The Nadir of American race relations (c. 1890 – c. 1940) was when racism got worse among White Americans after blacks were freed as slaves. This affected not just blacks in America but people of colour everywhere White Americans exercised power. Racism against one made racism against all easier and more likely.
Some features:
- Jim Crow
- The Klan
- lynching
- racial segregation: black ghettos, sundown towns, Indian reservations, etc.
- racial segregation as “natural”.
- scientific racism
- Social Darwinism
- eugenics
- forced sterilization
- Immigration Act of 1924
- blacks kicked out of Major League Baseball, the Kentucky Derby, the National Football League.
- Japanese American internment
- Mass deportation of Mexican Americans in the 1930s
- Loss of the black vote
- Southern white racist ideas of history:
- John Brown as a madman
- Lincoln as fighting to save the Union, not to free the slaves
- Reconstruction as black and Northern white misrule
- Indian boarding schools
- Black Brute stereotype
- Ideas about intelligence as hereditary, fixed, measurable by IQ tests and different by race
- white man’s burden (white imperialism)
- The Nadir itself as unnamed and unseen.
Back in the 1850s abolitionists had persuaded most white Northerners that slavery was wrong. In the early 1860s they fought and died in the Civil War to free the slaves. President Lincoln made that crystal clear in the Gettysburg Address. That generation of white Northerners was anti-racist enough to:
- pass and uphold laws that gave blacks equal rights,
- overturn state laws against mixed-race marriage,
- play professional sports with blacks,
- allow blacks into their neighbourhoods and schools,
- set up black schools in the South.
By the 1890s those whites were mostly dead and gone.
Meanwhile:
- gold was to be had by taking Native American land;
- white votes were to be had by giving immigrant whites advantages over blacks;
- brown countries were to be had for the taking, like Hawaii, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Cuba.
In short, power and wealth were to be had by not respecting the rights of people of colour. Racism excused these actions, which led in turn to more racist actions, which led to more racism and so on in a downward racist spiral.
What broke the spiral? Hitler. He took Nadir racism to its logical, terrible conclusions. He wiped out millions of Jews. By that time in America Jews were already white enough for that to seem shocking.
The weakening of Nadir racism was helped by:
- the breakup of French and British colonial empires,
- the Cold War, where America positioned itself as a champion of democracy,
- Truman desegregating the army,
- the Supreme Court desegregating schools,
- blacks getting the vote back.
This created an upward anti-racist spiral.
A new nadir? I first heard about the Nadir – the idea of it but not the name – in the 1980s when some were saying President Reagan was sending America into a new racist nadir. Events since then seem to bear that out:
- mass incarceration of black men,
- school resegregation,
- Islamophobia,
- the more open racism of whites under President Obama,
- Gutting of the Voting Rights Act of 1965,
- Zimmerman murder trial verdict.
Source: mostly James W. Loewen, “Teaching What Really Happened” (2010).
See also:
I would add, eugenics to that list but “forced sterilization” is a form of it.
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This is great! Thanks for sharing.
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Abagond, thank you for the concept of a “nadir”. I’m not even sure how to pronounce it, but at least I have a general idea. I don’t always agree with all of your posts, but I am grateful for the voice you give to many of my experiences and challenges as a Black woman. I also find it really important and informative to have a quick, readily digestible source of information racism and Black history in America, which is so important and helps fill in the gaps and give perspective, not to mention that is is fascinating. Knowing history has power, and moreover, names have power. Once you can name something, you can get a lock on it, and its power is somewhat diminished. It is forced into consciousness, forced into reality, stripped of its invisibility cloak and its ability to operate unimpeded, if only in thought. Thank you for the information. I know you will keep writing regardless of my personal opinion, but keep up the good work.
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Abagond, may I reblog this on one of my blogs? Email me your thoughts please.
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@ Peanut:
Yup, as I was saying on the last thread, Hollywood is reflecting/addressing and shaping it as we speak via movies like:
Planet of the Apes, Dejango Unchained, the new Tanto Movie, and now this
“12 Years A Slave TRAILER 1 (2013) – Brad Pitt Movie HD”
Albeit the last one should really do more to awaken the black upper and middle class than anybody else. Nigga wake up call anybody? l
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@ Thuy
Feel free to reblog anything so long as you link back or give credit.
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Yes, I will. Thanks! You are one of only four blogs I really follow.
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@ peanut
It sure is.
@ goldfire
u know i see they act like they want to make movies about slavery, but i notice they just make it where it’s the ones with a happy ending. They always make a movie about the ones who were born a slave but were freed or the ones like this movie who were free then enslaved and free again.or the fiction ones like django. What about the ones born a slave and dying a slave? Don’t they deserve to have their story told, i mean there are slave narratives they could use to get a good sense of what went on. Oh but that’s right those kinds of stories would have a bad ending, and not leave a good feeling or taste in people’s mouths particularly the ones who benefited from it. The people that have’t peeped what is going on are asleep and will remain asleep until put to sleep permanently. I mean the movie is about a man who is free then he is enslaved. THe message i get is, u black ppl don’t think that just because u born free that u are immune to dying a slave or becoming a slave.
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@Mstoogood4ya
You said:
“Wow i never heard about this movie or the story behind it. I will not be watching that movie and i hope others do the same. They are trying to profit off our history yet they don’t even tell it straight and unfiltered. They are definitely trying to tell us something, all we see is slave movies and now they doing all this stuff. getting rid of vra letting someone off for murder, and are now going for affirmative action and building more prisons but closing schools. Yeah its time to wake all the way up.”
I agree 100% with you except for the fact that I think people should watch this movie if only to be reminded that the constitution is just a piece of paper full of ideals that need to be lived up to by men at the end of the day. Although one would think that the SCOTUS made that abundantly clear last month it seems some negro’s are holding on to hope with their baby toes. Meanwhile, have you seen the comment section on that video. Something really needs to be done to counter these Nazi phucks spamming the internet with their shyte night and day.
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@ abagond, sorry I didn’t put the YT link in parenthesis 😦 I keep on forgetting. I’ll do better next time.
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abagond:
Do you plan on creating a post on Rachel Jeantel?
I feel it would be appropriate to put in context, how the white jurors, specifically Juror juror b37, described Rachel as “Uneducated”.
So basically, this white female juror determined, that Rachel wasn’t a credible witness, simply because she wasn’t articulate and spoke like a white person.
Yet, found George Zimmerman’s testimony credible, despite him getting caught is several lies, even on his fiances before the trail even began.
The media has targeted this young black female by attacking her appearance on how she dressed and he physical appearance as a full figured, black woman.
I think the way she was portrayed and attacked and judged, needs to be pointed out to put the part of prosecutions, lack of effort in preparing the witnesses in perspective.
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@ Sondis
Yes, I will be doing a post on Rachel Jeantel.
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abagond:
awesome ^_^
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@ GoldFire
No harm done. On a thread like this, which will be doing good to get 25 comments, it is not a big issue, but on the more popular threads it is.
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Nadir rhymes with raider. It is said the same way as Ralph Nader’s last name.
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@mstoogood4yall:
You said: “u know i see they act like they want to make movies about slavery, but i notice they just make it where it’s the ones with a happy ending. They always make a movie about the ones who were born a slave but were freed or the ones like this movie who were free then enslaved and free again.or the fiction ones like django. What about the ones born a slave and dying a slave? Don’t they deserve to have their story told, i mean there are slave narratives they could use to get a good sense of what went on.”
I guess that would be true were I to assume that Hollywood was a benevolent entity in the business of righting historical wrongs rather than a WS propaganda machine making a profit disseminating an agenda worldwide often contrary to the interests of many members of it’s audience who are clearly asleep. I mean, all one has to do is take a look at the movie “Blood Diamonds” wherein an African actor playing against Leo Dicaprio says something about how Africa would have been in better condition had it remained in white colonial hands LOL. And of course Planet of the Apes being released at the height of Obama hysteria didn’t give me any indication things had changed rather they had gotten progressively worse
You said: “THe message i get is, u black ppl don’t think that just because u born free that u are immune to dying a slave or becoming a slave.”
Yup, that’s the same message I got. Perhaps the more bourgeoisie amongst us who thus far seem to be under the impression that their untouchable can be convinced otherwise and be bothered to wake up. One can only hope white folks get to tellin our mulato , Afro-Latino, Caribbean, North African and North East African brethren that they’re niggers too. You know, like only white people can tell it. Maybe everybody will wake the hell up then.
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@ GoldFire
You said: “No harm done. On a thread like this, which will be doing good to get 25 comments, it is not a big issue, but on the more popular threads it is.”
Thanks abagond I’ll make it a point to remember on the longer threads. 🙂
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Correction: ^^^^^^^ * @ abagond *
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@ GoldFire
“I agree 100% with you except for the fact that I think people should watch this movie if only to be reminded that the constitution is just a piece of paper full of ideals that need to be lived up to by men at the end of the day”
Yeah u right but i will not pay to go see it, i might watch it online rofl.
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Oh i can’t wait for the post on Rachel Jeantel. I have mixed feelings about her..
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mstoogood4yall:
what are those, “mixed feelings” as you put it?
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@ sondis
I knew u were gonna ask. I watched the interview with piers morgan and i agreed with how she said the ppl criticizing trayvon and saying he shouldn’t have run are the same ppl that tell their kids stranger danger and run away, But i didn’t agree with what she said about the n word, she basically said oh its the one with the ending in r that is racist not the other one. And i do feel the people that will continue to interview her are trying to see if she will say something crazy or be the sapphire they think she is. U should’ve seen how the white audience was looking at her on piers, they had their arms folded and were shaking their heads. So sometimes i feel black ppl shouldn’t go on these shows because most of these ppl just want to trap us in certain statements we make and use it against us.
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mstoogood4yall:
Yep, as i watched the piers Morgan interview with Rachel Jeantel, every time the camera, zoomed into a white persons face, it showed disdain and disgust.
I do agree with you also, that black people, should not talk to the media at ALL! they are not trying to get our part of the story, nor do they care about our struggles, they only use black people, to get ratings and nothing more.
I did notice that Rachel Jeantel, wasn’t very articulate but that should have been a none factor in determining, whether she is credible or not.
The N word debate is something that should never be discussed by black people in the white media but amongst ourselves. Because white people will never understand.
The fact that they are getting upset about not being able to say the N word and we can, is a pure example, that its not even worth, explaining it to them.
Rachel Jeantel is a easy target for the media to attack and use as an example to judge all black people.
What it comes down too is this, blacks are not capable of giving a positive witness to another black person and it be taken, face value.
Some have said in response to, “black people can’t or won’t convict a black defendant”, that a white person can’t and will not convict a white person but the fact is that we are never in a position to see if that would be the case or not, being there is ALWAYS a white person on a jury and almost never a black person on a jury.
This is especially true if there are racial elements in which, a black and white person are in the equation, there is a conscious effort to make sure, there are no black jurors and all white jurors or at least one token black juror or other minority, just to make it look like there is some sort of, racial diversity.
