The Fourth Enlargement of American Whiteness (1990s- ) is the current adjustment of White American society to the fourth wave of US immigration (mainly Asian and Latino) and the rise of people who see themselves as multiracial (pictured).
Each wave of immigration to the US leads to an enlargement of the idea of what a “White” or “Real” American is. Historian Nell Irvin Painter, in her book “The History of White People” (2010), counts four enlargements. Roughly speaking:
- Early 1800s: Wasps (= British American)
- Late 1800s: Nordics (= Wasp + Dutch + Irish + German + Scandinavian)
- Middle 1900s: Whites (= Nordic + Jews + Italians + Poles, etc)
- Early 2000s: multiracial middle-class (White + Asian + Latino + multiracial + middle-class Blacks)
Each wave seems like it is going to Destroy America As We Know It with its crime and poverty and disease and its un-American values:
- Know Nothings sounded the alarm about the Irish in the 1850s.
- Madison Grant sounded the alarm about Italians and Jews in the 1910s and 1920s.
- Pat Buchanan, Samuel P. Huntington and others sounded the alarm about Mexicans in the 1990s and 2000s.
But destruction never comes. Instead the children of any given wave grow up to become Americanized voters. Politicians simply broaden their idea of what a Real American is to take in a large majority of voters. The mainstream culture follows suit.
What holds this Real America together is anti-Black racism. As Toni Morrison puts it, the second word every US immigrant learns is the N-word.
Non-Hispanic whites will be a minority by 2042. But if they accept white Hispanics as true White Americans, they can stay in the majority till at least 2100. American culture will become more Hispanic in any case, while Hispanics will become more Americanized, so it will seem almost natural.
Painter, however, sees a more profound Fourth Enlargement. She notes:
- The increasing number of interracial marriages.
- The increasing number of people who see themselves as multiracial.
- Only skinheads still talk about white racial purity.
- Racism receives little support in law due to civil rights reforms of the 1960s.
- Racism receives little support in science. The Human Genome Project left little room for scientific racism.
- The rise of whiteness studies, which questions the whole idea of whiteness.
- Jennifer Lopez (Latina) and Beyonce (Black) as Hollywood beauties.
- Dark-skinned Michelle Obama as an icon of beauty and intelligence. In the 1900s her skin colour alone would have condemned her as ugly.
- The success of Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods, Condoleezza Rice, Alberto Gonzalez, etc.
- The advantages of being White and the disadvantages of being Black are no longer as great as they used to be.
The US will move towards a multiracial society, especially in suburbs and college towns. It will accept middle-class Blacks, but:
As before, the black poor remain outside the concept of the American as an “alien race” of “degenerate families.” … poverty in a dark skin endures as the opposite of whiteness, driven by an age-old social yearning to characterize the poor as permanently other and inherently inferior.
Source: mainly “The History of White People” (2010) by Nell Irvin Painter.
See also:
So everyone hates black Americans. Such amazing uniformity of mind. You don’t think that makes you sound a little paranoid?
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Kiwi
I think black Hispanics are too well, black, to ever be accepted by white supremacy. Brown (Native & mixed) Hispanics may be given a proverbial paper bag test like other non-black POC where showing how hateful they can be towards blacks gives them a better seat at the table. But they still won’t be as privileged as their white Hispanic counterparts who will be fully absorbed into whiteness.
On another thread a lot of commenters pointed out that as the US becomes browner, white supremacy will evolve into a Brazil like method of attack & classification of race. Whites will still be at the top with non-black POC in the middle to many varying degrees & blacks at the very bottom. White will be an articulated social status as opposed to an implied one like we have now & POC in the middle will vie to marry whites due to self hate & so their children can have a chance to succeed. Just my take.
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Interesting post. Don’t necessarily agree but still good.
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So the majority moves the goalposts of whiteness to maintain majority status. That’s to be expected. After all, finally accepting blacks on equal terms without any whitewashing requirements would rob the the Powers That Be™ of their most favorite scapegoats and stress/strife/crisis relief tools.
Another telling event is the recent proliferation of “pro-whiteness” as a rallying cry. To me, it seems like a response from beneficiaries of the third enlargement against the coming inclusion of others unlike themselves, as well as a death rattle from beneficiaries of the the second enlargement.
Three “Broken Record” arguments in just three small sentences:
#6: I don’t like your tone. A post of yours made me upset!
#8: You see racism in everything!
#21: “Your blog is anti-white”
So the continuous onslaught of racism that black Americans must deal with on a constant basis is just “paranoid,” as is Abagond’s discussion of it and how it ties to the ever-expanding definition of “whiteness?” Who knew?
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Hopefully i will be dead, before this happens. -_-
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Mack Lyons:
“whitewashing requirements would rob the the Powers That Be™”
lol @ the Trade mark symbol. ^_^
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America DOES NOT accept middle class blacks.
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I think that north Europeans(Dutch, German, Scandinavian) were accepted as WASP from the very beginning of North American colonies and not only in “late 1800ies”. Cf. Pensylvanian Germans, Dutch of New York(Roosevelt, van Buren), Delaware Swedish etc. The Catholic Irish is a different story altogether, they were not accepted until quite later(probably together with Italians and Poles) due to their Catholic religion rather than race, although there were some racist connotations as well. However this did not apply to Protestant Irish who apparently were accepted as WASP in early colonies.
Maybe the title of the post could be better termed “expansion of American mainstream” rather than “expansion of whiteness”.
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America does not accept blacks with the capacity and/or desire to attain Koch brothers or Rockefeller-levels of wealth and power, which are the only things that actually move the various cogs and gears of this country. America would never accept a black Cheney or Rumsfeld, nor would it accept a black Salmon P. Chase or Andrew Carnegie.
There’s simply too much at stake for there not to be a fourth enlargement of whiteness.
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@Ally
Waging war on (especially poor & working-class) black people does not require that “everyone hate Black Americans”. It only requires that those with all the power want to make it happen, and that a simple-minded majority population will comply with it. Constant demonization in the media, systematic resegregation or closing of schools, reverse white flight, rampant racial profiling, the prison industrial complex, etc…just a few contemporary examples that are, frankly, quite difficult not to notice if you get around much at all.
Every time I hear the “blacks are paranoid” line, I can’t help but suspect that there might be some closet nazi shit going on there. But surely that’s not the case here, right?
If you have evidence that black folks are indeed just paranoid, it’s time to cough it up because paranoia is a dangerous mental condition.
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If multiracialism becomes the norm, then the USA will evolve (or devolve, depending on how you look at it) into a more colouristic society, along the lines of Latin America.
If non-Hispanic whites are willing to marry with Asians, White Hispanics, middle class Mestizo or mulatto Hispanics and other multiracial Americans and middle class blacks, they will all get mixed into the “white” end of the spectrum.
Poor whites might find their lot with blacks and browns.
A “light brown” man who has some property and income, might try to move up by finding a lighter female. One who is poor and less educated may have to settle for browner female. Most people on TV will be more or less white looking, or fair-skinned multiracial. After 2-3 generations, people may start to associate colour with class, with the richest and most powerful still being the most white.
Poorer people will also be multiracial, but with higher concentration of non-European ancestry.
I remember watching the Miss Brazil beauty contest a few years ago. Even though over half the population has at least some African ancestry, and many more have Native American and Asian ancestry, all the contestants from all over the country, even Amazonia and Salvador, appeared so lily white.
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You know, I wonder what people in early 2100s will say about the early 2000s:
“Did you know that people were actually debating about the disappearance of white America or whether whiteness will expand to include other people? Can you imagine that that is how people used to think THEN?
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@ Kiwi
Quite probably New England, the home of Franklin, which was predominantly English had a stricter attitude on “anglo-saxonness”, while the situation in Middle Atlantic colonies as Pensylvania, New York, New Jersey, Delaware perhaps was a little bit different, with less emphasis on “englishness”. The Apalachian zone had many Scots and Irish Protestants who perhaps were accepted as mainstream there, but not necessarily in Boston.
However, one could make a surprising conclusion – that the so called American revolution of 1775-1783 was not a movement of national liberation, but rather a purely civil war of English against English, since the areas which were the most active in rebellion was the most English as well – I mean New England and Virginia(of course only white Virginians were English), from where the most revolutionaries originated. While those zones which had more non-English population, as Middle Atlantic or some Souther colonies, were much slower to rebel.
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“America DOES NOT accept middle class blacks.”
How is that manifested? What evidence do you have of non acceptance?
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“Racism receives little support in science. The Human Genome Project left little room for scientific racism.”<– This statement is ridiculous.
Equalism is a religion and any science that indicates no, people are actually pretty different (if we look at groups as a whole), will somehow get ignored or attacked (whereas if the same methodology confirmed equality it would be praised and quoted ad infinitum). To say that there are no formal clear-cut racial classifications in nature goes without saying. For instance, one could separate down to many different groups of white or black people (and where would Indians fit in that dichotomy?). Nevertheless, recent studies have shown that genes can be used to reliably identify someone's ancestry down to a small region (e.g., certain community in Scotland)–and yes there are genes that affect intelligence and genes that affect criminality. And yes, actually racial composition can tell us a lot about a community. Or maybe all those geneticists (mostly white) are just secretly r@cists!
Anyway, I generally agree with jefe's comment (though I think intermarriage won't be as significant as self-segregation, white/Asian flight, at least initially). US will devolve into a Latin American type society. Skin color will still matter, perhaps even more than it does now (interesting to take a look at the past dozen or so Mexican presidents, which is pretty easy with Wikipedia, and compare their complexion with the Mexican/Mexican American janitorial staff you may have come across in the U.S.–might be even more interesting to look at Mexican multimillionaires, who don't have to be elected).
Are blacks treated better in Latin America than in the U.S.? Do they have a better lifestyle and more opportunities? If blacks had actually thought this one through, they would be pushing to "erect a wall".
By the way, so the cartoon seems to make it seem like everything will be all right, ignoring the fact that the country was 90% white before the U.S. decided to let the world in after 1965. Does it seem like everything will be all right in the U.S.? Does it seem like everything is getting better? Do you look around you and see life in the U.S. getting better for the average person? Do you think that tacitly permitting massive illegal immigration from Latin America will help improve the quality of life in the country?
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Ah, the good ole days of Father Knows Best and Leave it to Beaver.
OMG, this guy is scary.
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Kiwi:
I wasn’t aware that illegal immigrants from Latin America (the ones I was focused on in my comments and questions) were starting tons of businesses.
Anyway, no need for ad hominems, bro. Those are the crutch of someone who isn’t able to win based on the facts.
You think things are getting better in the US. OK, you’re on the record. I don’t see it. Most people don’t see it. Time will tell. I actually hope you’re right.
Japan has its fair share of problems no doubt, the key one being they aren’t producing enough babies (due largely to global feminism teaching women that reproducing isn’t very important). I suppose you think if they had just let hordes of Filipinos and Indonesians immigrate there that they’d have a thriving, vibrant country and be all set for the future. Guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree on that one too.
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ah dude they were saying there’s like 1400-1500 illegal immigrant arrests a day in the usa
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and i dont think an american can buy property over therer in mexico and stuff, it’s a one way flow
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the white politicians of america have a great opportunity to reform tax, deal with people havin no health insurance, and have more workers, to do things in general? is not bad, but they will just let it go and talk about jesus and abortions and the communist threat
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Japan doesn’t have a mechanism for accepting and absorbing foreigners into their society, preferring economic decline over multiculturalism. They experimented with importing foreigners of Japanese descent, but even most of them have left.
I read that they previously wanted to export their elderly to the Philippines, who would pay for their care. The Philippines rejected that proposal and asked if they could send the Filipinos there to take care of them. Japan rejected that.
Having a mechanism to accept foreign labour doesn’t mean that it will work well either. Look at all the problems Malaysia has with accepting several million foreign migrant labourers.
The USA has a long history and experience of it, but it brings them other problems, ie, what to do with “whiteness”.
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@v8
Obviously, that is what is bringing the country down.
😛 😛 😛
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biff
“and yes there are genes that affect criminality.”
Do you really believe this?
How is criminality defined in order to provide a relationship with genes?
“Are blacks treated better in Latin America than in the U.S.?”
You are asking a good question here.
The answer depends on how one defines “blacks”. If we mean by “black”, people with an “African” appearance, so to speak, then the answer is NO. Blacks in Latin America are worse than blacks in USA, not only in absolute terms, because Latin American countries are less rich than USA and, therefore, their populations are less rich too, blacks included, but also in relative terms, i.e., blacks in Brazil, for example, are further away from white Brazilians than blacks in USA are from white Americans.
But, if by “blacks” you are including the “one drop-rule blacks”, i.e., mixed people, then I believe that Latin American blacks are perhaps better off than USA blacks (In fact, they are often considered “whites”)
As the USA society approaches the Latin American model of racial relationships I believe the prospects of the “remaining blacks” there, will definitively worsen (“Black man’s burden”).
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I am looking at Nina Diviluri Miss America 2013. And the Governor of Louisiana Bobby Jindal also comes to mind. dark brown skin man who’s parents are immigrants from India. He was born and raised in this country. Was watching him on CNN at a NRA assembly. In my mind it looked strange listening to this dark brown skinned man with a heavy southern drawl talk about holding on to their guns and protecting the right to have them. He is just an enigma to me. He has assimilated into white southern culture. He fits this narrative of the fourth enlargement of American whiteness. I suppose Barack Obama does too.
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I never understood how these enlargements happen, it just seems that one day a group isn’t seen as a threatening other anymore by the previous “in-group”. But how this new tactic is communicated within the white community, I can’t grasp.
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@ Anne
Same here: interesting but I do not necessarily agree with it all. I think there will be a Fourth Enlargement but it will be made up mainly of assimilated white Hispanics and some multiracials with maybe university-educated Asians tagging along as honorary whites (but still seen as perpetual foreigners). I doubt very much ordinary middle-class Blacks will be part of it, despite Michelle Obama and all.
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@ gatobranco1
Ben Franklin did complain about Germans in pretty much the same way that many Anglos now complain about Mexicans. And this was in Pennsylvania.
The Dutch were still seen as ethnically separate into the early 1800s.
Protestants from anywhere in Britain or Ireland, I agree, were seen as unforeign, at least by the early 1800s.
The Irish drew the most attention because they were poor and Catholic and the original Despised Ethnic Other in Anglo culture, even before Black and Native Americans were. But there was also violence against German Catholics in the middle 1800s.
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@ Ally
Racial steering is an example of how middle-class Blacks in the US are not accepted by the White middle-class. When I look for a house I will often be shown property in Black neighbourhoods and, at best, some token house they know I would not want in a White neighbourhood – even though I can afford almost any house in said White neighbourhood. Not ALL real estate agents do this, but plenty do. And they will lie to your face to do it too.
And I know it is not just me or my imagination because there are tons of lily-white suburbs that cannot be accounted for by simple demographics and economics.
