians than you’d ever see in Brazil. Even in NYC, it’s relatively hard to find an all-Brazilian affair: generally, even if it’s billed as Brazilian, it will be “latino”.
And Brazil is a country with 180 million people. I’m guessing things must be even more extreme if you come from, say, Burkina Fasso.
Immigrant experiences like that tend to diminuish cultural and ideological frontiers. That, however, means nothing to the cultural and ideological frontiers back home.
German and Jewish immigrants in early 20th century NYC, for example, got along just fine.
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Jasmin sez:
You must be kidding me if you think what you (or anyone else types on a blog) is tantamount to great anti-racist work.
You’re right, I would be crazy. So good thing I never said or even implied that, huh? 😀
What I HAVE said is that I deal with teaching white kids about race daily and that does indeed give me some practical expertise in this matter, different from the majority of folks here who’ve probably never tried any such thing.
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BR
I play Piano and stringed instruments, so drumming time signatures and rhythms are not my forte, but my point was there is African influence in most folk music, it is just watered down more in some forms.
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Thad, dont play bs games with me about your use of the word “gringo” to me, and set up some kind of stupid game like Im suposed to pass your test.
You used it many times to me, not just once, and in a condenscending way , and , dont play with me, I have lived in Brazil long enough to know exactly what someone means and how you were trying to smugly use it to me.
Look, I dont care if you have a problem with the analogy I used of “DNA”, it was only that. If you want to get anal about it, dont even pay attention to that.
But, how quickly you forget , I brought in lincs that showed Indian talas go back 4000 years, there is every reason to beleive , sophisticated drumming and dancing culture in sub sahara Africa would be evolving well before that, drums are the oldest known instrument to man.
Are you so academicly stiff and dense that you cant hear sub sahara African principles playing out in any modern disco from here to Calcutta? Thousands of years of culture playing out right up into the present. That sounds like culture that lasts and lasts and lasts.
This is ridiculas talking about music principles with someone who isnt even an amateur musician, who can only see cultural developement through books, but cant even tell what reverse clave cascara sounds like if he heard it in African drumming.
Some one who cant identify dance steps or shrugs it off like you could see it in other cultures.
Show me!!! Dont play your stiff argument about youtube, youtube is right here now to show us what music and dance look like and sound like.
Show me youtubes to back your points.
You are boring me when I have repeatedly proven my points with lincs and you tubes. You are just running off at the mouth as though because you say it, its true. You are no music expert to me.
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I will allow you and Thad and Merri May ONE comment more each. After that I am deleting anything else.
I made the original comment because I felt and feel that MerriMay was being hypocritical. I used the older version of the comment because I was aware that using “the pot calls the kettle black” was more likely to be valanced as “racist”. In any case, it was not my intent to racially insult Merri May by saying “That’s the pot calling the kettle’s arse sooty”, nor do I think that the statement or any version of it is, in fact, racist. This should be obvious, btw, in that if one of us is the pot and the other the kettle, we both by implication have the same problem. That is HARDLY an enunciation of white supremacy or white privilege.
It was not my intent to insult MerriMay by implying some arcane racist term which I’ve never heard of in my life (“soot” is a racial pejorative? That’s news to me). I do feel that given her often displayed arrogance and condescension, she is being a hypocrite when she calls me arrogant and condescending. THAT was the point of my comment.
For the record, pretty much any colloquialism can be twisted around in some way or another so as to imply racism. I have on several occasions called J a “nit-picker”, my point being that I feel he avoids dealing with real debate by focusing argument on minor details. But J could see that as racist code implying that he’s a monkey, could he not?
If this sort of thing is taken to its logical extreme, we need to abandon “denigrate” (after all, even though it’s root has nothing to do with color, people can indeed read it as implying black as bad) and even “jewelry”. “Jew”, like “soot” has been used as a racist epithet and of course “jewelry” can thus imply the old anti-semetic myth that Jews are wealthy.
To reiterate, it was not my intent to toss a racist insult at Merri May and I do not feel that I have. I do appologize for making her inadvertantly feel that way, however. I will refrain from calling Merri ANY names if she does the same with regards to me. If she can’t restrain herself, I’ll probably, eventually respond in kind and then sooner or later we’ll be back to where we are here because ANYTHING I’m likely to say will be warped by Merry into a white supremacist position.
But I’m willing to try politeness with her if she’s willing to so the same.
I would also appreciate it if J and MerriMay could lay off with lying about what I have said in the past in order to claim that I am a racist.
It’s one thing to claim that something I said or believe has racist implications I may not have thought through and that I’m supporting racism by pushing these ideas. Fair go, though as an adult human being, I also reserve the right to disagree. It’s another to say, as J has several times now, that I am in favor of the retention of white privilege or to say, as MerriMay recently has, that I think blacks who were sexually exploited during slavery were whoring themselves.