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AMAZING INTERVIEW by
Dr Umar Johnson entitled: “ACADEMIC HOLOCAUST WAR AGAINST BLACK YOUTH”
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Best post so far this year.
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@ sondis
Yep that is how they do. And u are right they always have a token black or other minority to sit on the jury. perfect example is the trial dealing with a white man killing Darius simmons and its one black man on the jury i don’t know the other races of ppl but i’m pretty sure we know who they are. his mom testified today. http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/opening-statements-in-spooner-trial-turn-on-intent-mental-capacity-b9955359z1-215676871.html
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Rachel Jeantel is off topic here. A post on her will be going up on Thursday the 18th.
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abagond:
Alright….
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Yeah, what is up with all these race-related movies?
Lincoln, Django, The Help, The Blind Side, 12 Years and a Slave, etc.
What other movies can others think of?
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Hmmm….. Nadir, the lowest point. If America gets any lower. And this is not the lowest point,it could get worse. Why does that photograph of Brother Malcolm positioned in the window with his rifle stay etched in my brain? Maybe it’s some weird psychic intuition. Maybe it’s going to get worse where Black people will feel threatened to the point,where they have to defend themselves. It reminds me of the zombie apocalypse movies. Are the racist the zombies and the Black people have to defend themselves by any means necessary? I could just be reaching here. But these are my thoughts today. I saw some film coverage this morning on the news,while I was getting ready for work. There was some crazy stuff popping off in Los Angeles. It kind of remined me of the Rodney King incident.
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I am so serious about this culture being in retrograde. They want to reverse the clock. All these movies about slavery. Django, and this new slave movie. And this Lee Daniels flick with Oprah, Forrest Whittaker, Terrance Howard. And that other film about “The Purge. Wiping out undesirables. The entertainment medium is very strong. And is sending out some subliminal messages through these types of films. It don’t think this is just coincidence.
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The Lee Daniel film about “The Butler. Black folk in servitude positions. There is a racist segment of America that wants things to go back to 1950’s.
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I thought I read that the little girl from Beast of The Southern Wild. The little Wallis girl is going to be in the 12 Years A Slave movie. Here we go again. If it gets any lower, people will turn go from being ration thinking humans to acting like animals.
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Then there is the other young man where the old white guy shot him while taking out the trash, The other young brother got shot and killed because another old white man said his music was too loud. This is just crazy.
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Mary Burrell, so you think discussing race/racism through film is racist?
The willingness to discuss it and the fact that there is big enough segment of the population to make these films viable is progress in my opinion.
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These are just my opinions and perspectives.
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The only thing worth saying is that Black people need to arm themselves (and thoroughly) while they still can. That simple.
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Interesting post abagond. I agree that white racism is a constant but everything goes in cycles. Whether brazen or clandestine, it’s there. So if we consider the nadir as periods of time during which the worst manifestations of racism are experienced then we’ll notice an alternation from apex to nadir and so on and so forth like a wave through time. N:Slavery to A:Emancipation to N:Jim Crow to A:Civil Rights Act to N:Overtuning-it-and-worse? The thing that controls the oscillations is the ever-present white commitment to white supremacy. Racism is the tool employed to achieve that goal. So there is an instinctive move to reverse a racial nadir when there is a cultural understanding that further descent would imperil the enterprise. But there is also a cultural understanding of when to reverse a dangerous ascent into the rareified air of … (eek!) … justice. The result, when averaged over time, is the permanence of racial inequity. Which is, of course, exactly what is desired!
However, a point that was previously considered begs the question: what forces would REVERSE a nadir of racial relations in such a way that it serves the aims of white supremacy? It is necessary to peer into the cultural psyche of whites in order to understand. They cannot relate to anything that they consider outside themselves in any way other than by a power relation of domination. This is the ‘truth’ from which all their cultural behavior emerges. By analogy with nature, if you consider symbiosis and parasitism as extremes along a continuum, then western civilization can only exist close to the parasitism pole. It is the parasite and the ‘other’ is the host. But ultimately, if the host dies, so does the obligate parasite. So if the parasite is to survive, it is necessary to balance the need to extract sustenance from the host with the need to keep it alive for further use. This is experienced by the host as an oscillation in the viciousness of depredation but it naturally occurs for reasons that are entirely in the parasite’s interest. Compassion for the host is never a factor. Some moderate INDIVIDUALS might feel genuine compassion but ‘whiteness’, as a whole, only responds to their proddings when it is in its interest. So ultimately, the compassionate individuals help keep the whole organism alive by saving the host in the knick of time.
To take the organism analogy further, consider what happens when a creature begins to starve. A process begins within itself that breaks down its own non-essential body parts in an attempt to nourish its vital organs. I reference this to say that domination of ‘others’ is actually essential to white cohesion. It is the only reason that ‘whiteness’ exists. I think events during the 20th century bear this out. The most peaceful period in Europe was the late 19th century when they were busy terrorizing the world and claming other people’s lands as colonies. By the early 20th century, the sun never set on the European empire. Now if they had understood their own nature they would realize that world war I (for all its supposed inexplicabilty in the minds of white historians) was actually INEVITABLE. In view of the previous analogy, I don’t think it’s necessary to belabor the point. Likewise with Hitler and the Nazis. As soon as they’d otherized and slaughtered the German Jews they were destined to do the same to the rest of Europe (Poles, French, Brits etc). There has to be a balancing act between exploitation/destruction of the other and withdrawl or they’ll end up imploding and destroying themselves.
So it’s approximately 0% surprising that in the period during which we have a black president we’re also witnessing a rise in the number of hate groups. The repeal of the voting rights act is also not surprising in context. Also unsurprising is the absolute glee from some circles that Zimmerman was able to murder an innocent black teenager and be absolved on any wrongdoing by a ‘fair’ court. Probably, these events augur the beginning of the swing back. But if every apex was successively higher (freedom to ‘rights’) must every nadir get deeper? I’ve considered this. Maybe there will be an inexorable plunge from which the organism cannot recover and which will mark the end of all the cycles. In any case my only concern would be riding out the destruction (away from here if necessary) rather than trying to help save the beast.
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I would say that it started in the 1880s with the Chinese Exclusion Act. Later, attempts to disenfranchise the Fourteenth Amendment started with Chinese Americans. Since that didn’t work, they looked for other ways, which gave rise to Jim Crow.
You didn’t state clearly what started the downward spiral. It was a combination of many things, but I think you can trace the beginning to 1882.
I think it was not only Hitler that broke the downward spiral, It was bolstered by other events such as Thurgood Marshall’s Supreme Court Cases in the 1940s. It finally botttomed out.
The downward spiral stopped in the 1940s, but it didn’t really reverse direction until the 1950s with Brown vs. Board. And yes, it creeped upward until we had Reagan as president.
The new generation of white people (and black people, Asians, Latinos, for that matter) do not remember the 1940s-1970s. Or maybe the older ones do and wish it would go back to the good old days before WWII. And it is happening mostly to white people in areas that are becoming more non-white. but this is not unlike the situation of the South.
That is why I am so curious about how history is taught now. When I was a child, nothing of the 1880s-1940s race relations was taught in school. The 1950s-70s was in too recent memory that teachers did not dare discuss it. I wonder if everything has been whitewashed when it is being taught in school.
And what happened to all those folks born in the 1940s and 1950s, who saw Jim Crow unravel in front of them? People born before WWII were still able to grow up with Jim Crow intact and still remember. But those in the next two decades would remember growing up during the Civil Rights Movement (eg, those who grew up some time around Forrest Gump) – do they want everything undone? But those born post-70s — I sometimes get the impression that most have little clue about what happened 1940s-70s.
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@ Origin: I like how you broke that down. That was excellent.
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@ Jefe
That crossed my mind too, the Chinese Exclusion Act, which seems like part of this period philosophically.
There are various date ranges for the Nadir. Some start it in 1877, at the end of Reconstruction. That is what I have heard before, but for this post I went by Loewen’s dates since he is my main source. He uses 1890 because that was the year of the Wounded Knee massacre and when the North did nothing when Mississippi pretty much ended the black vote.
I wonder if there is some metric where you could measure this kind of thing. Like maybe black voter turnout as a percentage of total adult black population. Or the gap between black and white life expectancy.
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@ Abagond: Thanks for my new vocabulary word to write in my notebook. NADIR. An extreme state of adversity; The lowest point of anything.
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@ Origin: Loved your comment this evening, Really I liked how you broke that down and thanks for another word to add to my vocabulary notebook. Augur: A person who fortells the future.
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@Origin
I don’t think so. The plunge back into Jim Crow after Reconstruction was not necessarily deeper than the Slavery era. It is possible that we are bottoming out again (but maybe not). The Nadir was fueled in the 1890s- 1940s partially by immigration policy – excluding Asians and other non-whites, admitting only Europeans and killing off Native Americans. European immigrants were taught in school that one day, if they try hard enough, they too can become “white” (or “REAL” American).
I think we also have to watch “white” politics going forward. We really should be concerned if the GOP seeks to bolster its numbers by going after white Hispanics (who could become simply “white” in one generation) and white-washed Asians, which already think more like white people – their grandchildren would be able to pass as white already, at least socially. White people did this in 1890s – 1940s by convincing European immigrants that they too can become white (and at least not black).
If any political movement does not seek to be inclusive of all Americans, we really need to be concerned.
And, I think the thing that will kill the host will be a force from outside. We have to watch things like China buying up US property and businesses. For example, after I saw that a Chinese company bought American icons, like Smithfield, which later dropped its endorsement of Paula Deen, I think the day will come where we will encounter a situation where a Chinese company will have to come and weigh in on the racist situation in the USA. They will just say, enough of this crap, it is not good for business and they will react. But at that point, it will not be pretty for either whites or blacks and white-washed Asians would be at the edge of the crossfire.
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Gee, after I read Origin’s post and wrote a response, I felt like we are in the matrix – the matrix is the wool being pulled over white people’s eyes, and the other movement is Zion, trying to recapture the human race from the machines. They depicted it as a cycle.
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@ Origin
Interesting analogy!
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@ Jefe: I will also try and remember that Asians in this country were also marginalized. It’s not just about Black people. Latinos and all people have suffered racial oppression in some form or other. I didn’t know about Vincent Chin. Will challenge myself to learn more about Asian culture.
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I guess the spiral back downward started in 1877 (end of Reconstruction), escalated downwards in 1882 (Chinese Exclusion Act), pushed further downward in 1890 (Wounded Knee), then hit bottom in Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896). So it took almost 2 decades to disenfranchise and it stayed there for 50 years.
Although push in the opposite direction from blacks and other non-whites continued with the formation of the NAACP, Wong Kim Ark case, Thurgood Marshall, etc., it was only fully broken by an outside force – Hitler. (I would also purport that the War with Japan, and the need at that time to align with China, also helped to break it – it is what helped to end the Chinese Exclusion Act. Also, the Asian War Brides Act was one of the precursors to end anti-Miscegenation.)