It works the other way too: I have lived in quiet, safe middle-class Black neighbourhoods, but when I go to sell my house very few Whites come to see it. And even when I do move into a White neighbourhood, Whites start moving out and Blacks start moving in.
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@ abagond
Yes, and because of this attitude apparently he lost elections to the Philadelphia City Council. This could be taken as an example of cultural differences between New England and much more liberal(in many aspects) Pennsylvania.
Concerning Catholics it seems there was a generalized mistrust against Catholics among North American Protestants, not just because these Catholics were poor or “ethnically other”, but because they were seen as the subvertors of the Christian Faith, worshipping “idols” (Mary, Saints and their images and statues) and subservient to the Pope to the degree of caring more for the interests of Papacy that for the interests of America.
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@ Jefe
Not just the good old days of “Leave It to Beaver” but of Jim Crow too.
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abagond,
Would you embrace this new, Fourth Enlargement or look at it the same way as the current?
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Maybe one of reasons why Ben Franklin so hated Germans was that they have spurned his newspaper 😀
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin#Newspaperman
In 1732, Ben Franklin published the first German language newspaper in America – Die Philadelphische Zeitung – although it failed after only one year, because four other newly founded German papers quickly dominated the newspaper market.[10]
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The Pragmatist
Can you elaborate? My social circle includes middle-class black families who participate in social and community events, and whose kids all play together with non-black kids.
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@ Kartoffel
One of the See Also links goes to a post on the Third Enlargement, There you can see how an enlargement took place from beginning to end. It took about 80 years all told.
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@ gatobramco1
Right, the country was solidly Protestant, so Irish and German Catholics coming in large numbers was a big challenge.
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More seriously, an important cultural difference between Franklin versus Germans – “English liberties” versus German culture of obedience towards rulers.
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@gatobranco1
Not just among North American Protestants. Anti-Catholicism was brought over by the first British settlers. Britain and Scotland were deeply anti-catholic in the 17th Century, and the Dissenters who emigrated to America even more so.
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@ Sondis
These enlargements, even Painter’s multiracial one, are just a way for Whites to hang on to power. Divide and conquer. They racistly exclude certain Americans. That is sick and twisted. What true patriot could even stomach such a thing?
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@Ally & Randy
“America DOES NOT accept middle class blacks.”
How is that manifested? What evidence do you have of non acceptance?”
Can you elaborate
Sure. It doesn’t matter how much money a black person has in America, they are still very much phenotypically different than whites and subject to the same, if not more, anti-black stereotypes and prejudices as their less well off brethren. We have all seen the infamous black and white sounding names study where white-sounding names were 50% more likely to get a call back, despite having an identical resume to the black sounding names. In fact, educated blacks are twice as likely to be unemployed then the rest of Americans (12.4% compared to 5.6%).
http://www.nationaljournal.com/next-america/education/african-americans-with-college-degrees-are-twice-as-likely-to-be-unemployed-as-other-graduates-20140527
Lower class blacks are not the ones applying and competing for these middle class jobs they aren’t even qualified for and therefore aren’t facing the same discrimination educated blacks are.
If you can control for educational attainment white people still have higher incomes, more wealth, and are more likely to live in neighborhoods with better resources. Meanwhile, many middle class blacks aren’t given the same financial help through gifts and support from family that whites are. Their economic ascension is too often supported by debt through the use of student loans, holding them back decades after their education is done.
Middle class blacks are more likely to be in majority white environments, facing the brunt of white ignorance concerning black people. From my own experience, I can recall white roommates apologizing to me for them not being interested in hip hop (I didn’t even tell him I liked the genre! In fact, this was said within our first conversation), another white guy would instantly switch to the hip hop stations EVERY time I entered the car, although I like a wide variety of musical genres, and then their are the countless awkward moments whenever a white person hasn’t taken their PC classes and makes the most uncomfortable comments concerning race.
This video from BuzzFeedYellow is a perfect satiric example of the reality many blacks face when around white associates and friends.
Money does not erase blackness. Middle class blacks are the ones seeing unequal results even after doing everything America says they should when it comes to hard work, educational vigor, morals, & values. They are not fully accepted by America.
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@Ally and Randy
My reply is in moderation.
@Abagond
What put me in moderation? I didn’t use any swear words or offensive language..
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@ The Pragmatist
Your comment was moderated due to its YouTube link. I catch those to make sure they do not embed.
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(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/30/confronting-racism-face-face-bbc-video_n_5419497.html)
Biracial Woman Bravely Talks To KKK Members And Neo-Nazis To Confront Racism Face-To-Face
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Abagond , I wonder what you really think is underneath white flight and trying to exclude black people from neighborhoods ?
People will say property values drop…but what is really underneath that?
People will say because of violence, but, white people crammed black people into ghettos and let it fester and wonder why there is crime there…without checking out crime statistics for poor whites…
people will say drugs, but, white people do more drugs than black, and the 1937 marijuana tax act was used to crack down on black and brown people , and that is the start of what is happening big time into today…it was also tied into a black innovative music movement called bebop…black neighborhoods dont grow marijuana or produce coke there…and the big money makers actualy live in upscale neighborhoods….the biggest coke dealer in the world was caught in an upscale neighborhood in the city i live in…escobar knew about this place and came there and his son actualy carried on the legacy…and told this huge drug dealer about it
People will say white people run in white flight due to racism…but what is really underneath that?
personaly, i say follow the cultural racism tracks…all the way back to where religion coupled with the ability to conquer, dictated that a people who were phenotype looking one way, and a culture that was dramticly differant from the pious religious values of white people back then, were deemed culturaly inferior and worthy of slavery…this way white racism looks at black Americans can be seen all the way back to the ealiest minstral depictions of what they thought black American culture was…as they also apropriated the banjo , an african instrument , as the country western instrument of identification…and all the sexual connotations white people atributed to natural healthy ancient African ,pre Islam and Christian, expresion people gave us that is in their culture..and how those mistaken sexual connotations led to the lynchings and sever punishments for any implications of black people having sex with white people from the slave era..and the rapes and implications of what black women were suposedly good for
you would think, that with the reality that white people apropriated Afro diasporic culture and made it the foundation of American culture, they would be thrilled a black family would move into their neighborhood, just to upgrade the culture in their neighborhood…heck, my parents moved next to a large black neighborhood and my cultural awareness jumped in a big way
i really think their is some kind of black cultural mixed with the phenotype look, inferiority notions from white racist psyche that is some prime organic underlying origin of things like white flight and the problem you face getting a house…and some of the real reasons behind racism period
but, what do you think is the real reason you had the problems in trying to get a house as a black American…Columbia grad , computor programmer no less?
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Wow @Abagond
This is a profound post.
I don’t know though, I still hear associations of being “the other,” there for middle class Blacks. They accused Michelle of being an angry Black woman, I heard a White guy having a conversation with your everyday middle class Black woman the other day and he asked her her opinion on some generic topic, and when she said she didn’t really like that particular type of music, he asked her “is it like, hell to the naw?” I’m suspicious of the optimistic idea that Blackness no matter its class, will be detached from the stigmas and stereotypes and relegated to only poor AA, since it’s the problems and behaviours among the poorest AA that have long been projected as general Black behaviour and not the behaviour of the poor from . . .. dun dun duuunnn, environments of poverty. I can see multiracial AAs being more accepted as Americans but as for this expansion of the definition of Whiteness, my friend, I think you’re being far too optimistic as the expansion of Whiteness will probably only serve to bring new “White defined communities” into the American fold with “Black” remaining “the others.”
In other words, I picture this White expansion as just more of an expansion of White supremacy, not a multicultural equal opportunity society, sadly.
Then again, optimism is always nice.
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The Pragmatist:
very well put in regards to why, America DOES NOT accept middle class blacks.
You couldn’t have been any cleared on the subject.
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abagond:
“What true patriot could even stomach such a thing?”
Well, the majority of White people in America must not be true patriots, being they only seem themselves and other whites as the one and only, “True” Americans. Despite the fact that Native Americans are indigenous to America and whites are not! Now that too, is sick and twisted for whites to think such a thing!
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@Kiwi
Exactly.
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@ abagond and everyone esle:
This native American put its perfectly and not so subtle i might add, during a immigration protest by whites!
(http://youtu.be/ooY_j9h5FbQ)
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Kiwi said:
“From what I’ve observed in California, illegal immigration from Latin America fills in the menial labor jobs that white Americans don’t want, and because of the lower wages, it provides greater profits for businesses, mostly owned by whites.”
So you are a California guy. I’ve spent many years there too. But I seem to remember you previously mentioned being in a mostly Asian area, so I don’t know how much you’ve gotten to really see of the places where the now majority Hispanic population lives (driving through doesn’t count). Most whites and Asians avoid those places if they can…
Anyway, yes, illegal immigration drives down wages. If the business owners had to, they would pay more and then maybe more people would want the jobs. Anyway, illegal immigration makes some business owners more wealthy, while passing related costs (schooling, medical care, police enforcement, etc.) onto the public as large. Have you seen the class sizes at public schools in Southern California? I don’t buy that illegal immigrants contribute anywhere near in taxes to what they take out in social services… So, it’s a pretty massive driver of inequality.
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It is actually quite easy to be in an area in the San Gabriel Valley and to both live in an era that is mostly Asian, and to also be intimately aware of happenings in the mostly Latino neighborhood a couple blocks away.
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@Kiwi
There’s a reason the poorest brown indigenous looking Hispanics are the first to claim to be of completely Spanish ancestry. I think Spain is liable for the plights or predicaments of these people and their legacy.
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When I lived In Chicago, I noticed a huge spike in reverse white flight into Latino neighborhoods (especially after the J-Lo / Ricky Martin “Latin pop” explosion of the early 2000’s), despite these communities having crime & poverty rates that were right on par with most “notorious” Black neighborhoods.
Puerto Rican communities like Humboldt Park & Logan Square were hit especially hard & are now overrun with bland condoplexes, upscale doggie daycare centers, etc…but Mexican communities like Pilsen & Little Village, despite some gentrification, have managed to retain most of their character & culture & vast majority Mexican population.
Yet, there has been virtually NO significant influx of white people into predominantly Black communities in Chicago. I personally don’t know of a single white person there who has ever moved into a Black community!
It almost seems as if all it took was some soft-pedalling of watered down Latino pop culture in the media to suddenly give white folks the wherewithal to re-conquer many of the Latino areas that their parents & grandparents fled from in horror in the mid 20th century, and that Puerto Ricans are less empowered to sustain their communities than Mexicans (despite Mexicans being notably more “foreign” by default). Meanwhile, White Chicagoland is just as terrified of Black people as ever…
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I think the new whiteness will be defined by the political right. Conservatives need a sizable majority among the white vote. For now the Republicans hold on to the old non-hispanic Whiteness, but they know that a majority among these doesn’t win elections anymore. If they hold on to traditional whiteness they will be replaced by another right-wing party that adopts a broarder adefinition of white; and at some point they will be as relevant as the people who didn’t accept the third enlargement.
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I disagree with illegal immigration . . .. (runs out of thread).
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In reference to Kiwi’s exchange with Ebonymonroe on the FLOTUS. Yes a great deal of white American referred to FLOTUS as an angry black woman. And it escalated into the whole Obama family particularly the Tea Party movement referring to them as primates and other things that were not not human. That’s when we all became a post racial America.
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The Pragmatist has spoken nothing but the truth. Black people were never meant to be a part of American society. The black middle class are at the lower rungs of the American middle class and holding on by our finger nails.
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@ Ebonymonroe
I agree with your disagreement. I’m all for immigration, but it can’t be totally uncontrolled for many obvious reasons.
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Rotf @Mary Burrell
(High fives King and runs out again.)
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@Kiwi,
I think Biff missed a big point. By creating a work force that can work legally in the USA that not only pays taxes, they are young and have children that will work and pay taxes too. They will be especially useful for the long-term social programs such as Social Security which is bordering on a pay-as-you-go system. Without new workers in the system, it will go bust, and (mostly) white retirees will not have money for their social security checks. There is a net benefit to allowing these workers, who (along with their employers) usually more than pay for the infrastructure and social services that they use.
Anyhow, these debates about immigration are actually old ones that are getting rehashed.
If the choice is
– import both lower-skill workers and brain drain into the USA to do work the other Americans are not interested in doing.
or
– export the work overseas (both lower skill and hi tech stuff) overseas & let the other countries do this.
The former theoretically drives down wages. The latter throws people out of work. The USA has been doing both. It seems that when Republican presidents are in office, they focus more on the latter because they do not want immigrants, but still want cheap labour. Factory jobs have largely disappeared from the USA because of this.
Some jobs cannot be exported, eg, agricultural workers. You have to be physically present in the USA to do agricultural work. You cannot grow food in the USA and have it completely serviced overseas*. The service sector cannot be sent overseas. Janitors to clean buildings and grounds workers must be physically present in the USA to do their jobs, as must, say, delivery workers.
* (There are exceptions. I have been to seafood processing plants in China where the “raw materials” – the fish – are sourced in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest and frozen whole and sent to China. The workers there defrost, cut the heads, skin the fish, debone it, remove parasites, slice into filets, dip in bleaching solution, and preservatives and then refreeze and package and send back to the USA.)
So we have countries like Japan, with few new workers in the workforce, and ones like Philippines, which only recently allowed people to use contraceptives. They still do not allow abortion.
What is unique about the USA is its use of immigration to solve their labour and economic development policies. It can elect to have an endless supply of young entrants to the labour force if it wants to continue to use immigration.
China’s labour force is now shrinking and aging. It may have a demographical structure soon like Japan’s without a structure in place to handle it. I am thinking about the baby boom during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) followed by the one child policy since 1980. They will start retiring in 15-20 years with few young people to maintain the economy. What is the answer? Retire in the Philippines? Import Indians or Africans?
India is now the large country with the young population. That is why the economy is predicted to overtake China.
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Who is blaming you for the collapse of US society?
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@Jeff
Isn’t this (relying on cheap foreign labor) the very thing that has destroyed the economy? Longterm it seems to have proven itself unsustainible.
Step 1. the US holds the gold reserves of all countries, as all money is measured against the dollar. Paper money which is essentially a certificate of proof of gold reserves that serves as a more practical currency than solid gold coins and bullion comes into being.
Step 2. The US goes into gϋΩs and butter mode with trips to the moon and the war, and in the process, goes into deficit. Countries are suspicious that the US has spent all the gold reserves, including that which belonged to foreign countries, and now they (other countries), begin demanding the US allow them to withdraw their gold reserves. Nixon announces a suspension on the gold being returned in defense of the dollar against these accusations, promising that this time of fiat money (paper money of no value, backed by nada) will be temporary, but it proves to be permanent.
Step 3. The 80’s, the economy is at a surplus, a surplus founded on debt, but a surplus none the less. Reagan wants short term gains despite a time of thriving for both the blue and white collar US workforce. Reagan shifts the work to cheap foreign markets, bringing the US’s outgoings well beyond its incoming economy from foreign markets on a cheap comparative from global workforces.