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B.R., I’m taking my response to you over HERE, where it’s more on topic:
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Since you did not answer my question, I will trod on as best as I can:
1. On Tue 9 Mar 2010 at 23:13:43
I posted this same article as Abagond. My source was
http://www.countercurrents.org/jensen090310.htm
This can be found in ch 5 of the Fanon thread, ‘The Lived Experience of the Black Man’
Your response was:
2. Thad on Tue 9 Mar 2010 at 23:35:09
“I have a very low tolerance these days for any white person who takes it upon themselves to be the spokesperson for “us”, whether the person is liberal or conservative.
I really don’t buy the concept that 200 million white americans are shaking in their boots over losing “white privilege”. Most white americans I know are far more worried about losing their jobs.
Racism works without hidden agendas. It works because people accept the way things are. Jensen needs to read Arendt on evil”.
And again, in another response you went on to say:
3. Thad on Wed 10 Mar 2010 at 01:03:01
“Jensen, to my mind, is attempting to speak for white people. Note his choice of words. I`d feel much better about it if he`d say “Most white people I know…” instead of “Here’s what I’ve concluded about our fears…”
Now these were the comments that you brought forth regarding Jensen. However, none of these arguments have been in raised in this particular thread.
So I concluded, what you said in the post of Fanon Ch5 regarding Jensen differs vis-a-vis the comments you have written on Jensen but this time from Abagond.
This is what I had difficulty reconciling.
I hope this is a lot clearer now. Since I am not sure how I can make it any clearer than this…
Finally as you can see I did not take your quote of context but represented it as it was stated elsewhere.
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J, I look at those snips and do not understand why you think them contradictory. Seriously.
I am not required to repeat everything that I’ve ever said about Jensen in order to say something new about him.
I do indeed think that the man attempts to be the spokesperson for anti-racist whites.
I very much doubt that white Americans worry about losing white privilege. I think that they’re not even AWARE of having said privilege, so how the hell are they supposed to be afraid of losing it?
Racism does indeed work without hidden agendas. It doesn’t have to “fool” people, just get them to not think about how it works. That is enough.
And all of that, in no shape, way, or form contradicts my point here, which is that Jensen calls on people to give up a whiteness he himself will or cannot give up – a contradiction at best, arrant hypocrisy at worst.
None of the above statements are contradictory, so why you have a hard time “reconciling” them is completely beyond me.
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By the way, I think racism works in great part because whites are not even aware of their whiteness. They naturalize it as normality. So no, they aren’t afraid of losing it and when Jensen comes along, self-labeled white guy that he is, and asks them to give it up – something which they are not even conscious of having and which he, in any case, can’t give up – it makes him look like a nutter and, by extension, makes anti-racist outreach work that much harder.
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In this post you said that :
1. ” I consider these two gentlemen (and certain similar specimens) as being the cleverest white supremacists of all: they’ve found a way to redeem whiteness for themselves – a way that pays, incidently – while simultaneuosly telling the rest of the white world to let go of the bottle.”
And in the other you said:
2. ” “I have a very low tolerance these days for any white person who takes it upon themselves to be the spokesperson for “us”, whether the person is liberal or conservative”.
Here I agree with you that there is nothing contradictory, in what you say because in essence it bespeaks of your attitude to people like Jensen and Wise, who you refer to ‘specimens’.
Finally, I brought your quotes here to show that what was stated here in 1 by you, only scratches the surface on this issue and without me posting it many may have missed this important point, which pertains to this issue.
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Sure, and you think those two points are contradictory? the contradiction is in JENSEN, my friend.
HE’S the one who has tried to set himself up as the white spokesman while simultaneously telling whites to give upo whiteness.
You’re right, there is a contradiction there. But you’re blaming me for Jensen’s hypocrisy.
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I would not put it this way.
Rather, I would see it reveals ‘how far the rabbit holes goes’ with your thoughts on this issue.
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Yeah, well J, I’m not responsible for how your mind twists. Jensen claims to deeply understand white folks because he is white. He then says white folks should give up whiteness – something which his first position contradicts.
He won’t give up whiteness because with that would go his “special” postition in the debate.
J, if I were to say the sun rises in the east, you’d claim that this was a figment of my eurocentrism. I’m thus not particularly bothered by the fact that you see some deep, dark hidden agenda in my critique of Jensen.
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Thad,
Still struggling with those reading skills, eh?
How would you know what other people do? And how would we know you do what you say you do, as a practical matter? Being presumptuous = anti-racist fail.
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With regard to:
“J, if I were to say the sun rises in the east, you’d claim that this was a figment of my eurocentrism. I’m thus not particularly bothered by the fact that you see some deep, dark hidden agenda in my critique of Jensen.”
Thad your reasoning is so poor.
Often you have the audacity to suggest that I am ‘offended’ because you disagree with me – here read challenge my African centredness.
However, when I challenge you, you talk about the sun rising.
On a philosophical point, you should know tha the sun does NOT in fact rise or set but it is a figment of the human imagination
…that would be another topic, but as a lecturer supposedly versed in the ‘Philosophy of Science’ – one would have expected a better example.