This recent spiral downward started in the 1980s, and continued until the 2000s (till about Hurricane Katrina), but I am not sure it is really still spirally downward now. It is kinda floundering and is still going on with repeal of part of the Voter Registration Act. Time will tell if we drop into a deeper nadir or if it will bottom out somewhere around here.
But something to watch out for is key — the prior 19th century spiral downward did not involve only blacks, but also Asian-Americans and Native Americans, and was bolstered by revised immigration policies (basically, a whites only policy prior to WWII). Black Americans might not realize how immigration policies affect them, but they do. Africa is burgeoning with a high birth rate. Will America respond to its need for youthful labour by encouraging African or other non-western immigration? (A significant portion of white and mestizo latinos might actually be lulled into thinking that one day, they too can be white.) China is heavily courting many African countries, coveting their natural resources. But they do not covet its labour (at least not yet — they might when the average age in China hits 50 in the 2030s). They will never allow immigration from Africa, but instead, push millions of Chinese into Africa. I expect several African countries to be 10% Chinese by 2050.
Maybe it will take a new war. Or maybe the implosion of the GOP. It will take something.
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@Mary
Please remember that this is American history and American culture we are talking about. Asian-American history and culture is American history and culture. Your statement would be akin to saying learning about Emmett Till has something to do with learning about African culture.
You have heard of Emmett Till, but not Vincent Chin? Was either covered in your textbooks?
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@ Jefe: No it was not.
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@ Jefe: Learned about Emmitt Till on my own. Learned at Vincent Chin on this blog.
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@ Jefe: Learned about Emmitt Till when I started reading about Black history on my own. You sound offended that I did not know who Vincent Chin was. Better late than never.
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@Mary
This is a story about American history, not Asian culture.
Emmett Till happened well before I was born, but I do remember the Vincent Chin case. Blade Runner came out at almost the same time. Yellow Peril hit another peak then (ha-ha, exactly 100 years after the Chinese Exclusion Act!) And it happened after Reagan became president. And then the Model Minority stereotype was promoted by the media and the govt (as the antithesis to the welfare queen and black brute stereotypes) OMG, the 1980s.
But Emmett Till occurred at the upswing in race relations. Will Trayvon Martin be that case?
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@Mary,
I am not offended that you did not know about the Vincent Chin incident. I think it is GREAT that we (all Americans, you, I and everybody) learn about it.
I am not too thrilled that you called it part of Asian culture rather than part of American history that belongs to all of us. It is part of your history too.
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@mary burrell
Thanks mary. It’s a crazy thing we’ve been witnessing.
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@ Jefe: You stated Asian-American history is American culture. Sorry, wasn’t taught that. So learned something new today. You shouldn’t assume that everyone knows this.
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@ Jefe: As I said previously. Trying to learn about everyone.
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@ Jefe: Please don’t be offended if I used the word in the word context. I am not on the same damn level as you. Cut me slack. I am on a remedial level. I am reading as many books as I can about everything. OK.
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*wrong context*
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@ Jefe: If I lack knowledge about something, then I make it my business to learn. Do judge me because I didn’t know. Like I said I am learning about many things. Everybody is on different levels and coming from different places.
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@ Jefe: Don’t be condescending to me. I don’t appreciate that.
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I want to thank you kindly for sharing this and plaud your interest in learning new things. I was not offended and am not trying to attack you personally or anything. It is more for my own edification. I appreciate your honesty. I am just trying to learn how these things happen in the first place.
Is it possible that you have been impacted by the Perpetual Foreigner Stereotype?
Do you see the analogy if another American, who did not know about Emmett Till or Medgar Evers, would seem if they said that they were happy that they learned something new about African culture when they learned about their murders? Or if people looked at the Trayvon Martin incident as a new facet of African culture. You *might* get offended. Or you might find it simply weird. Of course you can forgive them for doing this, but would you possibly wonder why they might think that those things had anything to do with African culture in the first place? If anything, it has more to do with white culture and history and race relations in the USA in general.
Would you find it strange to hear someone say that human trafficking of Africans to North America and their subsequent enslavement was not something part of American culture, but part of African culture? You might be able to forgive someone who thought that, but you might wonder what planet they came from.
That is why it is strange to hear a white person, when commenting about the Japanese-American internment camps, would say something like Americans were put into prisoner of war camps too. Can you forgive them? or do you just think it is weird? Or do you want to find out how someone thinks this way in the first place? That is all I am trying to do. I would appreciate if you would be kind to share THAT with us.
When I read from 1950s encyclopedia that the Seminoles fought against the Americans for decades and they finally surrendered, and how Americans were glorified for their victory, common sense told me something was strange.
We all had the wool pulled over our eyes, and were taught a fairytale history. I am glad that Abagond has sought to reverse that. But remember that every single tidbit of Asian-American history is US history; it is the history of all Americans. It is not something foreign. And it impacts us all. Just like Trayvon Martin, Emmett Till or Medgar Evans.
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@Jefe
Yeah, I admit that it’s hard for me to compare Slavery and Jim Crow. Slaves were property. On the other hand, property had value to its owner. Under Jim Crow blacks were merely terrorized for the sake of it (lynching ‘picnics’ etc).
Re: the endgame. I started off focusing on America but by the time I got to Hitler I was looking at global white supremacy. The fallout of the WWII implosion was the eventual ‘independence’ of many colonies and it was in this context that the American civil rights movement also took place. After WWII Europe lost its place as the seat of empire and America gradually took over in its own way. However, it cleverly does so through organizations (World Bank, IMF, WTO etc) that appear to be neutral arbiters but really aim to maintain an unequal status quo. Age-old China was a victim of global white supremacy as well. It’s ‘rise’ could be viewed as corresponding to the rise of minorities in America from the very worst treatment. If China becomes too powerful and is seen again as a threat which needs to be subdued that would correspond to the white fear of ‘non-whites’ in America that could trigger backlash after Obama. So the process operates within countries and between countries. When things go off, both levels interact. So I see your comment that China could be involved as compatible with the wider view.
Thanks for responding.
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@Mary,
My comment is in moderation, but I want to reiterate that I want to thank you kindly for all you shared, I appreciate your honesty, and I am not trying to attack you personally or anything. Please don’t take it the wrong way. The only thing I am trying to learn is how these things happen. It is for my own edification, and not to confront you personally.
That is why I am so happy that you are willing to share with us.
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@Jefe
Unfortunately, there is much of America’s history that is not taught in American schools. Native American, Asian American, African American and Latino history is largely ignored(as I am sure you are very well aware of). When I was in high school, I had honors history courses and the histories of POC were either ignored or trivialized. That is why many of read this blog so that we can correct this lack of knowledge.
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@Origin,
Yes, I think that it an interesting train of thought to speculate how race relations in the USA will be affected by the rise of China, and possibly also to India and Brazil.
It’s funny. When I visited Australia, it felt like Canada, but when I visited Brazil, it felt a lot like the USA – very segregated, wide gulf between rich and poor, brutal police, etc. That is why I feel I need to look at Brazil also. Brazil looks like a mirror image of the US in many ways.
Back to China.
In fact, the fear and threat of China (Yellow Peril) in the late 19th century preceded the downward spiral of race relations in the USA. When Japan was defeated and China became friends, the race relations nadir bottomed out. The civil rights movement in the USA paralleled the Cold War. The fear and threat of Japan in the late 1970s and 1980s preceded a downward spiral again in the 1980s. Now, what about the current fear and threat of China in the 2010s? Will that fuel the precipitation of race relations in the USA again?
China will face a spiral of its own soon enough. Most people born after 1980 are single children. The last peak in demographics are those born between 1966-1978. They fed the economic rise of China in the 1990s and first decade of the 2000s. They are in their middle years now, but in a couple decades, they will be old. It is weird that China has just legislated that children must take care of their parents. I think it is going to spiral out of control when the demographic cohort retires. You see signs already.
Maybe THAT will help reverse the race relations situation in the USA.
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@Mochasister
Ditto. That is exactly what attracted me here.
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Origin, you are really bringing the knowledge tonight! Thank you for giving me new food for thought, and also for giving me a more firm grasp on concepts that had always been kind of nebulous.
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A cyclic view of history??
Is time and therefore history linear or cyclic??
American history from the point of view of african americans as apposed to european , asian – various ethnic groups ,indigenous/native…..
The nadir (from Arabic: نظير / ALA-LC: naẓīr; meaning “opposite”) is the direction pointing directly below a particular location.
The direction opposite of the nadir is the zenith.
Basically the zenith of african societies occurred prior to the emergence the white european (as well as asian and indigenous/native societies across the globe).
Now the zenith of european societies necessities the nadir of all previous other groups (perhaps permanently).
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@Jefe
“The civil rights movement in the USA paralleled the Cold War. ”
I think we’re seeing the same thing in different but equivalent ways. The Cold War has been viewed as running from 1947-1991. If you check the list below you’ll see a bunch of countries whose independence years fall in that range. In my mind, the Civil Rights movement is contemporaneous with that and was partly fueled by awareness of the freedom that was being obtained elsewhere. But since the Cold War is coincident with these events (and indeed, the fall of the USSR completes the final wave of independences) it could be equally viewed as running parallel to the Cold War.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_independence_days
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@Origin,
Indeed, the independence of colonial nations are probably more related to the race relations situation in the USA. I was just thinking how China became USA’s friend, then enemy in such a short time, it made me think of the cold war and Vietnam.
Thank you for pointing that out.
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@Mbeti
“Now the zenith of european societies necessities the nadir of all previous other groups (perhaps permanently).”
Well if a group defines its zenith as everyone else’s nadir then this is what it’ll seek to bring about. However, I don’t believe that is the only conception that is possible.
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@ Kiwi, it is often sited that German POWs were allowed to go into town and do many societal functions like watch movies and eat in restaurants during WWII. However when asked about their treatment of the Jews they would point out Americans treatment of Blacks, the question that was mainly posed was “Is it not the same”., Meanwhile Japanese Americans were stuffed on workhouses building things that they were told to do without break. The German POWs had more freedom than Black Americans.
I think however the Zenith of European culture is on a downward trend. China, India, Brazil, Korea, seem on the horizon while Europe and America have dipped a little because of greed, and sloppiness with keeping their corporations in check.
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Hey jefe
I know i should and need to learn about all poc history, so what is a good website to start to learn about asian american history? I’ll admit i don’t know much all i learned in my his story book was the quota they put on japanese americans after pearl harbor. I still have a lot to learn about my people but its also good to learn about other poc as well.
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@mstoogood4yall
Can you first of all do me a favor? Can you consider that the “other” history is your history too? I consider every single bit of history that has been brought up on this blog to be part of my history also. This is the history of OUR country.
Secondly, I have noticed that we (you, me, everybody), collectively, do not know a lot about US history. Asian-American history in particular is a complete blank for most people, including Asian-Americans. But I think it is a misnomer to call it “Asian-American history” per se. Because that history is very much tied together with the history of both blacks and whites and Native Americans and everyone else in America.