Step 4. Without bullion backing what was oncee money and now just paper currency, foreign markets purchase US bonds to avoid inflation to keep their goods and services cheap in order to maintain their competitive appeal with the US and other world consumer’s market price demands. But of course these bonds are the US’s “I owe yous” to the IMF which is a continually expanding pyramid of larger and larger “I owe yous” since the US operates on loans and, more, “I owe yous.” And when the camel’s back was broken, it all fell down.
Some say the Reagan administration’s decision to use cheap foreign labour which was a short term gain, but one that proved a disadvantage for American workers longterm was the major straw, a ticking time bomb when placed on top of Nixon’s fateful decision but that it didn’t hit the fan for decades.
Now Obamas been on the US getting-in-the-ring-as-a-competitive-global-market, albeit in pointless babysteps.
I’m suspicious that US labor work and industries like the auto-industry, are not in fact areas that all need to be brought back to American blue collar workers under union structures in order to correct the lack of income the US has.
Of course inflation severely complicates the matter.
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^^^
*But of course these bonds are the US’s “I owe yous” to the Federal Reserve
In mod.
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@Kiwi,
Oh, ha-ha. I thought it was from some credible source. 😛
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Here’s the thing, as the enlargement of American whiteness continues so will American Blackness. We will continue being innovators, trendsetters, trailblazers and etc. Here’s a recent ex: http://nypost.com/2014/06/15/harlem-entrepreneur-opens-pawn-shop-for-high-top-sneakers/
My focus is letting my kids know that the system is rigged recognizing it, learning from it, and to continue the journey that our ancestors started and be Lethe essence of Dr. Maya Angelou’s poem Still I Rise
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/still-i-rise
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*the not Lethe
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@Kiwi
One tribe conquers another and as a prize, lives in abject fear of being conquered by those they’ve supposedly vanquished. That’s mainstream America in a nutshell, personified by our friend biff.
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jefe:
You think when Hispanics are a majority of the younger population of the U.S> that they will support much higher social security taxes to allow massive payments to mostly old white people? I have my doubts. Social security is in need of significant restructuring anyway. The sooner it happens the better, I think.
The brain drain immigrants certainly provide economic contributions, so how many should be allowed in is a matter for discussion. For illegals, if the cost of related services to them (including jail, which I forgot to mention, but which is huge) is more than what is brought in in extra revenues, they are not really helping with the country’s finances. California is a good case study. It is the U.S. of the not too distant future with an emerging Hispanic majority and many illegals. Despite having one of the highest state income taxes in the country and some pretty mediocre services, it is nearly dead broke and heavily indebted… public schools are terrible and overcrowded, and de facto segregation is everywhere. Try to bus Hispanics into a predominantly Asian school district and you will see things get interesting.
Anyway, whether all immigration to the U.S. should be slowed down or stopped, or whether there is at least some value in preserving a majority white country (the people voting with their feet certainly seem to prefer these places, though I have taken a different path personally), is something to consider. A completely separate, and I would think easy to answer question, is whether the U.S. should vigorously enforce its immigration laws to prevent illegal immigration if these laws are something most people want to enforce, and the vast majority of average Americans do want to enforce them, but some elites will get richer (e.g., farm owners) and more diversity bonus points (e.g., politicians pandering to Hispanics) by saying we should have open borders.
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To Abagond,
Do you think you single handedly turn white areas black by moving to them? I will have to bow to your experience if you say you do.
Historically Northern cities in the States were more mixed than they are now. Some have attributed the exodus of poor Southern blacks to the creation of ghettos and white flight in the North. Possibly old associations die hard.
I have noticed that there is segregation in Palm Beach, with the Jews and the Gentiles belonging to separate circles and separate clubs etc. and rarely mixing. It is pathetic to watch as a visitor.
Such racial sensitivity doesn’t really happen to middle and upper middle class blacks in England, in my experience anyway. If you act and speak in a certain way white neighbours in good areas are going to prefer you to someone low class and white. I don’t say race prejudice doesn’t exist but class always trumps everything in England. It is always large groups of lower class people of any race which determines the tone of the area and those that choose to live there. Middle class whites would flee from chav areas with as much speed as they would poor black or Asian ones.
Certain areas become popular with certain more affluent groups, like Jews in Golders Green, but wealthy Jews, blacks or Asians wouldn’t cause an exodus of people from the smart parts of Berkshire or Surrey. That said if you can afford to live there chances are you have learnt how to behave in a way which doesn’t worry anyone of any colour (with the exception of a few nouveau riche types) and the anti-Semitism which is so prevalent in Palm Beach doesn’t appear to be a factor, at least that is the case with the few Jewish people I know in my town. Areas with large numbers of gays always become very fashionable and desirable. I would think that less likely to be the case in many parts of the States.
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um, ok, Kiwi, this is a chart of Hispanics saying their lives will be better than their parents’ lives. Doesn’t take much to be more successful than an illegal immigrant sub-minimum wage worker I’d say. Most of the “Hispanics” I’ve seen in elite schools are mostly white, and certainly not children of illegals.. I don’t think you’d convince a lot of people that allowing massive illegal immigration is a good idea based on your cited materials..
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Kiwi:
You said “If success were totally due to genetics, we would expect not much improvement over generations, but it’s happening rapidly in nonwhite majority countries and for nonwhites in white majority countries.”
No one said it was “totally due to genetics”. However, using average IQ, one can still pretty accurately predict a country’s average income (except for a few outliers that are communist dictatorships or hit the jackpot in terms of natural resources).
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@Biff
” ignoring the fact that the country was 90% white before the U.S. decided to let the world in after 1965.”
It was supposedly 85% white in the 1960 census, but even that number is highly inflated since all Mexicans were counted as whites and the “Other” option was removed.
But the US has always decided to “let the world in,” at least the white world. That started long before 1965.
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@ “America DOES NOT accept middle class blacks.”
Well, many non-black Americans still don’t want to live in middle-class black neighbourhoods, judging from the census. Even when high-earning blacks move in large numbers to majority white census districts, the white populations decline.
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Kiwi:
From what I have read and heard anecdotally, a primary driving force behind demographics changes in your home town was culture.
People tend to prefer to live around others who share the similar language, history, politics, religion, community organization styles, community participation, secular and religious traditions, etc.
As evidence, one can observe high levels of balkanization within predominantly “Asian” communities, particularly highly immigrant ones, with various ethnicities tending to group with their own.
Unsurprisingly, this effect is also common among populations of European immigrants, with ethnic groups tending to cluster among themselves.
“Race” is not needed to explain this effect.
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Really?
Funny, because on another thread, YOU stereotyped MOST Black women as being “undatable”, but, but…want people to recognize that Black men are unfairly pigeon-holed.
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Rotflmao @phoebe
I was talking to a poster named Ally on another thread and I had to agree with one point she made, most people are only concerned with prejudice that affects them, not the morality of the issue of prejudice, stereotypes and generalizations. It’s usually about me, myself and I, that’s all.
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Kiwi:
Where I grew up, Italians tended to live in one community, Irish in another, Poles in another. Each had their own community organization separate from the other.
Both sets of my grandparents opposed my parents’ marriage on the basis of ethnicity difference.
Over time a blended culture emerged, but in some cases that took a few generations.
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Kiwi,
It is indeed possible that more whites in the East Coast (Boston to Baltimore) and a few midwest cities or rural areas (eg, Chicago, Minneapolis or rural North Dakota or Michigan) might retain more multi-generational European ethnic identity than the West Coast. Migrants from Europe settled there, whereas white migrants to the West Coast generally came from “Back East” and intermarried with each other more readily, as they were forming mixed white communities from the start. It would make sense that their identities demarcated themselves from non-whites early on. In the East coast and Midwest cities, you would even see more ethnic white (eg, Jewish) / Black alliances even past the mid 20th century.
The South is also different – historically they had not attracted as many new immigrants as the East and midwest, at least not since the Scotch-Irish in the early 19th century. They blended their cultures into Anglo ones over 200 hundred years ago.
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@Kiwi
“On the much more nonwhite West coast…”
Not trying to give you a hard time (I appreciate & respect your many interesting observations), but I just wanted to point out, for the sake of accuracy / perspective:
On the East Coast, nearly every sizeable city from Miami all the way up to Boston has a majority POC population, often an overwhelming majority. And among these populations you will find by far the largest concentrations of Black & Afro-Latino people (i.e. those who do not qualify for ‘honorary white’ status). Add to this hundreds of suburbs & small towns that are majority POC and what you have is an “extremely brown coast”.
Just sayin’….
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^Elridge,
I agree, that the East Coast at least appears to be less white than the west coast. Maybe because many of the west coast non-whites are actually white hispanic (or light multiracials), whereas the non-whites on the East Coast are decidedly more black and Brown.
So, California is about, what, 48% non-Hispanic white, but with a majority white if we include white hispanics? Maryland and Georgia are barely over 50% non-Hispanic White, and even adding in all Whites, including hispanic whites, you still have less than 60%. The cities in the West Coast still have sizeable white populations. The ones in the East, less so. And the East Coast has very large areas of middle-class, even upper middle class majority black areas, esp. in suburban Atlanta and DC and Baltimore.
Metro New York City actually has more Asians than either metro SF or metro LA.
It is certainly not a “much more non-white West Coast” for sure.
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^Another reason
At least from Maryland / Delaware to further south, There are very large RURAL areas that have been overwhelmingly majority black (with isolated communities of tri-racials) for centuries.You can travel from Maryland / Delaware all the way to eastern TX and stay more or less completely within majority black areas. That would have been 100% true 100 years ago.
On the West Coast in the southern half there are “some” communities that might have been Mexican-American for centuries. We might be able to claim that one can go from Central California all the way to Texas and try to keep within areas that have at least Mexican-American pluralities. There were a few Chinese towns until the end of the 19th century (now they’re ghost towns).
The rural areas north of Central California are just as lily white as the rural areas on the East Coast north of MD / DE, but the urban and suburban areas north of SF / Sacramento are overwhelmingly white. Portland, OR is much more white than New Haven, CT or Providence, RI.
Talk about Miami, it is more “Latin” than any city on the West Coast.
So, yes, I can’t agree with Kiwi’s “much more nonwhite West Coast” assertion either.
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OK, fair enough, but when I think of comparing the East Coast to the West Coast, I don’t think of just, say, LA vs. New England, I think of the whole of the West Coast vs. the whole of the East Coast.
I grew up in the East Coast (DC/MD/VA) and also lived in Massachusetts and New York city, and each time I visited the West Coast (SF, LA, Orange County, Sacramento, SD, Seattle), it seemed noticeably more white than what I was used to in the East Coast, esp. in DC and Baltimore. Maryland will be the next minority-majority state, followed by Georgia. They will both probably make it by 2020, and they will both have less white people (Hispanic plus non-Hispanic) as a % or the population than even California. DC has already been that way for the past 65 years.
So, please understand why it is very confusing when you say the “more nonwhite West Coast” if you are trying to make a point. It makes no sense to people who grow up on the East Coast.
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To Kiwi,
“Even if not as fast, whites also flee middle-class Asian neighborhoods. That is my experience.”
That isn’t really the case in England. There might be prejudice against an Indian, for instance, in any given area but it would not be enough to make anyone move, unless it was a smart area and it was a large influx of lower class Pakistanis. However, that isn’t going to happen as working class Pakistanis can’t afford to live anywhere exclusive and if they can and choose to move away from predominantly Asian areas their attitude and behaviour is likely to be closer to the middle and upper middle class ‘white’ standard.
Class always trumps race here and people with money soon learn to adapt and to adopt different modes of behaviour and attitudes when they gain social mobility. Nouveau riche vulgar Essex types, almost always white, are probably the most despised group in England, other than chavs, the white underclass.
Certain areas have become Asian areas but many poorer areas are racially mixed. Originally there may have been white flight by working class whites when large numbers of Asians arrived from the sub Continent after Independence and Partition and large numbers of blacks came from the Caribbean. Middle class Asians came from Uganda and they settled in both white and Asian areas. Nowadays I think most Asian communities are Asian through choice, not because they cannot live elsewhere due to overwhelming prejudice. That is the case with Jewish areas like Golders Green. No-one flees from Jews.
Most lower class neighbourhoods are racially mixed and although I’m sure racism does exist in such places it doesn’t seem severe enough to create mono-racial zones in the majority of poor areas. Rural areas are very white and mono racial but that is really more to do with the job market than anything else. It is changing very, very slowly. Miscegenation, between blacks and whites, is also extremely widespread and accepted here in a way that it doesn’t appear to be in the States and has even reached the aristocracy.
In high class areas of London there are a very high proportion of wealthy Middle Eastern types, particularly Arabs. There are also wealthy Russians. Nobody runs away from them, even though they may not like them all that much.
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I would have to disagree with you here.
There was a reality show on in the UK not too long ago where the towns people had to nominate who they wanted to move into the available property. They chose the chav single mother White woman over the middle upper class, educated Black couple who were politicians, specifically stating that it was about race.
There has been a great deal of gentrification in many areas throughout London in the last few years. And South Asians do have entire communities to themselves, because when too many move in, we move out. Even a friend of mine who works in property will tell you, when a large amount of South Asians move in the house prices fall.
There are always protests back and forth between the British and Muslim communities. Pockets of protests and racial unrest has been going on here forever. Look at South Hall, it’s just South Asians basically. Blacks are a major minority here so you will get a few Black middle class families mixed in with predominantly White suburbs, but if too many Black people moved in it would be the same thing. Yes class is a factor that will bring the White working class right next to Black families inthe projects/council estates, but other than that, we have the same issues the States do, we’re just more subtle about it.
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And when I travel to a place like Manchester, I will often here phrases like “too much fake tan you look liike a n!g nog” being said in conversation. I’ve had rocks thrown at me sitting in a park with my mum, and I’ve encountered White supremacists. The US grapples with race and cotends with it out in the open, it’s also more noticeable because the African American population is much larger, whereas the UK’s issues are much more subtle, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.
Even Black people will leave if too many South Asians move in, and everyone was angry at the large influx of the Polish a few years ago.
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@Kiwi
“Even if not as fast, whites also flee middle-class Asian neighborhoods.”
Right, and that’s confirmed by Census data.
@Ally
“That isn’t really the case in England.”
That’s bull. England is just as segregated as the US and has similar “white flight” patterns. London has seen a huge drop in “white British” population as non-whites have moved in, for example, especially in boroughs that have heavily supported the anti-immigrant British National Party.
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Working class South Asians will cause a fall in house prices and many of these things are due to associations people have with certain groups, whether that is fair or not. One reality show doesn’t represent the whole country. I don’t deny that some whites are racist but I think it would be unusual for many middle class people to prefer a chav to someone middle class and black.
Again I can only speak from my experience and that of my friends and what I have observed. As a group of middle class and upper middle class blacks we have met little really problematic racism; plenty of ignorance, a few cold shoulders but generally no serious problems or obvious hatred/prejudice.