Hmmm!!
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Often you have the audacity to suggest that I am ‘offended’ because you disagree with me – here read challenge my African centredness.
However, when I challenge you, you talk about the sun rising.
Bingo, J!!!! Thank you!!!! This is exactly what I’m saying!!!
For all you white folks claiming you’re trying to “bridge the gap”…this is NOT the way to go…just FYI.
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Jasmin sez:
How would you know what other people do?
I don’t. That’s why I asked. Which you took me to task for.
And since I don’t know and haven’t received any responses, I said “probably” when I referred to the majority of people here. That’s a clearly labled assumption on my part, Jasmin, not ESP.
And how would we know you do what you say you do, as a practical matter?
I’m not hiding behind a handle, Jasmin and my CV’s up on the net for anyone who wants to take a look at it.
Being presumptuous = anti-racist fail.
How does my presuming that most people don’t do this have anything at all to do with what I myself teach, which is indeed anti-racism?
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Often you have the audacity to suggest that I am ‘offended’ because you disagree with me – here read challenge my African centredness.
J, you call anything you do or say “afro-centered”. You probably go down to the pub for fish ‘n chips and believe that you are performing an afrocantric ritual.
As for you “challenging” me… What you do is say things like “Oh, look! You said Jensen tries to speak for white people. Now you’re saying he’s telling white people to give up whiteness while he maintains it for himself. That’s a contradiction!”
It’s not a contradiction and it’s not a challenge, J. It’s just random BS. You never explain how or why it’s a contradiction, just claim that it is.
On a philosophical point, you should know tha the sun does NOT in fact rise or set but it is a figment of the human imagination.
That’s a eurocentric belief, J. Europeans invented the concept of the imagination. 😀
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Why do people need to explain their personal lives to you? Who are you? In the context of this blog–random guy. It’s really odd to think of oneself 1) as so inherently trustworthy that people feel no qualms about sharing personal details over the internet and 2) as such an important commenter that any reaction (or lack thereof) to what you write is significant.
If you teach anti-racism, I assume you would know what’s “off” about walking into a room full of (mostly) minorities, getting angry when they disagree with you, and petulantly claiming that you do more than they do to fight racism anyway?
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@Ank:
For all you white folks claiming you’re trying to “bridge the gap”…this is NOT the way to go…just FYI.
Who’s trying to bridge what gap?
AFAIKS, the only way to not be called racist by you, Ank, would be to agree with everything you say about the topic of race.
So I would suggest that anyone white wishing to “bridge the gap” with you should keep their mouth just and bobble their head up and down.
But really, Ank, I’m not on here to “bridge any gap”: I’m on here to read commentary on race and make my own.
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LOL!
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With regard to the sun rising scenario, it is simply your incompetency to hold a reasonable debate by citing a very ‘bad’ example.
Here is another example of your folly.
“J, you call anything you do or say “afro-centered”. You probably go down to the pub for fish ‘n chips and believe that you are performing an afrocantric ritual’
Once again not a good example since I do not eat fish and chips.
And once again with regard to your poor reasoning skill…
“As for you “challenging” me… What you do is say things like “Oh, look! You said Jensen tries to speak for white people.”
When I spoke of challenging you, I have challenged you on many things whilst on this Abagond blog, I was not specifically limiting it to this post – but you have chosen to mis-interpret it and read it as such. Presumably so that you could say:
“Now you’re saying he’s telling white people to give up whiteness while he maintains it for himself. That’s a contradiction!”
And again, you say:
“It’s not a contradiction and it’s not a challenge, J. It’s just random BS. You never explain how or why it’s a contradiction, just claim that it is”.
However,
I have given an exposition of Jensen position utilising his own words, which Ankhesen replied and said ‘beautifully’ stated.
Not only do you have poor reasoning skills, but a limited capacity to remember what has been said, and even when you have uttered (here read write).
In essence, you are in fact causing yourself NOT to understand what is being said here. However, its easier to project it on to me.
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Why do people need to explain their personal lives to you?
They don’t need to. Asking if anyone else tries to teach anti-racism to a classroom full of kids is hardly asking people to explain their personal lives to me, Jasmin.
Who are you?
Thaddeus Gregory Blanchette. Pleasetameachya. 😀
It’s really odd to think of oneself… as such an important commenter that any reaction (or lack thereof) to what you write is significant.
Yeah, that would be odd. Which is why I’m glad I don’t think that.
If you teach anti-racism, I assume you would know what’s “off” about walking into a room full of (mostly) minorities, getting angry when they disagree with you, and petulantly claiming that you do more than they do to fight racism anyway?
Where have I “petulantly claimed that I do more to fight racism than anyone else”, Jasmin? I have said that I have a lot of concrete experience actually trying to teach this stuff to kids who generally could care less about it. So I DO think I’m not completely talking out my a$$ when I made the point I made here originally. To say that is not to set me up as superior to you or anyone else. It IS to say that I don’t think Jensen is going about this the correct way and that I have some basis for thinking so.