Finally, I was thinking that Abagond’s blog might benefit from additional insertions of Asian-American history that has some direct implication for black American history and politics. I was thinking about doing guest posts on that. Abagond added a few items before (eg, Vincent Chin, Wen Ho Lee, model minority stereotype, perpetual foreigner stereotype, the Japanese-American internment, transracial adoptees, etc.). It is a mistake to think that this has nothing to do with the history of African-Americans or impacts the race relations between whites and blacks. In fact, the model minority stereotype was promoted specifically to oppose the welfare queen and the black criminal thug stereotypes. They are intrinsically related.
I wrote about blockbusting because the first two neighborhoods I lived in as a child were blockbusted, then in the 3rd neighborhood, *MY FAMILY* was the blockbuster (and the neighbors used terrorism tactics to run us out). It was very distressing growing up and being driven out of every neighborhood I lived in because of race relations.
I have been drafting some more. Let’s see if Abagond wants them.
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@mstoogood4yall
Sorry, I didn’t answer your question.
There are plenty of websites out there that has bits and pieces of information, but you might glance at them and ask yourself, “What does this have to do with me?” If you do not see yourself in the history, you might ask yourself why you need to learn it.
Maybe it is better to bring it up on a blog like this, that can help tie it to your personal experience.
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[…] The Nadir of American race relations (c. 1890 – c. 1940) was when racism got worse among White Americans after blacks were freed as slaves. This affected not just blacks in America but people of co… […]
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I’m so glad you brought that up @ mstoogood4yall because I was wondering what the Asian community felt regarding the Asiana debacle wherein a San Francisco new station (not sure whether it is a FOX affiliate, but more than likely) decided it would be amusing to give the Pilots of the Korean airline that crash-landed racist names:
notice the pictures of the Asian children they managed to put just before their “unintended” racism.
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correction: * the Asian children who perished that*
and to add to the sickness, here’s a DK article about Rush Limbaugh weighing on the sad events, titled:
“Rush Limbaugh “Still Laughing” Over Asiana Airlines Prank As Families Bury Their Dead Children”
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/17/1224279/-Rush-Limbaugh-Still-Laughing-Over-Asiana-Airlin
Perhaps Kiwi and other’s can share their thoughts.
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^^^^^
Really!!! That is utterly ridiculous. The news announcer didn’t read her notes before it aired??? Come on..that is HORRIBLE..the names (are from sort of Saturday Night live skit). Race relations sunk lower -yikes…
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@Origin and Jefe (albeit you’ve touched on this somewhat),
how does the rise of China as a competitor to western hegemony factor in to your analysis if you see it as viable threat at all? and do you think the current racial nadir in western nations has anything to do with it?
Moreover @Origin, you said:
” Well, if a group defines its zenith as everyone else’s nadir then this is what it’ll seek to bring about. However, I don’t believe that is the only conception that is possible.”
I’d be interested to know what other conceptions you think are possible. Could you elaborate?
Thanks 🙂
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@Goldfire,
Virtually every Asian-American has faced this kind of prank since childhood, not just from the other kids, but from their teachers, their neighbors, their bosses and coworkers, not to mention from Rush Limbaugh and ESPN (who did the similar thing with Jeremy Lin last year). And indeed, kids do not learn in school that there is anything wrong with this – even the teachers do that. Even BLACK teachers do that (mine did right in front of the other kids hundreds of times).
I really feel empathy for the trans-racial adoptees on stuff like this. They hear these things all the time, yet their white family has no idea on what to do. The WRONG thing to do is to tell their kids that they do not *see* their race.
Of course, it might not be as vicious as the using the n-word, but millions of whites and also blacks do that every day in the USA and insist that they are not really racist, but they just think it is funny. It might not have the power of the n-word, but I do think that it is as vicious as using names like jungle bunny and alligator bait and using the monkey caricature.
It’s not funny. and it is racist.
It is so heartless to pull such a prank after such a tragedy of an airline crash and the deaths and injuries of teenagers.
I am not in the USA or in SF, so I cannot vouch for local reaction, but they said that several Asian-American groups spoke up about this and condemned it.
Hey, we need a post on Rush Limbaugh too (but I won’t do that one).
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@lifelearner
That kind of thing is not new at all. They have been doing that for many decades, if not since the 19th century. In 1890, they would follow that by simply shooting and killing the person. In the 1940s, they would have follow it by throwing them in a prison camp. At least nowadays, they apologize for it. So, does that mean it is improving?
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These are the kind of thoughtful articles that first drew me to this site. I’ve about had it with coverage of the Zimmerman trial everywhere.
I would say the peak in “anti-racism” went to 2000. Everything was going well and Americans had mental energy to focus on diversity issues. After 2001, with the recession and WTC, hard times came back.. and it’s only gotten worse. People look for someone to blame, and it’s harder to ignore looming demographic issues. Many whites are also just tired of having to think about race all the time. It sucks. They’d rather just ignore it and live their lives if they can.
Anyway, it’s not just in the U.S. Europe is going crazy with the results of their open door immigration policies. See, e.g.,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2365252/Germany-admits-mass-immigration-threatens-social-peace.html The comments are always especially virulent on these articles if they aren’t censored.. even when the news story tries to be somewhat PC.
Economy doesn’t look like it will improve anytime soon and very possible we hit another major crisis in the next couple of years. I expect race relations and observable “racism” as you would say, to get much worse in the next 5 to 10 years–so don’t hold your breath waiting for the nadir, Hope I’m wrong about the direction we’re heading in.
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@jefe,
You said: “It is so heartless to pull such a prank after such a tragedy of an airline crash and the deaths and injuries of teenagers.”
Contemptible is what it is. Literally psychopathic in it’s demonic exercise of dupers delight, ie the new racism as practiced by racist whites.
thanks for your response, ; I’m well aware Asians experience/encounter their fair share of micro-aggressive racist attacks often, and sometimes even outright violence; however, what I’m really interested in is whether Asians feel that they too are beginning to feel the trickle down effects of the racial nadir as delineated in abagonds post? Perhaps you’ve got some thoughts.
I’d be interested in your response to my post to both you and Origin if you’d care to give your opinion as well.
Thanks 🙂
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Great information everyone. Thank you for all your work and insights.
@ Jefe including the Asian American experience- the model minority- we have been considered that in part because for the longest time Asians simply remain silent and have not challenged things. As long as you don’t do that, you are a model minority. They want you to be American, but when you try to exercise your right by questioning policies, etc then it turns into you are an ungrateful immigrant (although many have been born in the U.S.) and then they tell you, America, love it or leave it. We are whiners, entitled, ungrateful immigrants. There have been asians murdured by whites with no justice served and you never hear about many of those stories either. One Asian makes a mistake, the whole race is emphasized. The person is also presumed guilty before details are heard. A man, one of many, said to me the other day, cmon, things are not really like that anymore. We have really moved away from all that. We have had a taste of some of these things too although not even close to what black people experienced. Where I grew up, the N word was said as part of everyday vocabulary by many including directed at me and I’m Asian, but I have a darker complexion. I am mistaken many times for being Indian. I have seen various posts online since what took place with Trayvon to show me a large percentage in that community are still the same and I am glad I got the hell out of there.
I love the idea about having additional insertions about Asian American history (all of our history) and how it also relates to black American history as you talked about. I seen recently a Hmong American post to her fellow Hmong in relation to Trayvon’s story and all the racist comments that have followed, that they just need to work hard and do what the Japanese did to silently and in time prove their worthiness. Other than that, remain silent. Not all think this way, but enough do. I know from many it is because they have tried to seek justice in the past, but got nowhere. It seems the current generation I’ve been talking to is starting to step up and fight a little more and becoming proactive.
I don’t remember how I even found this blog, but it has not only educated me a lot about black history (all of our history), but it is a place I feel that I can go to vent, discuss, learn, etc. because the community I’m at doesn’t want to hear it or nobody ever goes in depth nor want to about these issues as all of you have here. This includes some Asians whether it be about their own experiences of racism or the overall systems in place.
@Mary-thank you for sharing your thoughts and experinces too. I look forward to hearing more of your thoughts.
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@ Goldfire,
Broadcasting mocking names like that on a Fox affiliate TV news station in a metro area with over 6 million residents is a little beyond mere micro-aggression. It would be more akin to the Fox newscaster in Chicago or Houston calling Gabby Douglas a jungle bunny with batting an eye after winning her medals.
And I disagree that this is “new racism”. This is old racism which has just found a new generation of audience and actors. OR maybe that is what you mean by new nadir.
I think the nadir of race relations towards Asian-Americans was also around 1880s – 1940s. Starting with the Exclusion Act and mob lynching all the way to the WWII internment and the repulsion of the Exclusion act. But then came the cold war, the Korean war, McCarthyism, the Vietnam War, the continued military presence in the Philippines, Japan and Korea — Asia (and by white American extension, Asian-Americans) was associated with war and aggression and its aftermath. To some extent, they were always depicted as an “enemy”.
I am sure that Asian-Americans felt that a new nadir was reached post Vincent Chin. Now we have a whole generation of people who have grown up not even knowing about that incident. Many under age 30 do not ask who killed Vincent Chin, but who is Vincent Chin.
In the 80s, white America started to play races against each other. They invented the model minority stereotype to show that they are NOT racist. I think some Asian-Americans noticed what was happening, but some got “white-washed” by it thinking that they are somehow more acceptable to whites. So, I think Asian-Americans are probably split into their thinking depending on whether they are trying to match up with whites or if they are pursuing a different paradigm.
But Abagond mentioned the resurgence of OLD racism – resegregation of schools, re-enactment of voter disenfranchisment, mass incarceration of blacks, racial steering. And in that context, the mocking use of names is also a resurgence of old racism. and with the rise of China, China-bashing could easily transfer into Asian-American bashing. I am decades away from university, but I cannot imagine what the current generation is facing. It does appear that white people under the Obama administration feel less constrained than they did a couple decades ago.
One thing is for sure. Race relations is not just white vs. black. Asian-Americans have their own set of racial constraints that affect them and even many Black Americans may be blind to them.
Re: your other question, let me sleep on that.
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Thanks Jefe. I agree. What a breath of fresh air. I truly apreciate your continious insights and recognizing we too have been affected and your wanting to know the Asian experince in all of this too-all of our history.
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@Thuy
If you look at Asian-American history, you will find that this is not really true. Asian-Americans historically have been among the most persistent in using the US judicial system to fight for their causes, even all the way to the Supreme Court, esp. 1880s – 1940s. They were vociferous and challenged the white legal and power system perhaps even more strongly than blacks. Would would the USA be without Wong Kim Ark?