Southall is a predominantly working class to lower middle class area. It always was, it just happened to be white and working class once. Many will choose to be there because it is an Asian area and they want to be with other Asians. Many will avoid it because it is a working class area or because they would feel out of place there among Asians if they are not Asian themselves. Some will avoid it because they don’t like Asians and for no other reason.
I think racism is indeed a factor in all this, but I still believe class to be more telling. I think it isn’t so much that we are more subtle than they are in the States, simply that things are less entrenched here.
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The reality show was just an example of how an entire community of an entire borough felt race trumped class, and as myself and resw77 have pointed out, gentrification and White flight have been apparent factors in the UK that your own personal limited experience is not significant enough to combat with.
These few instances of ignorance and cold shoulders is actually what most would indeed categorise as racism if it was a result of your ethnicity.
Ultimately, what you view as continual patterns of coincidence or class, despite race being the common denominator, many will view as problems with race.
I maintain that the UK’s problems in this area are far more subtle than those of the US, but still, I absolutely believe that Britain is a society which has a hierarchy based on the usual (race, class and gender), just like other Western societies.
You’re gonna find it impossible convincing people that these are all just coincidences or just about class.
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@ Ebony
I don’t believe that class will trump race all the time, or even generally, but even though there are issues in the UK that are shared with the States that the British like to sweep under the rug, there are class-based differences that sometimes over-ride race. I realize you that you did not say “it was the same” in your commentary — you didn’t — but as far as the white working class goes, the differences in the UK will hinge far more on the economic aspirations.
For as long as I remember, “living out in the country” (preferably in a cottage with a nice garden and not too far from a pub) always seemed to what the white British aspired to.
You mentioned Southall: Asian and poor. As a ward*, it probably has the smallest white population in the whole country. Southall is the down-at-heel end of Ealing Borough — but have you noticed that the more West you go in Ealing the more “diverse” it gets, and the more East you go, the more white it is?
I believe race IS a factor, but I feel the truth here is more complicated.
There are a range of determinants behind choice of location.
I’ve seen young white people and Asian and black people go for the places with the largest houses and the best schools — but this IS easier for white people.
It’s easier because white people because there are more of them, and they will more readily move to areas that are overwhelming white, whilst blacks and Asians are more reluctant to do so.
In fact, I’ve been around black people and Asians who prefer South Ealing over West or East, because South of the Borough (or thereabouts) is not “too white” (not good) but is sufficiently “mixed” (better) for cultural comfort.
*ward: an administrative section of a city that has elections and has representation by a councillor or councillors in local government.
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But I do agree that the US’s more complicated recent history of segregation has made its problem with race far more pronounced than the UK’s which has made the latter a situation where race and class are more closely tied with the issue of prejudice.
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@ Ebony, yes, absolutely: the US segregation history is as you say.
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@Bulanik
I agree. I believe the UK is a White supremacist society, why wouldn’t it be, it’s predominantly White. But on the same token, being that the population of POC is so small in comparison to the States, and the fact that it doesn’t share the extreme history of segregation the US has, the issue of race and class are more closely tied. It’s much easier for POC to assimilate as a small population, but still, White flight and gentrification are evidence there still being a reluctance for integration when it comes to ethnic communities. Being from the UK, however, I have found myself shocked at the extremity of racism in the US, and that oblivion just goes to show how different life is for a person of colour in the UK to that of a person of colour in the US.
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Further, you are also correct to point out that the factor of race and racism plays its part but plays out far more subtly, and thus be under-estimated!
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^^^
*evidence of there still being
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@Ebonymonroe
IF it were just about class, like Ally suggests, then we wouldn’t see incomes rising as “non-whites” move in (to some neighbourhoods) and while whites moving out. Tower Hamlets is a good example of a place that has seen explosive growth in avg income, but “white flight” at the same time.
So really, this is no different that what we see in some places in many US census tracts.
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Race is bound to be a factor, but I’m not sure if it “no different” becauseTower Hamlets has also a seen a moving out of Bangladeshis to Essex and Newham at the same time.
I’d always thought of Tower Hamlets as a “Bangla enclave”, because although that ethnicity used to makee up about around one third of Borough, most of the councillors and leadership is Bangladeshi.
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@Bulanik
According to the most recent census, Bangladeshis still make up about one third and the Bangladeshi population increased 21% over the decade. But that’s besides the point that “white British” population has plummeted while both minorities and average gross income rose.
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A cold shoulder doesn’t stop me living somewhere and it doesn’t make people run away from living near me, so I don’t let it worry me. Other people’s prejudices are their own affair. The cold shoulders are fairly rare anyway and as likely to come from poor Asians as wealthier white people.
We are not going to agree on this. I think class is absolutely crucial to understanding how things operate in Britain and pure racism is a relatively small factor here, especially among the white middle and upper classes. I think the associations people have with some races and the perceived social class of that race informs racial prejudice and not the other way round.
In other words almost no-one has a problem with the Japanese, Russian oligarchs or rich Arabs in London because they are seen as successful, affluent and higher class, however personally bizarre or distasteful some may find them. People have a much worse association with Bangladeshis or with blacks, whom they tend to assume they will be working class or an underclass. It isn’t fair but there is some truth to it.
A Maharajah will get very different treatment from a Pakistani shopworker once people understand that the former is a nob and not a slob. The situation you get in Palm Beach where rich Jews and Gentiles don’t mix is less common here. Anti-Semitism has always existed in England (and still does) but it didn’t stop Disraeli or the Rothschilds moving in aristocratic circles and becoming ennobled themselves. Anti Irish sentiment in England (where there would be notices in boarding houses as late as the 1950s ‘no blacks, no Irish’) never hurt the Guinness family or Irish peers, or the Irish intelligentsia like Wilde, Shaw and Yeats.
People’s prejudices don’t grow in a vacuum, they are informed by the world around them and their experiences with other groups and the way other groups are presented or present themselves. Snobbery is a way of associating yourself with groups held to be winners and moving away from groups seen as losers. It is a bully’s charter. It is keeping in with the ‘right sort’ as Mrs Honeychurch would say or ‘no riff raff’ as Basil Faulty would say.
The prejudice I get as a knee jerk reaction to my skin colour is usually mitigated to a large degree when I open my mouth and they hear my public school accent. How I dress is also another factor which alters how ‘black’ I am in their eyes. Fairly soon am I ‘virtually white’ to them.
Some of the people on here have the same view of me, but see that as something less complimentary.
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Nell Painter proposes that some multiracials, Asians and others might become absorbed into a 4th wave of whiteness. They will become white. She proposes this as a natural step, as the nation has already seen 2nd and 3rd wave absorptions into whiteness. I disagree with her hypothesis on the grounds that her 4th wave is not comparable to the previous wave absorptions.
In the previous “enlargements of whiteness”, people who were European whites were absorbed once their outward differences in language and culture disappeared over several generations. A second generation Italian may not look or sound any differently than a 2nd or 3rd generation Scot. Steven Spielberg is a a Jew, but you wouldn’t know it if he didn’t tell you. Robert De Niro is Italian, but if he told you he was Czech would you argue? Physical racial differences don’t disappear, just ask Henry Gates. An Asian cannot become a European even if he/she lost their accent, becomes a Baptist and gets a Stanford degree.
Yes, in certain elite neighborhoods in this country you can buy your way into the white club. Money is a fantastic leavener on an individual basis. What Nell Painter proposes though is not individual wealthy minorities becoming white, but masses, millions. That’s ridiculous. Statistically, whites live in a more segregated country than they did in the 1960’s. They flee neighborhoods and school districts the minute their numbers drop below 70%. Tolerating a few rich Asians for them is apparently very different than accepting their neighborhood going from 10% to 70% Asian.
And while yes, interracial relationships are on the upswing they account for only 2% of marriages by European whites. I suppose when compared to 1%, 2% is double, a 100% increase – Woohoo!
I don;t see a 4th wave of whiteness, I could see something like the Latin America model Abagond discusses today, but I can also see a former Yugoslavia model where everyone lives in ethnic enclaves and only interacts when required by work or commerce.
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@Kiwi
“Class cannot account for white flight from Asian neighborhoods. My hometown’s house prices and incomes increased dramatically as the white population plummeted.”
Couldn’t agree more. And on the East coast there are similar cases in African American communities. For example, Charles County, MD, the 15th wealthiest county in the US by median household income, has become wealthier as African Americans have poured in and whites have left.
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“As before, the black poor remain outside the concept of the American as an “alien race” of “degenerate families.” … poverty in a dark skin endures as the opposite of whiteness, driven by an age-old social yearning to characterize the poor as permanently other and inherently inferior.”
And there will ALWAYS BE MORE of these people than “middle-class” Blacks. ALWAYS. You can split hairs about it all you want and argue until we end up with another Black President. But this will always be the case as long as white supremacy reigns. They already built the prisons to accommodate.
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I concur with Average Bee on his post and might I add i believe that’s why high school drop out to prison pipeline was created. These things are deliberate.
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Virtually White to people, that’s wonderful.
My grandmother is Irish but chose to bury her accent, she still encounters stigma when people discover she’s Irish.
Eastenders had an episode that focused on the one Black family in the show for an episode for the first time in the soap’s history. The complaints came pouring in to offcom. Gentrification and White flight, the NBP, religous riots and protests, Steven Lawrence and the admission that Britain is institutionally racist after his killers took years to come to justice. Absolutely, I believe race and class are on par in terms of hierarchy, but I don’t view racism as that of an out and out KKK raging White supremacist rally, that’s not what I was thinking of. We’ll definitely have to agree to disagree.
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Ally:
“Again I can only speak from my experience and that of my friends and what I have observed. As a group of middle class and upper middle class blacks we have met little really problematic racism; plenty of ignorance, a few cold shoulders but generally no serious problems or obvious hatred/prejudice.”
You house Negros just don’t get it….
Its not the individual, subtle cases of racism/discrimination, that effect the masses of black people as a race in 2014, its institutional racism, white supremacy that hurts black people in this day in age.
I get upset when white people, claim that its not racism, its classicism that effects black people, then uncle tom Negros like you, agree with them, “yes massa…you right massa, its not racism at all, Massa!!
You see…I’m a field Negro….So I’m gonna tell it like it is.
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@resw77
And there’s also PG County right there as well. The place is ripe for a Black credit union.
And there’s the so-called “latino” population being there on the east coast where we find a (historical) connection between them and the Africans. You cant tell the difference when you get down to it. That’s why I’m sitting here wondering if this enlargement of whiteness is as viable as it seems. It ain’t like “Hispanics” aren’t aware of their very close relationship with Blacks. How long can white supremacy really endure that without making it any me obvious what their game is any more than they have? Maybe it’s desperation.
I had a Mexican coworker (head chef/Co owner) at my restaurant (a very popular one where I live) talk to me about Van Sertima’s work and how it’s ignored. People keep talking about how Mexicans are killing Blacks in LA but outside of run-of-the-mill gang violence, I’ve seen no proof. What I do see around me are people who are beginning to realize that we are family.
There’s also the Biblical (Israelite/Issacharite) connection. I’m no expert on any religion, but I feel as though those connections are the reason behind this materialist/skeptic/athiest/Zeitgeist-esque/Bible-and-Jesus-are-fake dogma that’s been pushed over the past 5 or 6 years.
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To Sondis,
We ‘house Negroes’ get tired of self styled ‘field Negroes’ and professional blacks whining and finding racism under every rock and behind every bush and using it as an excuse to fail. You call everyone white a racist and every black who doesn’t agree with you an Uncle Tom all you want. It is easy to throw out insults but it doesn’t mean anything.
You still have to prove that ‘institutionalised racism’ is what has created the black underclass rather than the adoption of what Sowell (the grandfather of Uncle Toms to whining under achievers) calls the black redneck culture.
Many racial and ethnic minorities such as the Jews and Chinese in various different countries have thrived in the face of enormous discrimination and risen to grossly outperform the majority culture. Some blacks also thrive in North America and Europe despite the racism you say hurts us all so badly (except we conniving Judas figures of course). Is every successful black an Uncle Tom or are you just making excuses for the rest?
You don’t tell it ‘how it is’ you just try and brand everyone who disagrees with you an enemy or a traitor and comfort yourself that failure is unavoidable so there is no real reason to make the effort to succeed. You can just come on here and sing your tale of woe like some spiritual of old.
‘Massa done me wrong, nobody knows the trouble I seen, ain’t no point learnin’ nuttin’ at school, white devils never gonna give me no job ‘cept ones for chump change……’
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To Ebonymonroe,
I think you missed the sarcasm in my voice when I used the phrase ‘virtually white’.
If a British TV programme openly mocked Allah or Jesus there would be a storm of complaint of truly epic proportions, but that doesn’t mean that the UK is a devoutly Christian or Muslim country. It is obviously neither. Muslims are a small minority and church/chapel influence and attendance is low and falling.
If Eastenders did a programme dedicated to a gay couple there would also be complaints. They would reflect the homophobia that still exists in the country but that doesn’t mean that homophobia is so chronic in the UK that it stops openly gay people from being successful or from being popular. Areas with high gay populations, such as Brighton, are highly desirable places to live. There is no association with gay people and the lower classes and low class behaviour.
Exactly what stigma does you grandmother encounter? I don’t want to dismiss any pain she has suffered but does it really amount to anything more than a few tired music hall jokes?
Ultimately if whites don’t want to live next to black people or any other group they don’t have to. No-one has to live near anyone they don’t like. It does reflect prejudice and stereotyping but it doesn’t actually prevent anyone from leading a successful and fulfilling life because someone else doesn’t want to live next to them.
There have always been religious riots in this country and they usually have little to do with race. The BNP is a tiny organisation which more or less enjoys joke status. Racism is probably very common within the police force and any real instances of acute and institutionalised racism should certainly be dealt with. What we shouldn’t be wasting our time on is phantom racism and crying wolf all the time. It undermines our credibility when we find racism in everything, however trivial, and say that is the reason there is a black underclass and a lack of high black achievement.
I only want to fight the battles that are worth fighting, not worry whether ‘The Wire’ is really racist or not. Don’t like the show? Hell, make your own goddam show.
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Ally , this class race issue gets blurry , maybe in Great Britain , but , I wonder if we probe it culturaly , if it doesnt clarify some things
It seems for all intensive purposes that the Beatles , Rolling Stones , David Bowie , Led Zepilen , etc are raised to near god status in the music industry
Hendrix was black American , Brit rock is clearly built on the back of black American innovative ryhthm and blues and rock and roll …
Are there any black Brit music entertainers who you think have attained god status in the music industry in Great Britain ? Im not talking about a few hits , Im talking about god legend status these white Brit rockers clearly enjoy the benifits of
If there are some black Brit musicians with god status , who are they ? They slip my mind now
If there arnt any , in a black American invented idiom, why not ?
I dont think class explains this…you start probing things culturaly , and , I think some things get obviously highlighted more as to what the real problems are when it comes to white racism against the Afro diaspora
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To Kiwi,
Sorry, but I’m really not sure what point you are making. I’m looking at the historic and worldwide picture, not simply present day America and ‘whiteness’ doesn’t really seem to come into it.