Which as far as I can see, you haven’t even read.
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And this sums it up all really
“But really, Ank, I’m not on here to “bridge any gap”: I’m on here to read commentary on race and make my own.”
The epithet of the ‘Great White Man’ oh excuse me this should read ‘Thad’…
What am I talking about…what’s the difference??
ha ha ha ha ha
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With regard to the sun rising scenario, it is simply your incompetency to hold a reasonable debate by citing a very ‘bad’ example.
Not all of us can be as competent as you are, J.
When I spoke of challenging you, I have challenged you on many things whilst on this Abagond blog…
Yeah, I noticed that. And it’s often just like this “challenge” now. To wit…
…I was not specifically limiting it to this post – but you have chosen to mis-interpret it and read it as such.
Nothing I said above interprets that challenge as the only one you made or ever made, so I don’t understand why you even brought this up, except as an excercize in what Ank likes to call “drapto”.
I have given an exposition of Jensen position utilising his own words, which Ankhesen replied and said ‘beautifully’ stated.
I read that. My problem is not Jensen’s belief that all whites are racist. My problem is that the guy calls for whites to get rid of whiteness – OK, fair go, I agree – while HE HIMSELF makes bank (figuratively – status rather than money) on the fact that he’s a white anti-racist.
Now correct me if I’m wrong, J (I may well be and I don’t have the patience to go up and comb through every comment you made to be sure), but your “beautifully stated” exposition of that position didn’t deal with that problem.
Not only do you have poor reasoning skills, but a limited capacity to remember what has been said, and even when you have uttered (here read write).
Well, we’ll just have to disagree there, J.
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However, before we agree to disagree,
I am afraid you are demonstrating another poor research skill,
Did you read that break-down, before making your comments??
“Now correct me if I’m wrong, J (I may well be and I don’t have the patience to go up and comb through every comment you made to be sure), but your “beautifully stated” exposition of that position didn’t deal with that problem”
If no, then why jump the gun and ask the aforesaid??
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Just looking through what I can wiki up and going to the primary sources cited, it seems that Asian pygmies are very genetically distant fromAfrican pygmies.
Furthermore, it seems that even western african pygmies are genetically distant from the eastern – or Twa – peoples that you’re on about.
Here’s what Wiki has to say about it:
commonly held belief is that African Pygmies are the direct descendants of the Late Stone Age hunter-gatherer peoples of the central African rainforest, who were partially absorbed or displaced by later immigration of agricultural peoples, and adopted their Central Sudanic, Adamawa-Ubangian, and Bantu languages. This view has no archaeological support, and ambiguous support from genetics and linguistics.
…following that with a list of a couple of good sources.
Now wiki is not the greatest source in the world. So if you have a peer-reviewed scientific source which gives some evidence that the Twa, negritos, bushman and what have you are all the same original people who once came out of Africa, I’d love to see it.
AFAICS, the best candidates for that would be the western Mbenga pygmies.
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And this sums it up all really
“But really, Ank, I’m not on here to “bridge any gap”: I’m on here to read commentary on race and make my own.”
The epithet of the ‘Great White Man’ oh excuse me this should read ‘Thad’…
What am I talking about…what’s the difference??
ha ha ha ha ha
Why, J? Reading commentary by others and writing my own is now somehow the epithet of “The Great White Man”? Hell, you should talk, man. You write almost as much as I do.
Of course, if I said “Oh, no. But I DO come here to bridge the gap.” That would also be be the “epithet of the Great White Man”.
But you know what the REAL “Great White Men” types do, J?
They ignore this site, you, me, abagond, Ank and everyone. They couldn’t care less about anything said here and would consider posting here to be a complete waste of time.
This, again, is the problem of Jensen: he mistakes indifference for fear. As Arednt points out, though, indifference is probably far more deadly.
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Whoops. Wrong thread post up there.
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Thad, with ‘genetics’ things, you should know better.
I have often quoted Diop on this blog that it is possible to that a White Swede can be closer to a Black African on the genetic level, than another African on the continent
And again with regard to
“Twa, negritos, bushman and what have you are all the same original people”
Again I reiterate the first human beings appear to be ‘diminuitive’ the larger types of humans (ie non-pygmoid) seems to appear later, from the
empirical evidence we have thus far.
You are the one who are trying to make them into the ‘same original people’ with the aim to hopefully ‘shoot’ down my non-scientific, Pan-African theories to academia
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J, I’ve taken the response back where it belongs:
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Thad,
You wouldn’t make this statement:
I have said that I have a lot of concrete experience actually trying to teach this stuff to kids who generally could care less about it.
…unless you were comparing yourself/your experience to people who do not “have a lot of concrete experience actually trying to teach this stuff to kids who generally could care less about it.”