This actually started to change after WWII. After the Japanese-American internment experience, many Japanese-Americans were spooked further into not rocking the boat. Many settled outside the West Coast into the midwest and East and tried NOT to be so visible anymore. In the Jim Crow south (and in the segregated North), after Asians started moving from the colored schools into the white schools and allowed to attend university, use the white washroom, sit in the white sections of cinemas, They started to acquire “almost, but not quite white” status. Again, the strategy was to act more acceptable to whites so as not to be classified, and thus treated as, black (or some other oppressed minority).
However, during the civil rights movement, some of them also began to follow the lead of black civil rights activist, and became more activist. Some were very vociferous. The pan-asian-American voice became unified after Vincent Chin. Before then, they bought into the white society pitting, say Chinese against Japanese (like during the War), but after that they realized that random Asian-Americans could just be chased down and killed for no reason.
Then white America, thought, oh-no, they can’t be against too, so they pitted blacks against Asians with the model minority stereotype vs. welfare queen and black brute stereotypes. Somehow, that made Asian Americans more quiet (and sent more blacks to jail). Some started to believe that if they “remained silent and not challenged things” that they could thus get ahead.
So, I believe that the early Asian Americans were not silent and did challenge things. What you are thinking about is more a recent phenomenon.
I would say that blacks are actually rather silent now and less challenging compared to the 1950s-60s. They were very daring back then.
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@Goldfire
“I’d be interested to know what other conceptions you think are possible. Could you elaborate? ”
Eg:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Nri
The Kingdom of Nri (Igbo: Ọ̀ràézè Ǹrì) (948—1911) was the West African medieval state of the Nri-Igbo, a subgroup of the Igbo people. The Kingdom of Nri was unusual in the history of world government in that its leader exercised no military power over his subjects. […] The kingdom was a safe haven for all those who had been rejected in their communities and also a place where slaves were set free from their bondage. Nri expanded through converts gaining neighboring communities’ allegiance, not by force. […] Allegiance to the eze Nri was obtained not by military force but through ritual oath.
They merged with others to form a larger unit rather than separate and dominate. So they expanded for centuries by making friends not enemies. Since it was held together by oath, they took words seriously. They were totally unprepared for the particular treachery of the European. After (a mere) 500 years of their global hegemony and the resulting promotion of their particular viewpoints it is easy to forget that EVERYONE was NOT like them.
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@ jefe, your condescending and pedantic response withstanding, I truly appreciate your effort if only because you were willing to address the issue at all but for also allowing other’s the desire to want to participate. Meanwhile, Thuy, your contribution was appreciated, I hope to hear further from you and other Asian posters on the topic.
I’ll be waiting with bated breath for your next response @Jefe, hopefully the next one will be delivered in a less imperial and assuming tone. lol
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correction: *responses*
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Race relations are getting worse in this country. Things will get worse for Black people in America. I kept on saying that on this blog and no one listened to me. And guess what, I was right. Things are getting worse for Black people in America. I knew that just by the racial tension I saw between Whites and Blacks and the lack of unity in the Black Community. And because of the striking down of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the acquittal of fat ass half Jew half Peruvian George Zimmerman, also the Paula Deen controversy, now it is open season on us again. We as Black people, will always be the target of their racism and cruelty no matter what we do and who we are.
This country was never meant for Black people and never meant us well. Everyday Whites show and tell us openly or subtly tell us that we don’t belong in America. However I don’t think moving out of America is a solution to racism because there is racism everywhere you go. I think it is best to stick it out in AmeriKKKlan because one day, White America will get the karma she deserves for her sins against Blacks and other minorities and against other countries.
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Wow, yes Jefe, this is great! I was not aware of this history of Asian American activists back then. So I also do agree that yes, it is a recent phenomenon. At the time I was also only going on what I’ve see in my current community.
The community I grew up in, I and my mother and sister were the only asians, let alone minorities growing up post era Vietnam that were from Vietnam. I did not have any other asians or minorities to identify with, let alone any Asian American history. There was the belief of one gook is as good as another and what the hell were we doing there? Nobody wanted to talk about Vietnam to begin with. My mother just tried to encourage me to prove them wrong and that I had every right to be an American too (father was a white American) citizen.
I grew up feeling very isolated and alone. So thank you for enlightening me with these things as well. Yes, I understood exactly what the Hmong person was thinking when she stated what she did in my last post I talked about. When I read what she wrote, l was disappointed she bought into that model minority lie and was trying to get other fellow Hmong to do so as well.
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And honestly as a young, Black woman of 17/18, I am not optimistic about the future of this country. Racism getting worse, economy is bad and politicans are dividing and destroying this country. My generation and my children’s generation has to pay the debts that previous generations have to pay, American president starting meaningless wars overseas, Americans tuning in to watch stupid reality TV shows like the Keeping Up With The Kartrashians, the education system in America is horrible and doesn’t prepare American students the needs to survive and compete in a global economy, etc. I can go on and on but ultimately Black people in America are the most affected by the economic downturn.
You know why? Blacks are maligned and the minority in this country that is why!
The national unemployment rate for AmeriKKKlan is 7.8% but the unemployment rate for Black Community is 14%
Many Black families lost their wealth in the Great Recession, moreso than White families.
The average Black family’s income is 5.000 something a year while a White family’s is about 100, 000 something a year,
Although times are bad, I do plan on making a difference in my generation. I want to be a journalist/author. I also want to help out the Black Community and maybe even improve race relations.
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Goldfire
Wow, I saw the vid of the news anchor saying those names I was like wow. These ppl just read what is there without even thinking or using their own discretion. That shows how mindless they really are, they are puppets and can’t tell what sounds completely ridiculous to everyone else is fine to them smh. I bet if people made fun of those white kids in sandy hook they wouldn’t be too thrilled. I wonder If this news anchor would’ve just continued to read something like say with those kids in sandy hook If someone put their names as little timmy, cindy lou, sally sew, Gloria already,she sells seashells by the seashore if this beyotch would’ve kept reading or figured something was off. This is why its important to learn about others that way u won’t believe bs like this smh.
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@jefe
Thanks for your interesting input. The Vincent Chin murder and the Japanese internment both relate to white perception of oversees Asian threat (one economic, the other military). So it supports your idea that the growing influence of China could translate to a reemergence of more blantant anti-Asian sentiment in America.
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I apologize about my kneejerk reactions to occasional microaggressions that I felt on this blog. My becoming pedantic is my way of handling it. Others just get mad and angry. I try to stay composed, but it still comes out in the pedanticism.
Maybe I should say — “I felt that that particular behavior was a micro-aggression” and leave it at that. Would that make it more palatable?
@Goldfire,
I will reply to you after I think some more about it.
@Thuy,
The current race relations between Whites, Asians, Blacks and Native Americans did not generate spontaneously overnight. It has been carefully crafted and evolving over hundreds of years. To understand the present, we have to see how we got here. You went to school in the USA and learned US history, but I am sure that at one point, you felt a whopping big blank. I hit that blank at about age 13-14, and thought, WTF!!!!!
The belief that Asians are silent and not challenging is actually part of the stereotype. This was not the stereotype applied to Asians, say 100 or 150 years or even just 70 years ago. When I look back at it, they were often quite daring with some downright chutzpah.
I know what attracted me to this blog. Abagond actually did a post on my mother’s hometown. I was trying to look up some information about 50th Anniversary of the Freedom Riders and poof, I found this. I then ran into it again through a link on another blogsite. I actually then read through every posting back to 2006, so I *kinda* know what is on this blog. The part I like the best is the filling of blanks in the US history that were wiped out of our history textbooks. Then I realize I might have a couple pages to add myself.
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That was what I meant by the two levels of operation of white racism (within and between countries) interacting.
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It is hard to just look at American racism without a juxtaposition. I wonder if it is truly unique to this country or does the racism in South Africa, Australia, and England measure up? The historical constructs of rules that govern ethnic relations in America.
I wonder because initially there seem to be a lot of interracial marriages and merging. Then laws were put into place to prevent this, even laws on who another minority could marry and so on and so forth. I wonder along the line how much of those laws rippled up through our time.
I was reading an interesting article on this and wondered because of the build up of such quack science and ideas how the perpetuate.
http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/question/may10/
Well, the kid has woken up so my time is up.
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We already have anti-asian sentiment in this particular community I’m at where alot and mostly Hmong minority preside. There is the belief that they have all come here to use up the welfare system and all other benefits they get that not even American born have acess to. Many have no idea of how and why the Hmong are here, let alone all the sacrafices they made during the Vietnam War or anything else about them even though they have been here a long time.
@Jefe, some members of the Hmong community in this particular area are the ones who told me recently that they have been guilty of not being engaged in addressing these issues of racism and injustice for one reason or another. Some played into the model minority and some felt there was no use. Yes, I agree , a well crafted system that evolved overtime. Nonetheless, it is more than a stereo- type here, it is what they have admitted to as something they are needing to change. So yes, 150 years ago, that stereo-type would be inacurate, but today, at least in this particular community, they have been inactive and recently admitted to it. I will need to back and read some of the past posts. It has been a challenge to keep up with the reading of just the last 3 posts-lol!
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This is a fascinating thread.
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@ Thuy, I am also in an area with a big Hmong minority. However, it seems from just simple observation that there lives two separate worlds here. I don’t know if it is true but from what I see here is people here just say oh it’s just the Hmong they have their way. Now I have all sorts of curiosity. Still for as long as my relatives say this area has Hmong I am not seeing too much of their culture around and while I have been almost everywhere looking for a job in this tiny place few jobs seem to have Hmong workers on any level. Although Hmong are prevalent in the farmers market around here.
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@Thuy,
2 things might be at work when applying a stereotype.
1. Confirmation Bias
It seems that you have seen evidence to match something, and therefore deemed it to be truth, not a stereotype.
But, actually, it is often that empirical evidence is collected and selected to confirm the truth or validity of a stereotype. That is called confirmation bias.
2. Internalized Racism
Since the stereotype is taught in school, by the media, by the community etc, it sometimes becomes the “model” for behavior for the persons being stereotyped. Or alternatively, they might believe persons conform to the stereotype because that is actually the way they are. That is a form of “Internalized Racism”.
Of course, there are other things at work, eg, maybe a way of viewing things that was handed down from their parents, a legacy that they bring with them.. There may be other things.
The point is – even if you find actual persons acting in that way, it does not mean that it suddenly becomes truth, or that the stereotype no longer applies.
A stereotype, by definition, is never a fact of itself. It is a viewpoint, a belief, and we can either find evidence to support it or not. We can use it as a model for behavior or belief system or we may not. The stereotypes applied today are no more or less accurate than the ones applied 100 years ago.
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@ Origin,
fascinating info, thanks for sharing, but I can’t imagine the current western global regime ever functioning in that manner can you? China’s soft power diplomacy seems a lot closer to the kingdom of Nir’s approach, if not, I guess we’ll have to wait until the African century begins to see it reinstituted.