Jews have been viciously attacked and discriminated against over centuries, how ‘white’ they are or were made little difference to how they were treated historically. Both the Chinese and Jews (and there are plenty of other examples throughout history) have triumphed economically and intellectually in the face of enormous hostility and prejudice in lots of different countries.
In some cases minority groups such as the Chinese and the Germans have dominated economically and educationally to the embarrassment and anger of the majority population, the Chinese in Malaysia being a good example. Jews in Hungary dominated the medical field and yet anti-Semitism was rife in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A lot of these high performing minority groups have made little effort to become political until relatively recently. Political representation does not seem to bring any noticeable benefit and the Jews in Hollywood have hardly made the place a Zionist propaganda machine, despite what a few loony anti-Semites claim.
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BR,
I don’t share Ally’s view that “No-one has to live near anyone they don’t like”.
For Asian and black people in the UK, it’s not alwaysas simple as that.
In my view, race and class are intertwined, and the “race” part of it, sidelined or euphemised by being called “culture”.
As I said earlier: Asian and black people usually prefer living in relatively mixed areas, and don’t usually make a move to an all-white part if they can help it. The Asian and black population is just too small for a signficant presence nationwide to make those kinds of moves comfortable.
Moving to an all-white area is usually what white people can, or would, do.
That said, though, the reasons white people make that move is NOT always based on the whiteness of the area they move to.
Sometimes the truth behind what is going on comes out of complex reasons. The UK and USA have similarities as regards racism, but there are differences This doesn’t seem to be accepted, although that “difference” has been referred to again and again.
So, when anyone asks why hasn’t the UK produced a black this or or an Asian that, or anyone says something “shows” this thing or the other about a country, what are the cultural presumptions being made by asking those questions?
What is really being asked?
The Asian and Afro-Caribbean immigrants that came played musical styles that, in general, weren’t taken up the mainstream music industry until much later. The Jamaicans that came in numbers during this period probably infused the music they played with calypso, or mento: this was before what became widely known as reggae.
Later, music styles that the immigrants developed in the UK — both the Asians and black people from the Caribbean — like Bhangra, or Lover’s Rock, weren’t perceived as “mainstream”, something that the white market would go far, and buy.
Ska was popular with both black and white audiences, but there was a never a superstar of ska that I can think of.
I just mentioned Bhangra, (south Asian music), it had successful proponents like Talvin Singh and Bally Sagoo, but they were never “front men” or “god-like” as such, with all the hype of the Rock Industry.
The only Asian front man who’d be a Rock God, would be Freddie Mercury, and he chose to play down his roots.
For me, the most fancied of rock gods in the outside the USA was Phil Lynott.
I was never a fan of rock music, I just liked what I liked, but, for some reason I liked Phil Lynott before I even knew he was black, just by his voice and songwriting alone.
By the time I did catch sight of him, and I realized what he was —
a God of Rock — he was dead at 36 from drug use.
He never had the time to become the huge international rock star he should have been.
I not only liked his afro, but the fact that he was not even British.
He was Irish (white Irish mother, afro-Guyanese father).
He is is regarded as Ireland’s greatest rocker.
http://dangerousminds.net/comments/thin_lizzys_phil_lynott_irelands_greatest_rocker_died_today_in_1986
His life took the trajectory of many great musicians, dying too young.
But could he have been the UK’s greatest rocker?
I doubt it. He wasn’t “home-grown”, was he?
The only other one I can think of, just now, is Eddie Grant, born in Guyana, who founded the first mixed-race rock band(?) I can think of:
“The Equals” in the late 60s.
Eddie Grant became ill after the group’s early success and the group broke up.
Films showed that he’d dye his afro blond and jump up and down as he sang.
.
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And also, BR, if you talk about probing something culturally, looking at music might not throw up the answers…
Sometimes what people eat or what they read could tell you more.
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Ally
Make your own goddamned show? Alright. You find the money and resources and marketing resources that a show like The Wire has and then tell me that. Television and media are very, very strong influences on perceptions of race and perceptions of race are a very strong influence on whether or not someone can get a job. I think that comment was specious at the very least.
As a native of Baltimore and a veteran in the film and television industry in New York and Los Angeles, let me tell you, there is a purposeful, intentional drive to represent black people in a certain way.
I have worked for people who actually could not discern whether I was at work on time because of perceptions of black people. Literally I’d get there fifteen minutes early and the racist woman for whom I worked seemed incapable of believing that I was there before the other white workers. This is not an exceptional case but a repeated one. I know a black woman here in Canada who states, very loudly, on a regular basis, that she is on time all the time. It’s like you have to carry a billboard to eradicate the stereotypes.
Please, the television and media exist to perpetuate cultural hegemony just literature did in prior times.
And black people are making their own shows. On youtube and disseminating them. I live and and work in a predominantly white arts community in Canada and I post some of these series on Facebook. You can hear the crickets chirp.
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@Average Bee
“And there’s also PG County right there as well. ”
Yeah, PG has many wealthy areas like Fairwood and Woodmore, for example, that are mostly black. The homes are cheaper than in other counties in Metro DC, but when whites explain why they wouldn’t live here, it’s usually the “schools” that’s the problem…
“That’s why I’m sitting here wondering if this enlargement of whiteness is as viable as it seems.”
It still runs on appearances. Not all Latin Americans appear white or almost white. So the ones with features that are stereotypically Native American or African will be left out.
But of course anyone is free to choose “white” on the census form…
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@Ally
Forgive my sarcasm. I think I’ve bitten of three heads on Abagond this week, one requires more sleep.
My examples were simply to say it does exist. Eastenders’ depiction of people of Black origin has been a conversation over the last year or so, etc, etc. Kim, Patrick, Dexter, Lucas. I don’t watch it anymore, however. There were no complaints about a few scenes of lesbian kissing recently, but there have been complaints about race. This was just an example.
My point was only that institutionally and in everyday life it does exist. There was even an article about Black performers having to go States side in order to find broader and more available roles. BR has a point here. The idea Britain has that it’s more progressive than America is a delusion stemming from a society that is just a lot more quite on the topic.
I’ve never suggested that racism is an excuse for failure, not in this day and age, but rather that it is a glass ceiling. Women do not receive the same pay in Western society and are demonized in media even if they’re White, how much more would race still be a hurdle. White flight in the UK cancels out the idea that people are completely happy living in a 100% integrated society, that’s just my opinion, however.
I say this with genuine curiosity, I think you’ve got this idea that every commenter who frequents Abagond hates White people and doesn’t have a productive life because of the excuse of racism. Which is very strange because as I’ve said, I believe most commenters come to critically engage with a history of POC they were never taught. I am unsure if you recognize that and maybe even a little offended by the site.
I don’t feel there is anything wrong with discussing a show like The Wire, a groundbreaking show which many of us enjoy, while at the same time engaging with some of the areas people feel it failed. There’s nothing wrong with that. I agree with Bell Hooks in that most White supremacist capitalist patriarchy has been proselytized through media and entertainment spaces in our time. There’s nothing wrong with engaging with these things, it doesn’t make people whiny, or reverse racists. When movies dealing in Black pathology like The Help or Precious come out, it’s always the conversation in culture. These are conversations people have in their living rooms, the web has opened up dialogue on these issues, but it was always there. Some people spend their lives on gossip sites, some people frequent different blogs and forums of varying subject matter, it’s just conversation and freedom of speech. There’s nothing harmful or regressive in that in my opinion. There are commenters on here who are extreme, but that will always be the case, but most are not. Most are people from different races, genders, classes, with different positions, just engaging. Nothing more and nothing less.
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@ Ebonymonroe, other commenters from the UK, in the past, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER said regarding racism that “Britain has that it’s more progressive than America”. When I say “NEVER”, I mean never.
Whenever there were discussions with BR about this subject, we were very clear about that. Very clear. I am not sure why this has come up again?
I don’t read Ally’s comments, so I am not sure whether he’s saying “it’s more progressive”, but I wonder whether this is now being latched onto because it feeds into an well-like idea from before?
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In response to the view from BR before that the UK was somehow “more progressive” (it isn’t), pains were taken to point out that it was different NOT “better”.
This was the “wrong” answer, apparently!
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BR, apologies, if I’ve misunderstood what you’ve said on this thread.
I’m rushing and haven’t read the whole thing, so it’s my mistake if you didn’t actually say anything like that.
You, Demerera, Robert and me had this discussion about racism in the UK before, some while back, and if memory serves, Demerera couldn’t have been clearer in a number of her explanations of the differences.
In the end, we all concluded that there was nothing “better” or more progressive.
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@Bulanik
This comment I made was soley in response to Ally’s post.
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@ Ebony, I see! I attributed something you said incorrectly, and misunderstood.
I am sorry about that, BR.
{Bulanik heads off back to the work she should be doing… 😀 }
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Ebonymonroe:
“I say this with genuine curiosity, I think you’ve got this idea that every commenter who frequents Abagond hates White people and doesn’t have a productive life because of the excuse of racism. Which is very strange because as I’ve said, I believe most commenters come to critically engage with a history of POC they were never taught. I am unsure if you recognize that and maybe even a little offended by the site.”
I’m sorry, i thought Ally was a black man. hence the reason why i called him a sell out house Negro but i should have known that any person that has such extreme views against racism/white supremacy, must be a white person.
Even if he claims to be black, i smell a white person, posing as a black person, aka sock puppet.
I have a no, “Go back and forth” policy on blogs, when it comes to white people.
Because i feel its a waste of time, being their only objective is to minimize our experience of racism/white supremacy and also it shouldn’t be black people’s objective to always try to, “convince” white people of their racism and implementation of white supremacy.
I am all about talking to my fellow black people and other people of color about white supremacy and racism. They need the talk, more than white people in my opinion, because there’s nothing worse than a black person or other person of color, that doesn’t know that he or she is the target of racism/white supremacy.
You need to know your enemies, people that mean to do you harm.
You also need to know your allies, then arm yourselves with knowledge so you can be prepared for battle!
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BR may not always raise the best of points. But he does so here in response to some of Ally’s mis-informed class accounts for more than racism in the UK nonsense.
Incidentally speaking as someone based in London, UK. I have to wonder where actually Mr Ally hails from?
@ Ally
BR is right class cannot account for this. Even as Ebonymonroe has commented. There are well documented cases of talented Black people leaving the UK so their talents could be awarded better recognition in the US. The classic example of this, of course, being one star of the “Wire” Idris Elba. If he had not done this it is extremely unlikely he would have obtained the greater praise, film and extensive TV offers he received on coming back to the UK.
All of which shows how clearly dumb, uneducated and clueless, as a Black British person, you are when it comes to both individual and institutional racism. Regardless of what your personal and individual experience is. It is not and in no way should be taken as general one for the rest of the Black UK population. The fact that one or two Black people may appear to have attained some measure of “success” – however that might be perceived. Does not mean any other Black person would or could achieve this too. Of course those who do make many sacrifices. A denial of their cultural identity being the most common one.
Given this is the case it would explain why many more Black or POC are not more visible in many different strata of society. Music being just one cultural example. They are there but they are purposely held back from reaching such heights due to social, cultural, educational and economic white supremacy (racism) . Plain and simple!
Did you actually vote for UKIP then?
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@Kwamla
I share the same views. I too used to live in London, but now reside just outside of it. My mother teaches in a school she’s anglo Indian, and as a woman of colour, she’s become increasingly frustrated with how Black students and students of colour are treated by teachers and the school system since she’s worked there. This, is just another example of an institutional glass ceiling that acts as a hurdle for POC. It’s there in many facets, it’s just subtle, now.
@Sondis
I think Ally is a Black British woman.
@Bulanik
Don’t worry about it, I’m still in love with you. (Gives cheesy smile.)
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@ Kwamla
There are no black, British rock gods. That is not how British brand of racism works…
(https://abagond.wordpress.com/2014/06/26/the-fourth-enlargement-of-american-whiteness/#comment-241081)
As I said in my comment above, my favourite black rock god is Phil Lynott.
But he is Irish.
He is feted as the ultimate rock god in that country, but was never “adopted” by the British as theirs…I bet you noticed that and know why! lol!
Doesn’t it speak volumes, too, that the UK’s, and probably the world’s supposedly ultimate rock god, Freddie Mercury, was an Asian who never made reference to his Asian-ness? That detail was conveniently white-washed from his image. Same with Cliff Richard. His brown-ness and Asian-ness (Anglo-Indian) was silenced and white-washed in just the same way…
That’s the point I was making about what is different about British racism.
@ Ebony 😀
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Bulanik, I apreciete you letting me know about the mix up…
Where class and racism can intersect , I do feel racism stands on its own , and the cultural aspects flush out its real face…it really isolates the reality of it, and, if you want to see first hand racism and what its intentions for that group of people are, follow the cultural story and you will find a lot of that reality…
The point Im making about the Brit rock gods is, they are brought to you by the music industry…its manipulated, calculated and they control who is going to get a big push in the first place..people arnt getting real choices, they are getting the buffet the industry sets out for us, and the hype that goes with it to make us think they are the best and above everyone else in talent…they sell their artists
So, I cant beleive that there arnt lots and lots of talented black British musicians , who could easily fit into a rock band , or be put out as individual stars in their own right…
Sure, there are minor examples, I dont recognise the people you mentioned so its hard to imagine they are on the recognisable leval of the giant Brit rockers who are called gods , even, like Clapton..Sade had some succeses, but, she never reached knighted god status as some of these rock gods have…
These rock gods are brought to you by the media, and they dont only show you the manipulation of the companies and their desicians themselves, they also show you the buyers habits, that show their bias and prejudice…I cant just sluff it off on the companies, white people have prejudice and they wont buy black artists at the same rate as white artists…until Michael Jackson came along and changed everyones idea about what could sell big time…you have to remember, MTV only played white rock artists before MJ put out Thriller…
and its this constant psyche that the record companies say they only put out what can sell…bs..they put out huge amounts of bland white artists that fail miserably..a huge amount…and, rock and roll is a black American innovation, and rhythm and blues and blues and these white British rockers did bad imitations of them…their voices would go into southern black American inflections , sometimes in an abusive way, they couldnt quite get the dance ethic right…
You would think there would be many black artists in Britain, that could have starred in a rock band, like Hendrix did, who was black American (one of a kind of course), but the high end success is reserved for the white rockers..you cant tell me there arnt talented black British musicians that could have been made into gigantic stars if the companies had wanted to and the white public would have supported them
These are cultural revalations, about what people chose to buy and what companies chose to give the huge hype for
and, as far as Afro diasporic cultures, this is a repeating cultural pattern
I mentioned the bebop zoot suit cultural wars tied in with the laws for putting black and brown people in jail for marijuana and how that reflects right into today
well, just go back 10 years in the thirties and you have the top movie music attractions people like Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Gene Kelly, Donald Oconnor….they were huge movie stars making big money , being hyped and sold by the movie companies , doing tap dancing..and doing it well, I love Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, you can watch their movies and see where american culture was at back then…but, tap was a black American innovation , and, the major top tap artists barely got any recognition or big money, the Nicholas Brothers were in a few movies, Sammy Davis found his way…but, the actual cultural racism that created this dynamic is blatent if you look at it
same with go back 15 years before that…Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Billie Holliday, Ella Fitsgerald and any singer who sang pop swing songs back then, all got their singing style from Louis Armstrong, most noted for his innovative trumpet playing on the hot five and hot seven records…I didnt even know that until I saw it on the Ken Burns docu on jazz…I knew he was one of the great trumpet players, but no one ever told how much he really influenced the huge pop singers of that day, the giants , the stars…this is cultural bias and racism
this story keeps repeating and white rockers are playing a black innovative music in Great Britain…I think its very revealing that the white owned corporations and the white public in general , wont accept a black Brit musician as a giant icon of their music
and , class has nothing to do with this, its a reflection on culture and the racism that is inherant in the western world and how it relates to Afro diasporic culture…the same desighn keeps playing out…its playing out in Brazil…sure, black artists rise and make money sometimes…but the general rule is give the bigger push to the white artists and the white public exercises its bias by purchasing an often time inferior product compared to the original innovation
the first record ever recorded of the black American innovation of jazz, was done by a white band, and they said blacks have nothing to do with jazz…
I honestly beleive you could eliminate class and you still would have racism..especialy played out in cultural aspects…ive always said music and dance are the flash points of Afro diasporic culure, its just that important in Afro diasporic expresion..its not that it is the only thing to look at, but its a major template and transparant way to see white racism in action..or any racism against the Afro diaspora…ive brought in many links from everywhere and every decade of every type religion and ethnic pursuasion that sometime has banned Afro diasporic culture…that sais a lot to me
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ahh Kwamla…dont worry, Im not forgetting you and Satanforce turned me onto the Dogon and Dr Ari ( that is her name, right?)…If I got her name wrong , I apologise,but, she is onto something
let me guess, its my American foreign policy point of veiw that may not be the best points…right? I can understand that my views on that and booty dancing might not go over with everyone on here
I may disagree with people on here about somethins, but, Ive gotten something from everyone on here also
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But don’t forget BR, just because you don’t personally recognise, or like it, or know something specific to a culture, that doesn’t mean it’s “minor”.