And in case you forgot, the first statement came out of this:
Which came out of this:
What I HAVE said is that I deal with teaching white kids about race daily and that does indeed give me some practical expertise in this matter, different from the majority of folks here who’ve probably never tried any such thing.
And your basis for determining other people’s “concrete experience” is whether they respond to your query on a blog?
The red clue phone is ringing. It’s for you.
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To say that is not to set me up as superior to you or anyone else. It IS to say that I don’t think Jensen is going about this the correct way and that I have some basis for thinking so.
I forgot to mention that I’d like to know what Jensen has to do with the aforementioned statements, since he wasn’t mentioned (I don’t think he’s among the “majority of folks here”).
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Ignore the “which came out of this”, I copied and pasted wrong.
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Jasmin…nice.
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*bows* My turn.
What I HAVE said is that I deal with teaching white kids about race daily and that does indeed give me some practical expertise in this matter, different from the majority of folks here who’ve probably never tried any such thing.
Yes, but we’re not a bunch of white kids, and we’re certainly not hot for teacher. We’re living, breathing POC – we’re the source of your info, not your recipients. You seem to be struggling with this concept, Thad, so I’ll “gi’ you dat one mo’ gin”: you’re not the “teacher” when you’re here. Here, you’re the student – deal with it.
I have said that I have a lot of concrete experience actually trying to teach this stuff to kids who generally could care less about it…. To say that is not to set me up as superior to you or anyone else. It IS to say that I don’t think Jensen is going about this the correct way and that I have some basis for thinking so.
And what we’re saying is (or at least what I’m what saying is)…maybe you should look to your own failing methods before correcting Jensen’s. He’s made an impact. You’ve made a nuisance.
His writing has an air of “I’ve-been-humbled, honest white guy” to it. Your writing, on the other hand, screams “pompous, arrogant, overconfident, narcissistic white guy who probably went to see 300 in theaters eightysome god-awful times, and now owns it on DVD and blu-ray.”
And before you come back and say you’ve made progress in your classroom, blah blah blah, and you’re sooooooo good at what you do, blah blah blah…don’t bother. After what I’ve read on here, I’m fairly confident those who pay you to learn about race in America…are learnin’ jack with a side of diddly.
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And “ad hominem” can go to hell. If you delete that last comment, Abagond, at least wait until after Thaddy boy gets a good whiff. I cater to no one’s privilege; the kiddie gloves are coming off.
Ankhesen is in rare form this week; you better believe I will someone my bitch today.
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A very interesting part of Jensen’s insight is:
“Liberals are quick to denounce both the thinly veiled and the openly reactionary conservative racism. But what of the fears of liberals? White liberals might reject the very idea that they are afraid, citing their support for diversity and multiculturalism. But my experience suggests that while white liberals reject assertions of white supremacy, many fear the loss of white centrality.
They are willing to renounce the idea that white people are ‘superior’, as long as they are allowed to live comfortably in a world where white is the norm.
In short, both the conservative and liberal positions are based on the same underlying assertion: “I’m white, and I’m special.”
Conservatives are more likely to say it openly, while liberals tend to offer platitudes about racial justice while avoiding the risks required to make good on anti-racist principles”.
Two great revolutionaries, Steve Biko and Malcolm X were wary of the roles of the ‘liberals’.
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*bows to J*
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Your too kind with your word Ankhesen…As I reciprocate your bow (bows to Ankhesen)
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J,
I recommend reading his response to me on “drapto”. Warning…it’s a bit long….
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Thanks, I will do, just let me psyche myself up for a script that will be longer than the ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ ha ha
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*gives Ankhesen knowing look*
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J, Ank, Jasmin,
Very astute statements.
I have my conflicts with Thad, but, instead of celibrating these observations, I think I better listen to what you are saying. There are things people could absorb from that.
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I read the post Ankhesen,
Thankfully it was not that long but I do agree with you, as well as Abagond (who suggested previously) that the post definitely brought about an ‘adverse knee-jerk reaction’.
I would add not just toward Jensen but at others here.
This ‘adverse knee-jerk reaction’ was in fact first evident, weeks previously on the Fanon thread.
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I recommend reading his response to me on “drapto”. Warning…it’s a bit long….
That wasn’t a response, that was a tome, hahaha!
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That’s one of white people’s fears, they dont’ get the supertstar treatment and attention and it makes them upset.
Preach.
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thaddeus, you wrote:
German and Jewish immigrants in early 20th century NYC, for example, got along just fine.
Where did you get this gem?
Not to say there were major problems, but New York City Jews lived in the Lower East Side of Manhattan and Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
There was a German enclave near the Williamsburg Jewish neighborhood, but in Manhattan, a lot of the German population congregated in Yorkville, which fills part of the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
Meanwhile, in the first few decades of the 20th century there were Jews living on the Upper East Side, but more accurately, it was WASP heaven.
For whatever it’s worth, I was born in Yorkville and lived there before moving to Brooklyn.