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@ Jefe
apology accepted. I totally understand. I can get pretty snarky myself when my nerves been worked. 🙂 I just want to clarify that by micro – aggression I didn’t mean to minimize the act, it’s reach or the effect of the racism; rather, I was simply trying to differentiate passive forms of racism from aggressive ones. And yes, I do consider the Gabby Douglas episode a form of micro-aggression as well, albeit towards a larger audience. 🙂
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@mstoogood4yall,
Right? I couldn’t I believe the woman’s complete cluelessness myself. If there was anything worth laughing about in that entire catastrophe of a broadcast it was that I’d say.
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@Origin and Goldfire,
American has always had this Yellow Peril syndrome. Anything that escalates the Yellow Peril syndrome often translates to escalated Anti-Asian sentiment.
In the 19th century, it was the sheer numbers of Asians appearing on the west coast. For a time, 1/4 of the workforce in California and 1/3 of the workforce in Idaho was Chinese, not to mention growing numbers of Japanese in the latter part of the century. At that time, the Yellow Peril was the local labour competition with white labourers.
When Japan became a military threat around WWII, Asian-Americans were targetted.
During McCarthyism, many Chinese-Americans were targetted again.
When Japan’s economy rose, Asian-Americans, in general were targetted.
When race relations with blacks started to go back south again in the 1980s, a new form of “model minority” racism was attached to Asian-Americans. This also hurt Asian-Americans with racial quotas at universities, bamboo ceilings, etc.
China has a couple of challenges for the USA.
– its growing economic might
– its growing military might
– its courting of other nations, eg, African countries
In the early 80s, many Americans believed their jobs went to the Japanese. In the 2000s, they believe that their jobs went to China, as well as the country’s debt. I am surprised that there is not more backlash in the USA, but maybe because jobs already started leaving in the 1980s, the younger generation might not equate loss of job opportunities with China (and by extension, Asian-Americans). But the Yellow Peril syndrome is always there, and it wouldn’t take much for Asian-Americans to be persecuted for it. Some kind of war with China or something would definitely trigger it. Maybe all it would take would be to have Chinese companies buy American icons. Imagine if Chinese companies owned Walt Disney, Hollywood and all the major record labels, as well as major universities and Fortune 500.
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@goldfire
I think passive racism is very different from microagression. I think what the reporter did was more passive, but exceedingly racist.
Microaggression, is, by definition, ACTIVE, even aggressive, albeit more innocuous and small. What the reporter did was a much bigger deal.
Microaggression for Asian-Americans include
* people asking / saying ridiculous things
“What country are you from?”
“It’s easy for you to ace the test. It’s in your genes.”
“Where did you learn English?”
“Oh-no, Kung fu man”
“You must be good at volleyball, yeah?”
“Do you guys celebrate Fourth of July and Thanksgiving?”
“When I talked to you on the phone, I thought your were American”
” Oh your eyes, how can you see”?
“Your hair is like a broom”
“in America, it’s our custom to . . . .
“Girls don’t’ like little wieners” (Sorry for the term).
* acting weirdly
– speaking in a long, slow and demeaning voice as if the listener doesn’t understand.
– last picked for the basketball team
– ignoring them from voter opinion surveys
There are similar or equivalent ones used on blacks. I am sure you can name them.
They are not passive, but more aggressive, yet individually rather innocuous.
A less aggressive, but more racist act would be something like putting black people at the bottom of triage in the hospital behind young white people with less serious injuries. I wouldn’t see that as a microaggression. It is not an aggressive act. But it is insidiously racist. Same thing as not promoting a qualified Asian-American to a position because of the belief that white coworkers would not respect him.
Are we on different pages? or have I misunderstood?
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@Kiwi
White people are fascinated by anything that seems different to them. As a Black woman, I have had them touch my hair on many occasions. So I am not shocked that they have touched your hair. They lack empathy for other people especially for minorities’ feelings.
Yes I do agree with you on the Model Minority stereotype. That stereotype was created for Whites to further divide and conquer minorities in America even more. It all makes sense that they created the Model Minority stereotype to make Asians be seen as submissive and quiet so that when an Asians are attacked, they wouldn’t fight back.
Plus Affirmative Action hurts minorities more than it helps. White women benefit from Affirmative Action the most. I don’t believe in Affirmative Action at all.
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@jefe,
You said: “Maybe all it would take would be to have Chinese companies buy American icons. Imagine if Chinese companies owned Walt Disney, Hollywood and all the major record labels, as well as major universities and Fortune 500.”
What about when the looming Chinese real-estate bubble goes bust as western media outlets have been predicting and warning about? Ghost cities and all? If true, I imagine the fall out from that won’t be too pretty either. Thoughts?
You said: “Are we on different pages?”
Yes, I think your pendanticism is getting the best of you again; micro-aggression, passive aggression, it’s a distinction without a difference to me. One can intellectually quibble all day over the trifles that make up the negligible difference, but I’d rather concern myself with the versimiltude of experienced, and lived reality than spend my time producing then posting sophistic refutations for the sake of my own significance. I’ll leave that to my betters, 🙂 , I guess. To us simple folk, it suffices to know that when and if a racist or a racist institution successfully employs gas lighting techniques in order to avoid or assist others’in avoiding the consequences of thier actions, they’re practicing micro aggression/passive aggression in order to get’er done.
Nice chatting with ya 🙂
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Another treyvonesqe murder with different results. A elderly Milwaukee white man, murders a 13 year old black child in cold blood for no reason.
Whites have the mentality, that they are able to be the judge, jury and executioner, when it comes to black people in America.
(http://youtu.be/kJNZKV2Sgps)
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@Sondis
True. This case reminds me that White America still sees Black people as less.
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Adeen:
Indeed they do…… @: o ( ) >
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sondis that is crazy I posted the story with the vid on the other thread, we thinking alike. I wonder if they will try to dig anything up on him to try to demonize him, or maybe they did but haven’t found anything. He was the perfect victim, didn’t fight back so ppl can’t say the old man was defending himself, he didn’t run away until he was shot so ppl can’t say oh why did he run all he wanted to do was ask him questions, he didn’t have a record or anything in his system, so ppl can’t say he deserved it. We can only wait and see what will happen to Jordan Davis’s killer they will probably try to bring in what music he was listening to as a way of saying what kind of person he was smh.
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Yes, china is overbuilt. Part of the problem was that people with some money had nowhere to invest it. People with little money cannot find a decent place to live. Surrounding most major cities are strips of empty high-rises. It’s spooky.
But I think the demographic problem will soon enough eat all that up. They will have to spend the money taking care of old people who have no grandchildren, or at most one.
If I were a Chinese with money to invest overseas, I would consider places with youthful populations like the Philippines, Indonesia or some African countries. At least if I had enough money, I’d be able to pay for someone to take care of me.
The difference between the other two concepts is not negligible to me (in fact, I am not sure I know what is meant by “Passive aggressions”) – they’re two different things to me, but I guess we will have to leave it at that.
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mstoogood4yall:
This reveals something very, horrifying.
The only time and way, someone white will get convicted is if there is VIDEO PROOF of a white person, killing a black person in cold blood!
Its not as if, white people on juries, ever want to see a black person as innocent, so they always convict a black person or acquit a white person of a crime, against a black person.
The fact that this white jury in Milwaukee, convicted this white man of 1st degree murder was only due to the fact, that there was, irrefutable proof in the form of a surveillance video.
I will even go as far as to say this, i feel they convicted not only because of the video but because he was old and by his own words, “i don’t have much time on this earth anyway”, being he is sick with cancer or some other illness.
I doubt they would have came with a 1st degree murder charge, ( despite the video ) if he was say, a 18-25 year old, white boy that has a long life ahead of him.
They would have given him a long sentence with a chance of patrol, if he had been a young whit boy but since he’s a 77 year old, sick white man, they figured, “he’s lived a long life, he is sick and not much longer to live, so lets give the harshest sentence, so all these black people can shut up about justice not being equal with that other treyvon martin case.
There is not one human being on this earth, that could refute the video in which, this 13 year old boy was MURDERED by that old, racist white man.
The majority of the time, there is no VIDEO PROOF.
The majority of the time, all we have to go on is the honor system, which NEVER has worked in the court of law for black people.
I think black people need to place, cameras all around and inside their house, so if they or one of their loved ones are killed by someone white, there will be PROOF!
White people don’t need, VIDEO PROOF of their innocence, they are taken, face value.
The irony of this situation is that the murderers own video camera, caught him doing the dirty deed and sealed his fate.
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@ Jefe, I agree with you. I actually read the one part of your statement wrong. You stated it wasn’t the sterotype 150 yeats ago and I first thought it said it was, either way, I agree with you.
Many of the Hmong here that I have talked to are sorting all this out between internalized racism, hanging on to their culture of which their parents were raised or putting that all behind them to become more “American”, speak out, leave America, or as the one woman I told you about earlier….quietly work hard to earn our worthiness and not play the victim. I’ll try to write what she wrote.
I am on two many threads, I need to narrow it down to this blog and one fb group. My brain is tired trying to keep up reading all of them, let alone responding…..besides my own work related reads-lol!
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@ sondis
“I will even go as far as to say this, i feel they convicted not only because of the video but because he was old and by his own words, “i don’t have much time on this earth anyway”, being he is sick with cancer or some other illness.
I doubt they would have came with a 1st degree murder charge, ( despite the video ) if he was say, a 18-25 year old, white boy that has a long life ahead of him.”
On point with this one brotha. It reminds me of the killing of Virgil Ware, his teen killers got off with just probation. I just found this I never heard this case, I heard about the other black man in Mississippi that was ran over and the murder caught on tape, but I didn’t hear about this similar case. http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/17/us/mississippi-hit-and-run
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/15/lester-chambers-trayvon-martin-attacked-dedication-song_n_3601173.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
”
Soul singer, Lester Chambers is reportedly recovering from an attack following a performance dedicated to Trayvon Martin during Saturday’s Hayward-Russell City Blues Festival in Hayward, California.
The Mercury News reports the altercation took place once a 43-year-old woman, Dinalynn Andrews Potter, reportedly jumped on stage and knocked down the former Chambers Brothers member while he performed Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready.”
“She must have been an acrobat. She did it in one leap. He didn’t see her coming,” Chambers’ wife, Lola told the paper adding that the 73-year-old told those in attendance that if the song was recorded today Mayfield would change the lyrics from “there’s a train a comin’” to “there’s a change a comin.'”
“
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@ Origin
I heard about that I saw the pic of his bruise smh. That woman is crazy, why the he11 u gonna go to a blues place and then get upset that someone dedicates a song to a dead child. smh, if he had sang about white kids in sandy hook she wouldn’t have had anything to say. Oh but all he!! breaks lose if someone dedicates a song or wears a shirt with a black dead child. All because they think he deserved to die and don’t deserve a shirt or a song in his remembrance. smh. U know what someone should come up with a shirt of all the pics of black kids that have been killed and didn’t receive justice., I know they’d be pissed because lord knows they hate being reminded of stuff. Yall see how they went after Jamie foxx when he wore that shirt all because trayvon was on it. They was probably thinking, oh no, don’t put that ni@@r up there with all those poor wittle white kids that got killed.