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Ebonymonroe:
“I think Ally is a Black British woman.”
One never knows, being these people that support white supremacy and deny racism, are very cunning and deceptive when it comes to revealing their true identity.
So i continue to look at this “Ally character with a raised eye brow. *_^
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@BR
You nailed it. The fact that Black British entertainers have to go to the US for opportunities just goes to show that in many way, America is actually more progressive in its opportunities for people of Black origin. I believe entertainment is a great measuring tool for this issue because it measures what persons consumers will buy and who they refuse to. The issue of Black music not crossing over and being celebrated until White artists mimic it is another great example there is still an invisible line of segregation. This has been the legacy of blues, Jazz, Rock n roll, Rock, Disco, R&B and so on and so forth. There’s no way to dismiss this problem.
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To B. R.,
I don’t think there is any correlation between the popularity of individual musicians and racism, or the lack of it, in a country. The popularity of Michael Jackson or Beyonce doesn’t mean that there is little racism in the US as many here would point out only too happily. There is no sign that people won’t buy music in the UK because they are prejudiced. Lingering anti Irish sentiment never hurt U2 in England for instance.
Nevertheless you question is an interesting one so here is a long winded reply:
Hendrix enjoys ‘Godlike’ status here, as great as any other rock musician, particularly because he was a part of the British music scene and widely seen as part of things here. Bob Marley is also worshipped and had links with Britain.
Now obviously both those were not black British but until relatively recently the black population in the UK was small and it has taken a while to find its voice musically in comparison to the States or Jamaica which had years of black music as a tradition. The same has been the case with Asian music here which took a time to find its feet and has still to crossover in a big way.
Also only a small number of artists reach the degree of legendary status you are talking about, you can count them on your fingers. No band here has the same cultural and commercial significance enjoyed by The Beatles. They are in a league of their own as icons.
White fans of black American music have been almost obsessional in their devotion in this country. The Northern Soul movement was (mainly) white working class people searching for obscure and often unknown soul music by one hit wonders and artists that had long been forgotten in the US and which created second careers for some. Edwin Starr moved to England for instance to cash in on the movement. Northern Soul fans simply didn’t have black British music to play.
Up until the 80s the British music scene was predominantly white. There were groups like Hot Chocolate that had a very long run of hits and were popular but they were never in the same league as the top bands. There was Irishman Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy who was much loved then and whose music still has a decent following now but home grown black musicians were comparatively few and far between during the 60s and 70s and the black music scene was dominated by American and Caribbean imports. Seal was probably the first black British star of real stature, especially internationally.
At the moment there are a number of black artists that are popular but only time will tell if they hit the really big time. I think it is hard for any act to compete with the music scene in the 60s and 70s but there are a lot of black British stars in the charts here. Our biggest exports are still white rock bands like Coldplay but that isn’t because we don’t have black British stars. It is more to do with the vagaries of the international market. Many white bands and artists fail to get Stateside recognition they deserve as well.
I would say it is an oversimplification to say that British rock is based on black music. Obviously there is a huge influence, but other influences, folk, classical, country, Indian and Asian, music hall etc, have all played a part. ‘Sgt Pepper’ shows just how diverse the influences were on The Beatles and British rock music as a whole. Bowie was a folk musician and not a rocker when he started. Elton John was a classically trained pianist. Pink Floyd was very ‘white’ English and whimsical in the Syd Barrett days and has never been noticeably ‘black’ in sound after his departure when the band hit the big time.
If you want to looks at Asians as well as blacks Freddie Mercury was an Indian Parsi from Zanzibar. He certainly has the ‘Godlike’ status here. He certainly didn’t play Indian music and although Queen was influenced by black American music they were also heavily influenced by classical music, opera in particular, as well as some music hall influences.
If black American music was the initial inspiration few British groups remained pure to the music that started them playing in the first place. I don’t think you could call Zeppelin’s ‘Kashmir’ or The Beatles’ ‘Hey Jude’ or The Stones’ ‘Satisfaction’ anything like the things black R&B and soul artists created in the States. We have moved a long way from Muddy Waters or Little Richard. Those bands created their own sounds which were as innovative as anything that went before and distinctly British in accent. The Stones took the blues and after initially being very faithful to it soon took it in their own direction.
Also just because one country or race invented a style of music it doesn’t mean other cultures can’t borrow and adapt that without having to pay some sort of tribute to the originator. Black or Asian classical musicians haven’t stolen white European music and they don’t need to credit white Europeans every time they play or compose something within a traditionally European idiom.
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actualy , Im sorry, I didnt mean it like that , for sure that isnt a comment on the artists you mentioneds value, or what it means to the many people who do follow those artists you mentioned…i didnt put that well…
and good point about the guy in Queen, minor is not the right word, its just a small amount of people outside the white rock gods that got a big shot, i think that is what i meant
i just meant maybe they didnt have as much knighted multi millionaire status as mick and some of the others…they say every world cup game mick goes to he jinxes the team he is rooting for….
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Ebonymonroe, just to clarify, the comment I made above was for Bulanik, and I agree with what you are saying
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I have not commented and just followed the comments and I must say there is a great amount of dialogue going on here. @ Bulanik @ Ebony great comments as usual.
@ B.R. @Kwamla you are hitting the nail on the head.
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Why thanks you miss ladybug Sharina. Long time no see.
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@ Ebony, BR, Kwamla
Kwamla is right on the money when he says that:
“There are well documented cases of talented Black people leaving the UK so their talents could be awarded better recognition in the US.”
And when BR says:
its very revealing that the white owned corporations and the white public in general , wont accept a black Brit musician as a giant icon of their music.
Respect is due.
The point about the racism in Music Business is spot on, and as is the fact that rock is a black art form that white British rockers capitalised on.
But, rock music aside, I think we’ve seen in recent years principle being played out, as all of us have watched white British Soul/RnB artists marketed and achieve great success and black singer/songwriters haven’t in this genre.
This is why, for example, Adele, or Amy Winehouse (I think these individuals are very talented, btw, don’t get me wrong), became huge starts rather than black British artists like Sharlene Hector, Beverley Knight or Natalie Stewart, instead.
Class has absolutely nothing to do with that!
BUT, isn’t there any space to recognise and identifies that are similiarities and they are differences? I don’t think we should ignore them.
Since there are more (south) Asians in the UK than black people, it is NOT insignicant that Freddie Mercury had to be white-washed as part of Queen to be marketed along with his 3 other white and middle-class bandmates.
Also, for anyone familiar with the racist dynamics of the British, it speaks volumes that Phil Lynott, considered The Rock God in his native Ireland — is ALMOST, but not completely forgotten, by the British rock establishment as a Rock God.
What would they have done with him if he survived his drug habit?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandpopfeatures/8357213/Phil-Lynott-almost-forgotten-rock-god.html
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correction* huge stars
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@ Sharina, thank you.
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To Kwamia,
No I don’t vote UKIP. Do you?
To Ebonymonroe,
I am actually a black gay man.
The glass ceiling for women is a myth. If you actually look at the variables it disappears. Feminism is frequently dishonest about such things.
To Sondis,
I don’t support white supremacy you support black failure. The only thing you are smelling is your own bull you are coming out with.
To Angela,
I was not trying to be glib. If you want to be represented accurately you need to create your own art. To do that you need to organise and be entrepreneurial. Black people don’t do enough of that and racism is a poor excuse in this day and age.
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BR, here’s a clip of Phil Lynott. Some of the Irish say his father was in fact Brazilian/Guyanese.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TehFZ38kt6o)
Eddie Grant back in 1968, before they disbanded:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q3ALvb16EE)
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If you are talking about musical icons I think Englebert Humperdink was Indian like the freddie and cliff. I dont know if he was popular in America
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ok , Bulanik, thanks for those youtube referances…I do remember some clips of these guys from way back
for sure they would be the exceptions , I think…Jamiaquai had a very funky back up band that was integrated, but he is white as the star
The thing that sticks out about Afro diasporic culture and the West is, they didnt just take the people from Africa, and strip them of their culture, and make them slaves…they then proceeded to take the culture they did see emerging in the slaves, the culture they banned, as they perceived it, and , it slowly becomes an abherated foundation of any country that brought African slaves in the Americas in large numbers
Look at the banjo, intellectualy, I knew it was an African instrument, but , until I saw it occaisionaly played in some samba groups in Brazil,then it really rang home that it was an Afro diasporic instrument…but, the Southern whites took the banjo, and made it good ole down home country picking…associated with country and western….when did this switch take place? We dont have it on record or in scholastic knowledge, do we? I mean that is mind blowing amazing and a perfect example of this having African slaves and taking their culture and making it white associated in America…if this basic fundimental white country and western staple is really an African instrument, what does that tell us of all the American cultural white history?
See, i think there is much in racism against the Afro diaspora, that is a cultural judgement….if we go all the way back to when they invented the races in the West,to me, to take a phenotype ,mix in religion as a template to judge people , if they dont practice it, look on what they do practice as primitive , and therefor , worthy of slavery , is a cultural judgement of inferiority.
Some white people still think its inferior and implicating the phenotype of the people innovating it, they implicate the phenotype even if that phenotype person doesnt want to practice black culture, and bring in statistics of crime and poverty, but white people have more poverty and crime also…so it isnt really that…its a cultural racism
other white people might not think black culture is inferior, but, it grates up against them, and they sure wont call it high art..which I do…
other white people might like some black culture, respect it, practice it, but they wont speak to the real high leval it deserves next to any culture in the world, and they sure wont talk of ancient pre islamic, pre christian , below Egypt black Africa as giving us incredible knowledge that is as valuable to our human trajectory as any civilisation has given us anywhere…
For me, all this white flight is , white people fleeing black culture..or their perception of what black culture is, and look at the minstrel shows, all white perceptions of what black culture is suposed to be
Were black people really threatening whites for jobs? Seems like there were lots of other differant people looking for work, was it really that? or a cultural judgement?
the whole sex thing was based on white cultural judgements, so much banning of Afro diasporic cultures in the world has been because of perceived sexual connotations…whether the white man fears the black man’s sexuality, which he sees in black culture, or the suposed sexuality in the women , these are all cultural judgements if you ask me
I mean ending slavery and just leaving people hanging, as happened in all the Americas, for sure means that many things about class will entertwine, but , you could take class away and racism still exists…that is what happens in Cuba
As a white person, i do feel, that much white racism, directed at the Afro diaspora in the Americas , has a cultural aspect involved , in various degrees, but if you analyse it, very often, not always, some cultural notion of inferiority is involved…there are other factors, but, the cultural racism seems a glaring one to me…for sure its blatent
some quick messages because i cant get into open thread anymore without dificulty…but, Ebonymonroe, I tried to put my comment about Minnie over there but it didnt make it.. I hope it comes out of moderation on the other thread
Linda, yes, I saw your copa comment, and i am deeply involved and following it, but i cant get into open thread and discuss it…but , its wild , isnt it?
Ally, i apreciete your frankness about being a gay black man and respect your willingness to share that
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@ BR
You obviously know much about the true deeper origins of popular music. This is accurately reflected in much of your long and in-depth comments. Which for once are actually worth reading through. I have no doubt that Ally could learn much from you on this subject.
@ Bulanik
You make some good points about people like: Freddie Mercury, Phil Lynott,and even Cliff Richard (which I was not aware of) of how such talents were allowed to flourish and become successful by conforming to white supremacist standards of how popular music should be marketed, popularized and controlled. This is no accident and these artists would have been well aware of this fact. Hence of the ones mentioned only Sir Cliff was deemed the most acceptable and conforming!
The reason why someone like Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy (whose musical style I used to adore) never achieved the “Rock God” status BR correctly refers to (In the UK that is) probably had a lot to do with his Black Heritage and the fact that he died young. Something that also affected Jimi Hendricks.
Its not that there have not been just as talented Bristish candidates. Its that they have not entirely conformed to the excepted “white norm”. Its also no accident or co-incidence that when someone non-white does come along who could possibly achieve such status they seem to have a short life expectancy!
Even Freddy Mercury, I think, fell into this category. More for his sexuality than his Asian roots. There is a well documented study about the threat of any Black popular icon emerging that the FBI/CIA, dating from the 1960’s, would covertly eliminate. Its available on Youtube: “…THE WAR ON AFRAKAN SUPREMACY…”
@ Sharina and Ebonymonroe – Your comments are appreciated!
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Thanks @Kwamla
@Bulanik
I’ve often made that comparison between artists like Adele, Amy Winehouse vs. The Beverly Knights.