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If the structure one is comfortable with, which is normaly people you can relate to (which mostly is based on culture and looks), is changing then you won’t necessarily embrace it immidiately unless you’re sure of that it won’t affect your lifestyle and security.
White societies are gradually becoming more and more racially and culturally diverse and of course this is the base on which all these studies have to be made on.
I know that a lot of Angolans I’ve met in recent years aren’t happy with the growing number of Chinese immigrants in Angola, even these immigrants are mainly workers for different companies and not uneducated illegals – isn’t this racism and why isn’t it this issue covered, here for example?
http://current.com/news/91447240_anti-chinese-violence-in-angola.htm
http://www.defenceweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5209&catid=3:Civil%20Security&Itemid=113
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I think I can come back to this thread now with a certain degree of objectivity, so now that Johnny’s popped it up to the top again, I’ll have a go.
Here’s what Ank has to say:
His writing has an air of “I’ve-been-humbled, honest white guy” to it. Your writing, on the other hand, screams “pompous, arrogant, overconfident, narcissistic white guy who probably went to see 300 in theaters eightysome god-awful times, and now owns it on DVD and blu-ray.”
This is, of course, why Jensen’s writing is well-liked by people like Ank: it has a humble air to it and she enjoys seeing humble people. I’ll admit, I certainly am not a humble guy.
The problem is, humbleness doesn’t mean sh1t when it comes to discussing race with white people. All the “mea culpas” in the world aren’t going to make a difference when it comes to getting white people to think about race. It wins points with black people, sure. So if Jensen’s point is to make black anti-racist activists feel good by publically repeating their commonly held dogmas, then he’s doing a damned fine job.
However, as far as I understand it, Jensen wants to educate white people. Telling white people they need to give up whiteness (something I agree with) while SIMULTANEOUSLY telling them to be hyper aware of their whiteness is a contradictory message which isn’t going to go over well with the folks Jensen claims he’s trying to reach.
As the BS aside, this is and has been my main point.
And before you come back and say you’ve made progress in your classroom, blah blah blah, and you’re sooooooo good at what you do, blah blah blah…don’t bother. After what I’ve read on here, I’m fairly confident those who pay you to learn about race in America…are learnin’ jack with a side of diddly.
This is an odd statement coming from the keyboard of someone who, just above, accuses me of being “pompous, arrogant, overconfident and narcissistic”.
However there’s one bit here which might actually resolve into something useful…
My students don’t pay me: the State pays me. In Brazil, federal education is free for those who can pass the entrance exam.
it seems to me a very comfortable position for you to be in, anonymously criticizing my teaching (which you’ve never seen) while contributing apparently nothing to this educational initiative yourself. I’m a known person, you’re an anonymous web personality. However, I’ve posted links to my class blog on a couple of places here. If you think I’m doing such a terrible job at teaching, why don’t you go to that blog and show up what I’m doing? Correct my errors? How about putting your money where your mouth is?
http://racabionupem.blogspot.com/
I mean, presuming that this is all about “education” and “making an impact” and not just some excuse for you to burn off some aggression.
So why don’t you go onto my blog and tell the students what you think they’re not learning. Tell them what you think Jensen can give them that I can’t.
It’s a free internet, Ank. So what are you waiting for?
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Oh, and by the way, unlike certain people who are wedded to dogma, I don’t censure commentators as long as they aren’t trolling or spamming.
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We had the honor of hosting Dr. Brackette F. Williams here for an afternoon at our house and a story she told us made me think of this whole issue again.
Dr. Williams said that she was recently in a truck stop diner in Colorado where a white waitress spat in her plate.
I’m sitting there listening to the story and wondering how Jensen thinks his pattented, corporate sponsored rap is going to reach people like that.
I mean, does he really think that he’s going to stretch down from the height of his 50-75,000 dollar a year salary at the U of T and reach people like this by telling them to act like human beings and not white? Does he truly think that the average redneck is going to listen to his words of wisdom and go “Yeah, Dr. Tim. Y’know, you got a point. I never thought about it that way before.”
The average redneck is struggling to make ends meet in crap jobs. He or she has maybe lost their house. Their kid might be in Iraq. They see no reasonable future for themselves on the horizon and while they might indeed gain a certain benefit from white priviledge when compared to poor blacks in the same situation, they aren’t liable to recognize themselves as privileged at all, because globally speaking, they are not.
So here comes Dr. Jensen, telling them what incredible priviledges they have and chiding them, telling them to give these up because they are, in fact, the oppressors.
While Jensen might be right, looking at the situation from a purely racial aspect, where he falls flat on his face is in not taking intersectionality into consideration at all. To him, all white peole are equally priviledged, so he’d have no trouble at all talking to that white racist waitress and chiding her to give up her power.
In theory, Jensen might even be correct. In practice, it is this sort of utter naiveté, combined with what can only be labeled a sort of anthropomorphic reification of whiteness, which makes rednecks scream about liberal pencil necks.