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I see quite a bit on other various group posts, etc. people using the term race baiting alot. I don’t recall seeing that stated anywhere on any of the threads on this blog. Anyone want to comment?
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Reblogged this on World Outreach- Thuy Smith International and commented:
The Nadir of American race Relations
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@ thuy,
I don’t understand ur question fully, are u asking why we don’t see the term race baiting on the posts on this blog, or are u asking how we feel about the term race baiting?
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@ Origin and Mstoogood4yall
For shame you race baiting Negros! You’re being racist for mentioning Miss precious Dinalyn Andrews at all. Why can’t a 43 year old white woman drop kick an elderly Black man almost twice her age in peace?! Race had absolutely NOTHING at all to do with this! Jiminy Cricket! Don’t you understand that she was distressed and upset from learning that her dog ran away from home earlier that day?!When she heard the old Black man singing that song it pushed her over the edge; after all she would feed her dog kibbles’ n’bits as that song played in the background. And now her dog is gone and that old Black man singing brought all the pain back. See how it was really the old Black man’s fault? I’m gonna need ya’ll to stop this incessant race baiting of yours, mkay? Mkay.
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@Imstoogood4yall
Sorry, I meant what do you feel about all these people using that term? I thought maybe it would have come up as far as some of your feelings on it since it is used so much in other threads outside of Abagond’s post.
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On a more serious note I want to thank Jefe and Kiwi for explaining a little better how the model minority stereotype is really damaging to Asians. I am not Asian nor do I really have any Asian friends or acquaintances to explain the harm behind this stereotype. Thank you both for sharing some of your personal experiences with this stereotype.
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Mochasists….gemme hug—–> \o/
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@ Mochasister
Rofl. girl stop playing. Oh wait I got one. She was exercising her right to be there she paid afterall, and the nerve of that old man to play a song she don’t like why it should be back to the good ole days where if a black person spoke up we just popped them. He must learn u cannot make a tribute or condone thugs and criminals in life and especially not in death. U don’t like the verdict don’t make a song about it, especially a blues song. what idc if blues is about singing about pain, I’ll show u what pain feels like.
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@ Thuy
Ok gotcha. I feel like the ppl that use that term is a way for them to shut us up and discredit what we say. If they shout race baiters they hope it will distract from the real issue which is racism and white supremacy. I ignore it as nothing more than their way of trying to uphold white supremacy and quiet anyone who speaks out against it. They don’t like to be reminded of the past and current injustices. When race is a major factor in things they don’t want to address it because that would mean they’d have to look at themselves and check their own racist views. some rape victims get called liar when they bring up their assault and its especially hard to convince someone of rape when it was or is a partner or spouse because surely they can’t rape if it was once consensual.Its the same thing with racism, they say we are lying race baiters, now with a so called black president its even harder to prove we are still experiencing racism, because surely someone that voted for a black president isn’t racist. smh
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Why I was asking is because even those people who say they believe the it was racially motivated by Zimmerman, that they still don’t believe that people should go down the route of playing into the race baiting anyway…..they believe the media is hooking everyone in to do this for their own ratings and Everyone is playing into it which causes more harm to blacks in the end, let alone race relations. There were others who say that it is a deliberate tactic to get blacks and whites fighting even more and then taking away attention from other issues the government and others would like to have us forget…..lie Bradley Manning case, NSA, etc…
Then of course some claim it is blacks simply playing the race card
Just asking….because this is what I’m reading.
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@ mstoogood4yall
My second post on the clarification on my question came right after yours. I didn’t even know you responded yet.
Anyway, one of the people I saw go on this rant happened to be Asian. However, I and another person spoke up about it to her.
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@ Thuy
I’ve seen these type of people on youtube and such. They say us whites and blacks should unite and fight the government they are screwing us all. I laugh because they only care when things start to affect them. when blacks were complaining about gun violence, stop and frisk , and cointelpro they didn’t care. Now that they are being affected [sandy hook, tsa, big brother] now they want us to join them. Now if they weren’t so racist and selfish and would acknowledge things instead of deny or try to silence us, then I wouldn’t mind teaming up and doing something, but blacks have been fighting wars alongside them and getting treated like sheit instead of heroes . The elite causes things and sneak out the back door, they are storing up food and building bunkers.
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So the short answer is this. I do believe some of this stuff is a distraction. But I will not fight for or with white ppl against this stuff until white supremacy and white priviledge are on the table for discussion to be removed, if not then im not coming to the table. Black people don’t want to be used, we don’t want to unite with someone then when the threat is removed it goes back to what it used to be. Us on the bottom and them on the top.
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I mean privilege typo
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@ mstoogood4yall, I totally agree. It is so hypocritical.
I felt the same way when in WI on another issue where they had the major protests over recalling Governor Scott Walker, although I don’t appreciate things with him either. It started with these teachers and other state workers who were complaining about their wages being cut. Many others joined in because they said they were upset about Walker talking away collective bargaining rights….something like that. However, many people, the former middle class joined in with them for an overall protest / standing in unity not only about that issue, but I guess you can say like what the Occupy movement was about…..low wages and poverty, corporation greed, etc…but I was like really…..not that it finally hit many of you with the recession, now you are shouting equality for all and worried about the poor…..because you have become a part of the working poor. Where were you all this time before with others who work in various fields protesting / advocating all along for equality, let alone individuals already going through this struggle? Oh yeah, “those people” were just the entitlement people, not the hard working everyday people like you were.
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@ mstoogood4yall, understandable. Thanks for sharing.
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I meant now that it finally hit you….typo as well.
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@Mochasister
LOL
@mstoogood4yall
She’s crazy alright. Crazy with racism. But she’ll use that to plead insanity and get off 😮
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@ mstoogood4yall, also about the schools not getting adequate money to begin with in non-white communities. They were never expressing outrage about any of that. Only when cuts were coming to their schools, and especially their paychecks. Some people joined in to the protests to make it more of a democrat versus republicans because they hated republicans anyway, rather than if you are really about injustice, then you are all the way around. I simply don’t like hypocrisy no matter which party.
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Ur welcome
I just don’t want to see black ppl join in something and get screwed like always. I don’t want to make the same mistake of giving them our vote, our labor, our attention, and not demanding things in return. They will not give anything unless asked and held accountable.
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@ Abaogond, I did re-post this blog and credit you as I may do with some of your other blogs. I re-posted it the first time with WP re-blog tool, but then I discovered that it automatically published before I could have a chance to add a few comments. I wanted my followers to get the correct and only one post so in case you were wondering what happened, I re-posted a new one.
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@Sondis
Hey Sondis (said in the same tone Nikki Parker used upon greeting Mr. Oglevee.)!
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@Mstoogood4yall
Funny how it’s always us who are the race baitors. I wonder what they call themselves when they deprive POC of basic civil and human rights? Oh, I know: being a true American patriot. SMH.
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“said in the same tone Nikki Parker used upon greeting Mr. Oglevee.)!”
rofl.
“I wonder what they call themselves when they deprive POC of basic civil and human rights”
American of course. Just American nothing in front or after that word.
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Claims that you’re ‘race-baiting’, that you’re an ’emotional negro’ and you need to ‘get over it’ are all cut from the same cloth. They are designed to prescribe the very emotions of those who experience racism. The only acceptable response is to always pretend not to see it just as whites routinely do! Thus they completely invalidate the testimony of those who actually encounter racism and set themselves up as the only people qualified to identify the very thing that they use against others. It’s really a quite exquisite form of abuse they’ve worked out over the centuries. IMO, unless you step outside their frame of reference, you’ll never find your way out of the hall of mirrors. You’ll be totally bamboozled!
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@ Origin- Nope, remember the power of WWT. Ha! 😀
@ Jefe and Kiwi- thanks for your insights. Definitely have a better understanding of the model minority stereotype and why it isn’t always a good thing in the eyes of white supremacy.
@Mochasister- No, it’s called, business as usual.
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“The elite causes things and sneak out the back door, they are storing up food and building bunkers.”
*********
Not only the elite are doing these things. Regular people are doing this too – “Doomsday Preppers” a show by National Geographic TV highlights folks across Amerikkka that are “prepping” for all manner of disasters (except, of course, a race war).
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Matatri
Yes I’ve seen that show, and it was a disturbing episode with a teen boy who had knives and was making homemade weapons. this boy creep me out wouldn’t be surprised if we see him on the news smh.
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/doomsday-preppers/videos/teen-prepper/
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Below is the first response I received so far from re-posting this particular post this thread is on. The person is referring to the last 6 things listed on Abagond’s post. I have a mixed following so it will be interesting how people will respond or not. Sometimes it is not a matter of what you say, but what is not said that can be telling. I’m sure some won’t want to touch it at all, but I am going to re-post a few more of Abagond’s posts anyway. I’m sure some will quit following me, but I know there are people on my page who are open. I won’t post every response I get, but I thought I would at least share the first one I received.
The response:
Thuy, I don’t believe it’s constructive to start a discussion by listing 6 recent events as “racist” when that labeling is itself quite controversial. For example what you call “Islamaphobia” could also be described as the very rational antipathy to violent religious extremism. In any case religion not race is the defining characteristic. The elevated percentage of incarcerated blacks I believe to be due to the elevated percentage of crimes committed by young black men and we should be more concerned with why we lead the world in incarcerating all our citizens. (BTW it is not because Americans commit the most violent crimes, we don’t.) While race may have played some role in the Martin-Zimmerman tragedy it certainly has played a huge role in the media coverage of it and now in its aftermath. What I think should be learned is that an armed society is likely to be a violent and dangerous society for all of us. But for the presence of his gun I doubt if Zimmerman would have gotten out of his car to confront anyone, much less a 6’1″ physically fit younger man. And, explanations of the “stand your ground” laws have made it clear that an armed aggressor either gets away with his attack, kills his victim when he loses his attack, or has the misfortune of attacking someone who is also armed and has no hesitancy to immediately kill his attacker. Prosecutors say that gang shoot-outs are being justified with “stand your ground” defenses. All these are problems that can and should be solved by legislation.
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@Kiwi
“Either way, model or peril, Asians are considered non-Americans, no matter how much they give back to this country.”
IMO, no ‘minority’ will ever be considered TRUE Americans. Is the term ‘all-American’ ever applied to someone who’s not considered white? That’s telling you right there. All Americans are white.