@Ally
Senior positions, yes maternal leave affects that, but other then that there are still many fields and positions where men are paid more than women. Also, there have been many attempts at Black business institutions in business from Stacks records and Black business catering to Black consumers to Zapp and property and land. There are few record labels/distribution companies owned by a select group, major media outlets have been owned by one man, film companies, radio, fashion houses, the same thing. This is why Kanye West has been raving about the glass ceilings in fashion and how he lost 3 million because the factories, manufacturers, etc, are all a tight knit circle and only a few are allowed in. I don’t agree with much Kanye West says, but I know he’s not lying when he speaks about that.
I say this respectfully, but you keep insulting Black people as some monolith of people who don’t do anything at all, that they’re making things up when they speak of any kind of hurdle. You seem to have an extremely low, stereotypical view of Black people. I’m sad to read that. But of course, you’re entitled to that freedom of speech.
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To B. R.,
Thank you I appreciate that.
You and I don’t see eye to eye on many things; you seem far left of me on general race issues and far right of me on American foreign policy (although the use of the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ aren’t really appropriate) but I have seen you labelled a racist here (on a discussion about Jazz I think and also on interracial relationships) which is frankly ludicrous and annoys me to read. Unfortunately that is the standard response here by many who disagree with what someone else is saying. So I feel a kinship with you in that respect if in no other and even if you may despise my views.
I wish it was possible here to disagree with someone, to criticise their ideology, without branding them a monster or being branded so in return. I don’t think you are a white imperialist apologist for genocide because you believe that communism posed a real threat. I think you have fallen for one type of propaganda and you no doubt think I have fallen for another. It doesn’t mean we can’t discuss our views without descending into abuse, which is the usual method here it seems.
For instance Kwamia is like a broken record insisting that I must ‘learn’, that I am ‘ignorant’ and he attempts to belittle me. Many others do it in an even more aggressive form and more unpleasantly, in one case being both xenophobic and resorting to taunts of bestiality. This goes way beyond a difference in point of view. This amounts to an idea of heresy.
Kwamia has come to see racism and his own suffering from it, real or imagined, as a fundamental part of who he is. To say that racism is not so significant as he claims is to undermine so much of what he defines himself as and what he deems an almost insurmountable obstacle in his life. It is comforting to have a ready explanation for any failure in life. It cannot be allowed for another black person to say that racism doesn’t hold blacks back here. Kwamia can’t have a difference of opinion because there is only one right opinion for a black person to have, his, and it is in his self interest to say so. Feminists are exactly the same way, a woman who rejects feminism must be ‘schooled’, is ignorant of the ‘true’ facts and must ‘learn’ what is their ‘reality’.
I don’t deny that racism exists any more than I deny homophobia exists. I have experienced both, vastly more of the latter from people who share the same colour skin as me. However, in the UK I have never found either to be a significant barrier to success, academic and financial. Many black American writers and thinkers (McWhorter, Sowell, Williams, Steele etc.) say the same thing about race in the US.
I think racism can affect individuals who are unfortunate to get involved with an individual racist, just as I think the West Memphis Three were unfortunate to get into a particular situation and the corruption that stemmed from it. It doesn’t mean that an entire body of people really has anything overwhelming to stop them from succeeding in life. Being born into a low class ghetto with an appalling nihilistic culture is unlucky and it will have a strong chance of blighting your life. It doesn’t necessarily hold that that is a sign of societal and institutionalised racism. The same blighting effect holds true for the white underclass in Britain and that certainly isn’t a sign of racism
When it comes to the music scene I don’t recognise the portrait of British music that others are painting. For instance, several people here are determined that Freddie Mercury hid his Indian roots. He may have done but I don’t know he did. He didn’t come out as gay although he was obviously gay in some of his looks, especially during the 80s, and the name of the band was a big clue. Other artists hid their sexuality, like Elton John and George Michael, mainly due to worries the US market. Videos deemed too gay made by the Pet Shop Boys and Queen both hurt them financially and thwarted their careers in the US so their fears were justified. I don’t know that being Indian was an obstacle to success for Freddie Mercury or he had that in his mind.
I would suggest that when it came to race he merely assimilated more mainstream British tastes. To prove racism or internalised racism you would need to provide more than circumstantial evidence. Merle Oberon certainly hid her Indian heritage and there is evidence of that. I am not aware that Freddie Mercury ever tried to hide where he came from. If people have hard evidence that he did then I am happy to hear it. Even if he did whether he needed to is an entirely different question.
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To Ebonymonroe,
I don’t have a stereotypical view of black people, I am just critical of those that scream ‘racism’ at every single possible opportunity or those that suffer from self defeating nihilism. I have no stereotypical view of women but find chavs and hardline radical feminists equally problematic.
Kanye’s problems may have been real. If they were then it merely highlights the need for black people to form their own industries, banks and interconnecting and supporting financial organisations. Grumbling about it isn’t going to solve anything. I still have doubts that he was deliberately frozen out because he was black and we only have his word that that is why he failed (if that is what he said). Businesses can fail for all sorts of reasons, some which he may have been unaware of and many groups and industries are protectionist against outsiders. If black businesses have succeeded in the more racist past why have obstacles become insurmountable now? However, I am always prepared to look at the evidence.
You have not proved that the pay gap exists. Most economists and serious studies of the subject have found nothing of the sort and indeed logic tells us that companies that can fail due to small percentage increases in costs and are only too happy to base operations abroad to save money are going to employ women and sack all their men if they can pay them less. I doubt gender solidarity is any more of a factor than patriotism for corporations.
The only monolith I am attempting to challenge is the concept of the overwhelming nature of racism in the UK and US and its ability to thwart every black person. I am not trying to deny racism, merely bring what I consider to be some necessary balance to the subject and not merely parrot the dogma.
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Ally , I dont despise what you are saying …and I recognise tendancies by commenters to lash out sometimes..and apreciete your noting that I have been called a racist…I think discusions on race issues touch deep emotions , and , feelings…if anything , your comments are a testimony that Afro descendants are not a monolithic bloc of opinion…and , its hard to come out of these discusions unscathed…
Just a note on my American foreign policy opinion, it has more been formed by the anti Ametican propaganda from the far left of the country I live in than far right American propaganda , which I hate the right wing and they are badly informed
I think many things that are institutionaly racist , that Afro descendants face on a daily basis , are taken for granted as normal …look at beauty standards and how they are pushed by the media…which , again , is cultural
Now many people are affected by that , not just Afro descendants , but, black people are more maligned by media beauty standards than anyone….and just turning on the tv reinforces that…inspite of the exceptions , there is very little representation of real black female beauty in the media…except rap videos that sometimes put black women down in the process…
There is a constant represion of real black culture replaced with manipulated corporate media desician making of how they want to represent black culture, in some cases , bordering on nothing short of modern day minstrel depictions, and sometimes , these desicians are made by black executives , who are in the system…..sometimes , some great art can come through, but , its amazing , with all the information of music on YouTube that there is , on Afro diasporic culture that is extremly rich and valuable , that mainstream media sinks the bar so low….yet, many people take this for granted and assume this is the way it is
I think many people on here dont want to take it for granted anymore…and are conveying that….there are some extreme positions , if anything you represent an oposing opinion to some of the extremes , so I think your views deserve to be heard , but , you know you will receive arguments challenging your views
About the black Brit music scene , I thought Terrance Trent Darby , a black American who went to England , represented a good black Ametican dance ethic , in the British music scene context. He would cop the splits and came out of the James Brown frontman entertainer mold…he is American , but I thought some of his videos conveyed black Brit life in an interesting way….
I still think the lack of a black Brit knighted multi millionaire super star the size if Jagger , inside the black American innovated British rock blues scene , implicates a cultural racism , played out by record company desicians and biased music purchaser tastes
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To B. R.
On the issue of music,
There really is no bias in British purchaser tastes. The enormous success of black American and Jamaican music in the UK makes a nonsense of that. Michael Jackson was playing the O2 in London when he died and the concerts were sold out. Prince played the same venue very successfully as has Rihanna and countless others. Jay-Z headlined Glastonbury, despite protests from some that it should be a rock venue only. Northern Soul is a movement of mainly white people obsessed with obscure soul. The list of black stars who have sold well in the UK is endless.
There have only been a tiny number of knighted rock musicians, they are Cliff Richard, Paul McCartney. Mick Jagger, Elton John and Tom Jones. David Bowie refused a title apparently. Bob Geldof and Bono have also been knighted but as they are Irish they are not ‘Sir’s. Shirley Bassey is the only dame and she is also black so the British government has rewarded at least one black musician with a title. All those have careers spanning decades. It will take a while for newer artists of any colour to achieve the same level of success to be honoured that way. I have no doubt it is only a matter of time before the next black musician is knighted or made a dame. I would guess that Kate Bush will be the next musical dame as she stands out as the greatest and most innovative female rock/pop star in Britain.
It’s easy for all of us to pontificate about what other people should be doing: ‘they’ should make more black films, ‘they’ should publish more black authors, ‘they’ should sign and promote more black bands, ‘they’ should make more black TV shows etc. We aren’t the ones putting the money up, ‘they’ are and ‘they’ taking the risk and the losses if things fail.
It costs a reasonable amount of money to publish a book. It costs more to make a record, paying for all the studio time. Making a TV show is yet more expensive and films are fabulously expensive to make and promote. People have to believe they will make a profit at the end of the day and they will make decisions based on that.
Is there a deliberate attempt to silence blacks in this country and stop black artists from expressing themselves? I highly doubt it. I tend to find racists are seldom so fanatical that they will deliberately turn down the opportunity to make money. Are black artists in Britain getting a totally fair break? Probably not. These things take time to change. We don’t know the quality of the artists that companies see to be sure that they are making poor decisions all the time either.
The risks involved can make businesses, especially long established ones cautious and conservative. They will tend to finance things that have a proven track record, which in music is geared toward white rock. As the majority of people in the country are white the established companies will reflect that. The number of graduates who get management jobs will he disproportionately white as well. That will tend to mean that white artists get favoured not from deliberate racism but due to the ethnic/cultural tastes of white people.
If black artists who believe they are being ignored want to be seen and heard they will have to be more entrepreneurial or find other people who are and see a gap in the market. There is certainly a willingness for white people, the majority market in the UK, to listen to black music, but it won’t be just any music. It has to be the right sounds. If someone believes enough in their work and thinks that they are being neglected or under promoted by the major labels then they will need to find other ways to get their music heard. Grumbling about racism won’t change anything nor will calling ‘them’ racist.
On foreign policy,
I take your point. When criticism becomes xenophobia it is upsetting.
On beauty standards,
This is one area where I think a lot of work needs to be done, particularly with the colourism issue.
On being disliked for my views,
I am getting used to being the ‘Uncle Tom’ on here. Perhaps I should have called myself that as a name and had done with it. Ultimately the more people use terms like ‘racist’ and ‘self hater’ the less power those terms have. I like to use them sparingly.
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@Ally
“To do that you need to organise and be entrepreneurial. Black people don’t do enough of that and racism is a poor excuse in this day and age.”
Black people do more than enough of that. At least in the US, entrepreneurism among African Americans is growing faster than any other ethnic group. And that’s just what’s official, not what’s done under the table.
Racism comes into play when people blatantly or subconsciously refuse to do business with black entrepreneurs, when government unfairly singles them out, and when they can’t get loans or venture capital at the same rate as their equally situated counterparts. At least in the US, there’s ample evidence of this.
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To resw77,
I’m always very happy to look at the evidence, particularly if it is ample.
I wish there was more here that talked about real issues, concrete things that directly affect black people today and the evidence of that, not stuff about TV shows not being good enough which is so unimportant and trivial.
Again I would need to be persuaded that people are deliberately refusing to do business with black people, as that has not been my personal experience in the UK but I don’t rule it out as a possibility in the UK or the US. In what way are governments singling out entrepreneurs? Do you have figures for loan rates and why black people might be seen as more of a risk for investment, if that is indeed the case?
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@Ally
“I’m always very happy to look at the evidence, particularly if it is ample.”
You could do the research yourself, especially since spoon-feeding it to you would be time-consuming. But since I made those claims, I’ll happily back it up with evidence.
“In what way are governments singling out entrepreneurs?”
There are examples of local government excluding certain businesses that were typically owned by blacks in particular communities (like barber shops and hair salons) from grant programs, but the key piece is that Black SBA loans from the US gov’t have fallen sharply even as black entrepreneurism has grown (and again, is the fastest growing segment): http://newpittsburghcourieronline.com/2014/04/27/paltry-number-of-sba-loans-to-black-businesses/2/
“Do you have figures for loan rates and why black people might be seen as more of a risk for investment, if that is indeed the case?”
Yes, African Americans are 25-35 percent less likely to get loans than whites with similar credit.
There was also a recent study done that showed minorities in the US seeking small business loans faced discrimination: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/black-hispanic-entrepreneurs-discriminated-against-when-seeking-small-business-loans/2014/06/03/70059184-ea86-11e3-9f5c-9075d5508f0a_story.html
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Ally, after all the evidence Ive brought in about how racism in the music and entertainment industries operates, Im surprised you think that the reason there are no black Brit rock gods, knighted and multi millionaire is because the markets dictate it, when the corporations are manipulating the markets with all their might….and , failing more often than not
I used to carry around a little Billboard article that said, that year, the big corporations had released thousands of records that sold under 5000 copies
Black American music artists have had success in racist white America, its not that they cant find sucsess, Nat King Cole, Louis Armstrong , Duke Ellington , Ella Fitzgerald etc, all were sucessful, but not on the leval of the big white stars and this is Afro diasporic innovated music
And there is nothing in the business that is really trying to educate us about that, and the history
This same thing happens in Salvador Bahia with three white women as the big sucsess, you could say the same thing about its what the market wants…but, that isnt true about the music business
they make their own desician about who they will release , and pick a few artists out of that and put up millions of dollars to try to get people to buy it
put out a limited buffet…do you think it really based on who the great talents are out there? Its based on somebodies , usualy limited judgement of what they think they can sell, and , all their bias and ignorance is built into a small number of peoples corporate desician who to put out and invest millions in to be household names…its a fixed game …its a lot of hype..and to not really give us the true history , just keep going generation after generation playing the same game….is scary to say the least, and creepy at best
Good point about Shirly Bassey, differant era and style than rock , to be sure…but the kighted rockers is a definite line there
its black Afro diasporic innovated music…the fact you admit the white buying public and their taste does dictate who they will invest in, makes exactly my point….
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@ Ebony
I found this a nice read but hopefully later I can post more on the US dynamic.
Darn those imaginary pay gaps.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/white-house-pay-gap-between-men-and-women-persists/
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To resw77,
Thanks for the links I’ll look at them properly later.
To sharina,
That article is meaningless. It has virtually no information about what jobs they are talking about. You can’t compare a cleaner to an executive, nor yet a secretary to a butler.
“At the White House, we have equal pay for equal work,” said White House spokeswoman Jessica Santillo told the Post. “Men and women in equivalent roles earn equivalent salaries, and over half of our departments are run by women.”
That would appear to be the important statement. You would need to prove her a liar to prove a wage gap.