So again, if it’s Jensen’s TRUE purpose to actually reach the racists – rather than give himself a pass as a “cool white” with the anti-racist movement – my question is and remains: how the hell does he think this sort of “give up whiteness ‘cuz you’re priviledged” thing is going to work?
Again, I would strike for a “useful whiteness”, reminding such people that they are first and foremost working folks and, as such, have far more in common with their black and brown working neighbors than they do with upper class whites.
But let’s face it: if Jensen were to start that sort of rap, he wouldn’t be paid by corporations to give his “educational lectures”, would he?
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[…] July 16, 2010 in Uncategorized I’m not going to get into politics too much on this site, but this quote just blew my mind: Jim Crow was Affirmative Action for hundreds of millions of white folks that lasted 3 times as long as any civil rights laws. ~ Hathor […]
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I’m going to answer the whole thread. Middle class blacks? Where? White women being sodomized? Only when being raped by black men! White people conquered the world, and invented Western civilization. If it weren’t for white people, we wouldn’t have toilet paper!
What are you pathetic people talking about? White people invented and discovered everything. If we would have let black people develop modern treatment for disease and trauma, hospitals would be staffed with witch doctors.
Just imagine the world in the hands of blacks. People would still be wiping themselves with their hands. Western culture–wh\ite culture–is the only culture that has universally adopted use of plumbing, toilets, toilet paper, which go a long way toward sanitation.
I guess I’m just prejudiced against bathing cows in drinking water. I’m just biased toward civilization. In the Western world people earn what they get. The free market system is there to reward people based on the relative worth of their labor, not for government to be big nipple that useless ethnic minorities can suck on all their lives!
And I have more black friends than any of you, and they agree with me! Denial of the problem keeps the black man down, not white people. White people rule the world because they’re direct genetic descendants of Almighty God.
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Just imagine the world in the hands of blacks. People would still be wiping themselves with their hands. Western culture–wh\ite culture–is the only culture that has universally adopted use of plumbing, toilets, toilet paper, which go a long way toward sanitation.
It seems you have a problem with bowel movements. If you are constipated, go see a doctor or take ex-lax. Don’t go on a blog and sh*t out drivel please. As for toilet paper, buy stock in Cottonelle!
White people rule the world because they’re direct genetic descendants of Almighty God.
I am a direct genetic descendant from Cthulu, what’s your point? Do you actually have one?
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I guess I’m just prejudiced against bathing cows in drinking water.
What’s wrong with that? It puts hair on your chest!
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@fragileswan
wow do your black friends know your a racist pig? well tell them to their face everything you wrote here. hypocrite
i’m telling you people keep reading these post you will learn alot.
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I want to personally thank Fragileswan for giving the world toilet paper. Thank you, Fragileswan.
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@BleuParfum:
Don’t forget the offshoots like ex-lax and Maalox and the millions of other laxatives!
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Fragile Swan is a good example of how people fail to fact check even their main points.
Toilet paper is a Chinese invention. And, at the time, it was seen as a step BACKWARDS. Here is what an Arab traveller said in 851 when he was in China and first saw toilet paper:
“They (the Chinese) are not careful about cleanliness, and they do not wash themselves with water when they have done their necessities; but they only wipe themselves with paper”
It took me three minutes to find that out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper
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look at that just goes to show how some whites think they are superior and claim ownership to everything
fragileswan got defensive about the post , which is a truthfull post and then his comment was living proof to what the post said. he have so many black friends, but he is a superior being
you trying to tell me there is no white person that can see the truth behind this?
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@swan: yeah right, dude!
“In the Western world people earn what they get. The free market system is there to reward people based on the relative worth of their labor, not for government to be big nipple that useless ethnic minorities can suck on all their lives!”
Like George W. Bush, Paris Hilton etc.??
You and guys like you should really check on the history of USA. You have no idea about taxes in the past, about how the higher education system was structured in the past etc.
Abagond, you really should do a post about how the rich white establishement took over USA after 1968 from Nixon on. It was Nixon who decided to ruin your healthcare system by privatizing it totally. Tax system was changed and also the education system was ruined. Pension system and insurance system went down the tubes. Reagan years only escalated the rot. And now we have jerkoffs like this swan guy who think that is the way things have always been.
Swan, check out what was the highest tax rate in 1950, in the middle of the communist panic! Yeah. That is right. Those were those days when USA rose to the top, ruled supreme, was the riches country in the world par none.
Once you guys changed the system for the benefit of the very rich (some 1% of americans own about 95% of everything now, source: secret letter of one the biggest banks in Wall street to its customers), USA has gone down hill ever since. That should make you think, moron.
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As the disparities between rich and poor grow, watch your proverbial behinds, Yanks. The middle-class acts a buffer between the two. The weaker that becomes, the more likely social upheavals, even revolutions will occur. This is where you are headed in the future! Such is the nature of capitalism, you either sink or swim! Don’t believe the propaganda and brainwashing handed to you. 1% control the wealth? That’s obscene, and you still adhere to that old axiom; ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps’? It is mind boggling that people still believe this tripe.