“What I’ve noticed, though, is that in the coming decades, minorities will make up the majority of the American population. By then, racism may be ended at all levels not because whites suddenly decided on a “change of heart” or some bullcrap like that, but because of sheer brute force by minorities pushing for change”
Change is a possibility but I wouldn’t view it as inevitable for demographic reasons. In South Africa whites weren’t a majority but instituted and maintained Apartheid. Much of the Caribbean and even parts of the American South were also majority black during slavery. And of course, people classified as white are not a global majority yet control most of the planet directly or indirectly. I say this not to be a pessimist but to suggest that POC need to be as politically astute as whites naturally are. It can’t be taken for granted that there will be changes for the better due to changes in demographics. White supremacy is a commitment to the few controlling the many and racism can easily be used in its service to nullify demographic advantages. America has a history of voter suppression and intimidation…which is why there is a VRA…which has been weakened …
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@Kiwi
Maybe not, apartheid reigned for many decades in South Africa albeit having a white minority. They might be able to do it by splitting racial minority groups apart and against each other (maybe by allowing one group certain privileges and denying others, while letting another group enjoy a different set of privileges and restrictions).
WAIT, they’re already doing that. 😛
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Origin beat me to it. 😛
Don’t even have to go back to slavery times. Yeah, before WWII, the Mississippi Delta was about 80% black. The South Carolina low country was almost that high. That didn’t stop white people from disenfranchising them, keeping them from voting, from accessing medical care, etc. IT didn’t keep them from getting shot and killed and let their killers walk free. Half of the black population left there during the Great Migration. Some of the towns dropped in population by half at that time.
And even Native Americans are not really all-American. History books before the 1960s called skirmishes / wars with Native Americans as wars with the United States or battles between Indians and Americans.
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@jefe, as in boss? lol 🙂
You said: “Yes, china is overbuilt. Part of the problem was that people with some money had nowhere to invest it.” People with little money cannot find a decent place to live.
Surrounding most major cities (u)are strips(/u) of empty high-rises. It’s spooky.”
Well, here are the facts for those who care to know them:
“China’s real estate bubble”
(http://youtu.be/DhAnUueKt2E)
and here’s a $3.5 Billion dollar Chinese built ghost town in Angola Africa, where perhaps Chinese, and European expats will be able to afford to living if they care to come. Pray God this isn’t being repeated all over Angola and the rest of Africa. There’s even a white Hispanic professor on this vid El jefe; You know, someone who’s word you’d readily believe. 🙂
“Chinese-built Angolan city feels like a ghost town”
(http://youtu.be/V8HyDGCNxpo)
and this:
“Angola: Kilamba, A New City in Search of Inhabitants”
(http://youtu.be/gNwRQEZvimQ)
Well, at least the tone was optimistic. I especially enjoyed the part where the reporter shares with us how the housing project, built for such a costly sum to an impoverished nation, is antiquated both in style and size. A partner ship of equals ehe? But I guess we can count ourselves lucky if Africa manages to learns from Angola’s mistake as oppose to doubling down as China seems to be doing.
You said: “But I think the demographic problem will soon enough eat all that up. They will have to spend the money taking care of old people who have no grandchildren, or at most one.”
Yes, I can see you can come to that conclusion:
“Chinese Ghost Cities – 60 Minutes Report”
(http://youtu.be/InqAzvX6UrI)
True enough; some people will benefit, won’t they?
You said: “The difference between the other two concepts is not negligible to me (in fact, I am not sure I know what is meant by “Passive aggressions”) – they’re two different things to me, but I guess we will have to leave it at that.”
I’ll be happy to let you know; as soon as you clear up what you meant by “nowhere”.
As thoroughly boring as your obtuseness and feigned concern have become,
my good nature allows me to gladly simplify my meaning for the more dullard
and spurious amongst us. Okay, let me try again:
passive aggressive and micro aggression = insinuating that you’re
pompous, pretentious, self aggrandizing d/ck who’s more than likely an afro-Latino male trying to assuage his own feelings of low self esteem, due to being on the lowest rung of the Latino community, by making great shows of
distancing himself from African Americans in whatever way necessary in order to keep pretending, if only to himself, that he’s better than they are.
aggression = directly telling you that to your face, and if time permits
kicken yo @ss.
I do hope you don’t get the impression that I don’t like you from my posts El jefe, because honestly, nothing could be further from the truth.
tootles 🙂
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oops Abagond, you might be ready to kick my @ss at the end of all this. I forgot to put parenthesis on my vids again. Sooooooooooooooooo sorry. I look to your mercy. Thanks.
{{{{{{{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}}}}}?
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YT vid correction: the first vid about Angola’s ghost town.
“Chinese-built Angolan city feels like a ghost town”
( http://youtu.be/V8HyDGCNxpo )
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correction:
You said: “The difference between the other two concepts is not negligible to me (in fact, I am not sure I know what is meant by “Passive aggressions”) – they’re two different things to me, but I guess we will have to leave it at that.”
I said: I’ll be happy to let you know; as soon as you clear up what you meant by “nowhere”.
Correction: Apologies; I read nowhere as if you had spelled it with two double- u’s as oppose to one; my mistake. In any case, the point I was trying to make with my response still stands; which in essence was that there was no need for you to expose any more of your anal retentive pathologies by becoming a grammar na a z i also….. at least not out loud. Fortunately, when checking back for your response, I realized there was no reason to say anything to begin with because I never strung the two words “passive aggressions” together in my last post to you at all. Wow, you’re one slippery dude, aren’t ya EL jefe. lol
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@Goldfire,
It’s good that we can drop that line of thought as I don’t think I understand where your tangent was heading. Anyhow, I do not come here to feign concern.
BTW, I saw those video new reports a few weeks ago. But, what I was basing my point on was partially due to frequent actual observance. I have been to dozens of cities across China. The building boom is so OMG.
I will be busy for next couple days. May not be able to drop in as often. 😛
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@jefe,
Uh-huh, yeah….. right.
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The racism in this country continues, if it’s not the Cherios commercial of the biracial family,the Asiana air craft debacle, that was just a cluster****k, if you ask me.And the 11 year old young Mexican-American from San Antonio,who sang the national anthem in a mariachi outfit. No matter what delusional white America thinks we do not live in a post racial nation. A certain underbelly of racist America will continue to raise it’s ugly head. With the Trayvon Martin murder and trial, the ugly social issue of race will continue. It kind of makes me angry why Mr. Obama lacks courage to discuss this. I am disappointed in him where this issue is concerned. He does not have the intestinal fortitude to talk to America and have a discussion about this. A truly SMH moment out of many in this country today.
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Young 11 year old Sebastian De La Cruz, is a young man with grace and class. Lots of adults could learn from him. How to show strength and grace, in the ugliness of the social media and news media. I like that he said the ugly commentary on social media didn’t bother him, It’s just people’s opinions. I like that instead of being all butt hurt about this, the De La Cruz family, just goes on living their lives and rising above it all. Hell, I could learn from him, pity these stupid racist fools and go living my life. I do not have to receive this ugliness in my lifespace. Sebastian’s father served in the United States Navy. So that makes them just as American as anyone else. This speaks to the ignorance of those making the ignorant racist tweets, assuming he and his family are illegial aliens. Sebastian’s father said they faced racism,when Sebastian went on the NBC America’s Got Talent, They reacted to his mariachi outfit. The De La Cruz family are graceful and have shown class and courage, in this so called post racial America.
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@ mary
Yeah im in san Antonio, some ppl were mad that a Mexican American was singing the national anthem, I think he did pretty well. I just have a question has there ever been a native American sing the national anthem? and if so what was the reaction. Obama said he could’ve been trayvon yesterday but he ain’t doing anything about it.I do wonder if he will not discuss it again when the whites start attacking him for saying that.
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@mstoogood4yall; That “trayvon could have been my son” or “I could have been Trayvon”. Is all up empty rhetoric to me. That is not enough, I am not satisfied with that. He (Obama) is a coward, when it comes to addressing the racism in tis country. His own family is attacked by the ignorant racist like Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck, and those racist Tea Party clowns. IDK, I guess this is what he signed up for.
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Yeah mary, I’m not impressed either with what he said, and I don’t think he will do anything about it. So he’s just providing lip service. Imo he is just a black face, nothing more. Ppl got him in office to soothe themselves and make it seem like racism is a non issue. Its the i’m not racist I have a black friend on steroids, because now they say we are not a racist country we have a black[biracial] president.
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@mstoogood4yall; I all makes sense to me. He was selected to soothe the black segment of America. He is just a black face,nothing more. I think lots of black people have figured this out by now. We got Bamboozled.
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@ mstoogood4yall; You should check out the movie Bamboozled, and The Drop Squad, Good Fences. These films speak to a lot of the themes in these threads on this blog and DOAN. They are quite thought provoking.
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@mstoogood4yall: Maybe a Native American has sang the National Anthem, IDK, but Native Americans, if anyone has the supreme right to sing the national anthem if you ask me.
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Ok sis I just found bamboozled movie on youtube I will watch it tonight.
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@ Mstoogood4you, These films all parallel what we discuss on the threads.
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“Its the i’m not racist I have a black friend on steroids, because now they say we are not a racist country we have a black[biracial] president.
Classic Analysis – You deserve a A+ 🙂
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^ lol thanks brotha
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For every action, there is reaction. The racist segment of society did not resurge by accident or by some magic or by some psychological fault or genetic mutation. It was calculated attack from the religious right.
It started in late 1960’s when southern right wing realized that their world was turning around. They realized that black voters were more liberal and more future looking. Black voters were going to change their world for good. They had to stop that. How?
First the religious rightwing captured local elections in south and trough the bible belt. They mobilized religious sects, churches and speakers. They over took media, local and state level. Why? In order to change the laws.
The activists of the 60’s believed they had won. They really believed that times had changed. They got lazy. They fell in sleep on their watch. The right sneaked in while the watch was sound a sleep.
Gaining momentum from the grassroots up, they occupied judicial seats on various local and state levels. Finally, in late 70’s they were strong enough make the big push on federal level. In came Ronald Reagan and the rest is history.
Tuff on crime electorial candidates, harder punishments, revival of death sentence etc. They did all these. Why? To eliminate black votes. Because in USA once you are convicted you loose your right to vote. Ex-convict has no vote. Just count how many million black votes has been eliminated from elections since early 1980’s. There you have it.
And before some one starts the usual “black crime” yadayada, we all know that if you are a black you will get jail time from crimes which the whites usually do not. Zimmerman murdered a black kid and walked free. Black woman shot warning shots and went into jail. One less voter in the future.
It is a power struggle, It is not an accident. It is planned. But one needs to remember that this game is played on ALL poor americans. They all loose their right to vote in one way or another. There are laws to keep the poor from voting. That is the other half of this coin.
All this suits very well for those super rich and those Wall street bankers. They have said loud and clearly; democracy is bad for business. Anti-democratic right promises big money for them and they support the right, just like they supported a guy called Adolf Hitler in 1930’s Germany. Hitler got his money from the Big Bankers and Business. In USA the right gets its money from the same guys.
Racism is still for the same purpose as it was 400 years ago when it was invented. It is a tool trough which money can be made regardless of humanbeigns and in USA these two go hand in hand: money and racism.
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Sometimes in order for things to come together they must fall completely apart. Remebering the past is Iimportantbut not nearly as crucial as deciding where we go from here and charting the course to get us there.
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We all did what we could do…
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