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Abagond, Ive got a responce to Ally in moderation, I cant figure out why…can you let me know…I didnt think there was any language that needed moderation
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@ B.R.
You used the word “doll”. That was secretly moderated, probably as an Asplundism. It is now unmoderated.
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Holly off topic, BATMAN!
You guys are talking about racism in the music industry in the UK and the artists, pay and wage gaps between men and women, ect.
This article is entitled, “The Fourth Enlargement of American Whiteness”, not “The Fourth Enlargement of European Whiteness” So why is Ally talking about the lack of Racism against black people in the UK?
I don’t speak on Racism in Europe, because i live in America and never have lived in Europe. Not to mention the fact that it would be considered off topic.
Abagond’s articles are coming from a point of view, living in America, not the UK.
These off topic discussions need to be taken to the open thread, so people who wish to speak about the topic at hand, can do so.
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OFF TOPIC: The music industry, unless it can be tied directly to the post.
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Ally
But if the article is meaningless then that statement becomes meaningless. You Can’t (you can though faulty) pick what you agree with out of an article and decide it is important and the remained “meaningless.” 🙂
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Besides, I could have sworn the argument was that it does not exist, so While one was presented, I found quite a few more that acknowledge there is one.
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@Sondis
We are usually at each others throats, but totally agree with this.
“These off topic discussions need to be taken to the open thread, so people who wish to speak about the topic at hand, can do so.”
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Sharina:
“We are usually at each others throats, but totally agree with this.”
Indeed my friend….indeed. @ : o l ) >
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“The US will move towards a multiracial society, especially in suburbs and college towns. It will accept middle-class Blacks”—-But isn’t this sort of happening now? Almost every white crew has a token black guy or gal that is of middle class standing.
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To explain how the conversation shifted to the entertainment industry, the debate began on whether or not racism exists in the first place for Abagonds’ post to be remotely possible in the future. Many of us were speaking on racism being an institutional system and noting that its expansion would play out there as opposed to overt one to one instances that are not so prevalent anymore. We used available minority depictions in entertainment and consumer purchasing choices along with White flight as talking point examples.
Side note: If commenters who are not from the US are not allowed to share and compare their own experiences with American lives and culture, I hope you’ll let us know if this is a rule because that may cut off the discourse of quite a few blog members.
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Kiwi, that’s an excellent idea.
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The UK is on topic.
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@ Ebonymonroe
Commenters who are not from the US are allowed to share and compare their own experiences with American lives and culture. I do not limit commenting by race or country unless I say so in the post itself. So far I have done that only once.
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Thanks for clarifying Mr Julian Abagond.
Lol @Kiwi.
I agree, it seems to be dependant on the kind of Hispanic. Caribbean Hispanics seem to identify more as people of colour: Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, whereas other Hispanics tend to see themselves as White. I’m unsure as to whether or not the vast majority of members of the Hispanic community would reject their own unique varying cultural identities in order to be recruited into the White American fold, I’ve encountered definitions from one extreme to the next from members of Hispanic community over the years. I really have no idea.
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Ebonymonroe
I love hearing your experiences, so I hope I don’t make you feel as if you shouldn’t share them. It brings life to the conversation to hear from individuals not living in the states.
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To sharina,
Your logic seems a little faulty here.
The article is claiming that there is a wage gap which it implied was due to sexism. There is wage of gap of sorts but it isn’t because men are paid more for the same job, hours and experience as feminists claim. It is due to the career choices women make, the hours they choose to work and time they take off to have children.
Although the wage gap myth has been exposed as such by economists for years feminists and politicians like Obama still make political capital out of it so they keep the myth going.
What I agreed with the White House spokeswoman and not the journalist.
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Ally
I don’t think it is my logic so much as it is your need to weasel out what you claimed or move aware from an already faulty logic on your part. Did you or did you not make the claim that there is no wage gap between men and women?
“There is wage of gap of sorts but it isn’t because men are paid more for the same job, hours and experience as feminists claim. “—Actually I have presented and article in open thread (the place where this discussion is more appropriate) that addresses different professions and the gap, so while some believe that to be the case. There is research that points to other wise as well as other factors.
“What I agreed with the White House spokeswoman and not the journalist.”—It does not matter who you agreed with or did not agree with in the article. The point is that you picked out of the article what was appeasing to you and disgarded the remained as “meaningless.” That would be considered confirmation bias.
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move away*
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@ Ally
Any other responses to the wage gap will be on open thread. I have a ton of articles and you are free to pick and choose which is and is not acceptable, but it does not change their is an actual wage gap and you have not shown me anything that says otherwise.
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To Sharina,
Any reply to this I will respond to in the open thread but I will post this one on here.
It is hard to debate with you when you make the rules up as you go along.
The article was written by a journalist who implied that a wage gap exists in the White House. The wage gap is a feminist concept which states that men are paid more than women in the same job. This is false. The wage gap that does exist, which is not what people mean when they refer to ‘the wage gap’ is the difference between what women as an entire sex and men as an entire sex earn overall. However, that is not due to sexism but is determined by the sorts of jobs many men choose to do which are often higher paid than those chosen by many women and the fact that many men often choose to work longer hours than many women.
Let me be crystal clear here: when men and women with the same education and experience do the same job and work the same hours they are paid the same amount of money. Anything else would actually be against the law. I have not agreed with any part of the article or the journalist’s implications. All I agreed with was the statement made by the White House spokeswoman that men and women doing the same job were paid the same. The gap in wages between men and women in the White House will be due to the different jobs being done by women and men there and the different hours they work. That is a wage gap of sorts, but it is NOT what is understood to be the wage gap in feminist literature. So there is no fault in my logic.
If the article was one about all French people being from Mars and the French president was quoted as saying ‘French people are not from Mars’ and I agreed with him I would not be picking and choosing what I liked from the article. Nor would I be conceding anything to the journalist who wrote it in the belief that the French are indeed Martians. Nor would I be giving any credence to conspiracy theorists who tell tales of the French all coming down to Gaul in giant spaceships during the Dark Ages.
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@Kiwi
Funnily enough, being that the UK has such a high rate of mixed race individuals, I would say that (depending on what you look like) the caste system is beginning to apply in the UK. In the UK being, for example, half Black and half White no longer necessarily means you’re Black, or White, (if I remember rightly), “mixed race” was added as an option on the census.
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@Sharina
Not at all. T’was a sincere inquiry since a lot of these posts are naturally about the US, and foreign commenters like myself will always tend to weave in and out of the US and our own homeland experience, which could be viewed as off topic.
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@Ally
“It is hard to debate with you when you make the rules up as you go along.”—Do you mind quoting some “rules” that I so happened to make up? It is quite well documented you need to make up debating rules, but isn’t it amazing your response when the sames ones you made up get used against you?
I addressed the remainder of what you said on open thread, but do you mind providing source to what you are claiming? Opinions are nice but they are just that. What you say should be just as well documented as my claim of the wage gap if true.
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To Sharina,
The ‘rules’ I am referring to are the way you tried to claim that agreeing with what someone said within an article quoted by a journalist means that I am somehow tacitly agreeing with the article or the journalist’s opinion. It is no such thing. It is actually the opposite. I am agreeing with someone who goes against the entire argument put forward by the author and whose words stand in opposition to the latter’s thesis.
You used nothing against me that made any sense. To say that a wage gap of sorts exists is definitely not admitting that there is a wage gap as it is defined by feminists. The term has a specific meaning, so I had been entirely consistent in my logic and used the phrase in the way feminists use it and the way in which the article was using it. When I said one existed ‘of sorts’ it was to show that it was not one in the way feminists mean it or the journalist meant it.
I could say that there are no Indians in a particular area of America. I could also say that there are ‘Indians’ of sorts, but they are not Indians from India and those ‘Indians’ prefer to be known as Native Americans. I have not admitted that there are Indians living in a specific American location by talking about American ‘Indians’ only to dismiss them as not Asian and therefore not Indians in the real sense of the word.
You have not won any sort of victory here or exposed any inconsistency in my argument. You might think me wrong but everything I said is consistent and logical.
I will find some sources which expose the wage gap myth and post them on the open thread.
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@ Bulanik
Two comments deleted: the music industry was declared off topic on this thread.
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(Okay, Abagond, I stopped by and only skimmed on the last few comments.)
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Ally
“The ‘rules’ I am referring to are the way you tried to claim that agreeing with what someone said within an article quoted by a journalist means that I am somehow tacitly agreeing with the article or the journalist’s opinion.”—I never said or implied that so what are you reading or misreading in my post? (crazy). I did imply confirmation bias though (I might even have just told you). And here is the definition as promised https://www.google.com/search?q=aval&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS592US592&oq=aval&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i61l2j69i65j0l2.3900j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8#q=confirmation+bias
Feel free to pick one that is appeasing to you.
“When I said one existed ‘of sorts’ it was to show that it was not one in the way feminists mean it or the journalist meant it.”—-And did you decided to change what definition of it you were going to use before or after you were challenged? I think it would have been nice to clarify that before and if you have then direct me to the post where this occurred. Also a source showing the way “feminist” use it.
“You have not won any sort of victory here or exposed any inconsistency in my argument. You might think me wrong but everything I said is consistent and logical.”—I never claimed a win. I merely pointed something out that resulted in you completely misreading it. Whether it is consistent and logical or not still has lead you not to provide sources as I kindly asked. Any one can make a consistent and logical opinion, but it is just that in the end.
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While I do think white society will attempt another enlargement of the whiteness category to protect their supremacy, I think that this will be hard for white America to accomplish mainly because a deeply engrained sense of superiority over non-whites. Most likely they will offer white Latino’s, upper/middle class African/Caribbean immigrants and East Asians ‘honorary white’ status hoping to blunt their growing influence and pit them against native blacks and dark skinned latinos as they have done in the past. However this time I do not think it will be successful. There is growing pressure for equal recognition in Asian and Latino communities as their population and political power grows they are less likely to want to settle for the consolation prize of being white people’s sidekicks.
This does not mean they will not hold anti-black views but it does mean they will be less likely to play ball with the whites as they did in the past.
I do not believe that white people will truly be able to accommodate that overall their desire for hegemony is too strong, and they have a long track record of regarding their useful Asians and Latino’s as yellow and brown perils respectively when they feel a threat to their supremacy this has resulted in them purposefully demonizing and excluding these groups. They have shown no evidence of wanting to shed these impulses if any thing they are on the rise again.
This gives the ‘collective blacks’ as you call us an opening and a way to turn white societies strategy against them using the Latino’s and Asians desire for equal status as a way to drive a wedge between them and the whites thwarting the fourth enlargement.
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This will all be done in the backdrop of increasing interracial marriages, between the recalcitrance of previously amenable Latino and Asian groups, the flat out rebellion of the black community and a rapidly growing population of multi-racial children white supremacy will be under a level of pressure it hasn’t seen since Bacon’s Rebellion.
In this chaos black people need to capitalize forging horizontal coalitions with the Latino’s and Asians (you can see the beginnings of this as all three groups align under the political left and the Democratic party). We also need to utilize ‘white allies’ to further undermine whtie supremacy in the white community in same way white people use Uncle Tom’s to promote white supremacist ideas in the black community.
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To Sharina,
I really have very little idea what point you are making now.
I know what a confirmation bias is and I see a lot of it here. I was not guilty of it. If you do not know what feminists mean by the wage gap that is hardly my problem. I assumed those who were using it here were aware of the feminist argument behind it. The journalist certainly would have been. I didn’t change the definition at any point and I have made that abundantly clear several times.
What you actually said originally was
“But if the article is meaningless then that statement becomes meaningless. You Can’t (you can though faulty) pick what you agree with out of an article and decide it is important and the remained “meaningless.” ”
That is nonsense, pure and simple. I can most certainly pick what I agree with out of an article, especially when what I agree with is someone’s statement. I agree with the statement and not the article. The article did not analyse what jobs men and women do in the White House. That is why it is meaningless and unable to prove or disprove the wage gap theory. Why you can’t grasp that simple point is beyond me.
I have already provided the sources you asked for. They are in the open thread.
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Ally
“I really have very little idea what point you are making now.”—You never had a clue what point I was making period to begin with, but not once did you ask a question. Plus my original comment was to ebony as can be seen here: https://abagond.wordpress.com/2014/06/26/the-fourth-enlargement-of-american-whiteness/#comment-241319
You decided to jump the gun, so not my problem.
“If you do not know what feminists mean by the wage gap that is hardly my problem.”—I never said I did not know what they meant. I said “Also a source showing the way “feminist” use it.” Meaning something that is not your idea of what they mean because so far you show a tendency to misinterpret things. Also in my research I have not found that the feminist have a separate definition of it from anyone else.
“That is nonsense, pure and simple. I can most certainly pick what I agree with out of an article, especially when what I agree with is someone’s statement.”—I didn’t say you couldn’t but that most certainly does not mean you are not engaging in confirmation bias. Originally this is what you said:
“That article is meaningless. It has virtually no information about what jobs they are talking about. You can’t compare a cleaner to an executive, nor yet a secretary to a butler.
“At the White House, we have equal pay for equal work,” said White House spokeswoman Jessica Santillo told the Post. “Men and women in equivalent roles earn equivalent salaries, and over half of our departments are run by women.”
That would appear to be the important statement. You would need to prove her a liar to prove a wage gap. etc…”—A meaningless article has one important statement and it happens to be the one you agree with. I do welcome you to research the meaning of confirmation bias again because you just did it and now are trying to excuse it. As to why you feel it is meaningless I got that above and have no issue with that one bit and have not shown to. So your need to repeat and over explain is either your way or a way to try to bypass when you are wrong. Because a hit dog will holler. 🙂
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besides…Resw77 brought in some nice articles and I feel you are using the back and forth with me to avoid addressing it.
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sjackson44
Sorry it took so long to read and respond to your post, but you make an interesting point. I particularly liked this:
“In this chaos black people need to capitalize forging horizontal coalitions with the Latino’s and Asians (you can see the beginnings of this as all three groups align under the political left and the Democratic party).”
Combining efforts can go a long way.
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Sharina
Forming coalitions is the only way this is going to work, we just don’t have the numbers on our own.
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[…] The Fourth Enlargement of American Whiteness (1990s- ) is the current adjustment of White American society to the fourth wave of US immigration (mainly Asian and Latino) and the rise of people who … […]
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Great article! I really like the responses too. I do see America going in the direction of Latin America when it comes to race and social class. Racism will never go away but racism will manifest itself in different ways
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@ Pumpkin
I have not deleted any of your comments nor have I seen any in moderation or the spam filter.
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[…] is (realness, Americanness) – a social construction. Here’s Abagond on the Fourth Englargement: https://abagond.wordpress.com/2014/06/26/the-fourth-enlargement-of-american-whiteness/ or you can check out Painter’s History of White People itself: […]
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So true. I’m living it daily as a black light skin half Puerto Rican and half African American. When I tell PRs that I’m puerto rican that say stupid shit like but you don’t look PR and you don’t speak Spanish. Yeah right?!
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