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LOL! With that type of username, I’m thinking “fragileswan” is probably not a *dude* but one of those *non-racist white women* you hear about all the time. Hell, she’ll probably even shed a gallon of mascara-stained tears once she reads the responses to her post.
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fragilswan I guess I’m just prejudiced against bathing cows in drinking water.
but do you let your dogg kiss you in the mouth?
30 minutes after eating his own poo.
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@chicnoir: 😀
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thanks sam 🙂
i try
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I do not mean to resurrect a post that consists mostly of threads that are rather negative, but this topic really strikes a chord with me.
This concept of “losing White Privilege” is so prevalent in America, not only for whites but even for those who are actually non-white but who feel they have achieved a level of acceptance in white society.
My white mother clung to her fragile idea of white privilege throughout the 25-year long marriage with her non-white husband. My father, often ornery after dealing with his all-white colleagues’ concept of white privilege all day long, came home to deal with a woman who was just as committed to the idea. Explosions result. Now I don’t condone violent abusive behavior, but growing up with that made me a permanent convert against any concept of race-based privilege.
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This is why I think society should be a total meritocracy. No matter what, whites will alter the world to fit their culture and their way of life. They did this when Jews started entering the Ivy League back in the early 20th century. They’re doing it now among Asian Americans. And if black students start out-competing whites, probably a long-shot actually, they’ll do the same things. These people will only care about maintaining their way of life and don’t care about other forms of life. If you mention racism they say you’re “playing the race card”. It’s so stupid, society is perfectly fine and the world is okay as long as white people are in charge. The only way for things to be fair is if they’re judged by some consistent standard. If the standard is test scores, GPA so be it. They do this at Stuyvesant High School in New York City, and the school 75.4% Asian. The school also only has like 40 black students. The reason I’m in favor of a total meritocracy is because it’s the only way to insure fairness, even if some black students are punished. If you want to go to Harvard, work your ass off to get there. If you want to go to medical school, work your ass off to get there. Now, this will never occur because Harvard is a private institution and a lot of its donors are wealthy white people, but I would prefer it to the alternative. No one will respect you if you get into your institution on Affirmative Action, especially if you’re black. It’s just the way it is…
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This is spot on. This is speaking truth to power.
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I guess, I can add Robert Jensen and Tim Wise to the list to compare what each thinks about white priviledge.
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I’ve heard of Robert Jensen and listened to a few of his speeches on youtube. They’re interesting.
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Fantastic article, we’re going to repeat this on our blog page. Thanks for sharing.
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And throw in Robin Di Angelo who is doing the work with her White Fragility book and workshops. It takes a Robert Jensen and a Tim Wise to address white folks to tell them about themselves. They would never listen to this truth telling from a black person. And lets not forget Jane Elliott with her brown eye/blue eye experiment. Feeling uncomfortable needs to happen.
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You know, my ancestors were slaves. I don’t harbor resentment for that, because I studied, got a degree, became an engineer, married, had kids, and did well for myself.
Yes, I’m of German extraction, whose ancestors were held slaves by the Romans! I ask for no retribution. I live in a nation where anyone can become anything they want to be! In the event of failure, one need look no further than himself!
Some things I avoided along the way were: fornication, drug and alcohol abuse, breaking the law, staying up late, sleeping late, television, slutty females, and mortal sin.
Some things I embraced along the way were (are): practicing Roman Catholicism, respect toward my elders, the Ten Commandments, persistence and diligence, delayed gratification, chastity, prudence, temperance, fortitude and justice!
If anyone desires a good life, his behavior can secure it!
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How boring!
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@ hankmortar
Broken Records abound in your set of fallacies masquerading as a comment.
Abagond has refuted your main points in the Broken Record Department:
The Broken Record arguments in particular, that have long been refuted include:
#27 – The Irish [Germans] had it hard too – sniff (I must add that a slavery episode that ended more than 1600 years ago is in no way comparable to Slavery American Style, which is ongoing.)
#16 – The Bootstrap Myth
#17 – Black Pathology
Time for you to get back to your winter’s nap.
Yawn!
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You have to hand it to the Irish, at least they’re forgetting their language. The German can join the oppression Olympics at the back of the line. I recommend a copy of “Mein Kampf” to set the mood while he waits for a medal.
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@ Origin
The oppression Olympics are cool, let’s make it transcontinental and international. A Russian team with 400 years of slavery in its both private and state forms walks the lane taking the torch from the Germans and Irish.
How do you like this, ¿Elon Musk ?
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Elon musk is going to be smoking a nice big marijuana cigarette in earth orbit, i doubt he cares about anything.
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@v8driver
Yep, I know he doesn’t give a handful of what-he-might-be-smoking, it’s been just an insider’s joke, a habitual coinage attached to many Russian memes showing another invention mothered by necessity–
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