“27 Questions Black People Have For Black People” (2016) is a cringetastic video done by BuzzFeed, a White-owned website in the US.
The video shows Black actors asking:
- Why is it so hard to be on time?
- If my dab is on fleek, am I lit?
- Why is it a problem if I like anime?
- Why do Black people look at your shoes before they greet you?
- Why are we more likely to engage in the new dance trend than we are to get involved in politics or opening a business?
- How did watermelon become our thing?
- Why do you get upset when I don’t like a Black celebrity?
- Why do we call each other the N-word but get vehemently upset when a White person uses the N-word?
- Why is my natural hair … seen as a political statement?
- Why do we think people with light skin look better than people with dark skin?
- Do you really believe that Black is beautiful? Or is that something you say ’cause it sounds cool?
- Why do some Black people say that you’re pretty “for a dark-skinned girl”?
- Why do some Black men only date White women?
- Why is it okay for Black men to date White women but not okay for a Black woman to date outside her race?
- Why do you protest Black Lives Matter – and then tear each other down in the next breath?
- Why do we say that we don’t want to be seen as a monolith, but then try to take people’s Black Cards away for not liking something that’s “supposedly” Black?
- Why are we so quick to support a non-Black-owned business but then hesitate when it’s a Black-owned business?
- Is there a cut-off time for this whole homophobia thing in the Black community?
- Why is growing up without a father so common in our race?
- Why don’t we like to confront our mental health issues?
- Why is there a checklist for being Black?
- Why is being educated considered a “White” thing? Why can’t I love school and also be Black?
- Why do I have to be mixed in order to have long hair?
- Why do you think well-off Black people don’t know what it means to be Black?
- Why do some Black people say, “Oh, I have Native American in my family,” in order to feel interesting or more valuable than other Black people around them?
- Why can’t we just acknowledge that there are a bunch of different types of Black people walking around and they’re all amazing and unique and special in their own way?
- Why are we always looking for the discount?
What answers I give are in the links above.
My questions:
- Who wrote this? It sounds for all the world like it was written by a White person who has maybe one (Whitewashed) Black friend.
- Who made the decision to put this online? I thought BuzzFeed had more sense than that.
And, as Ahsante the Artist on YouTube asked:
- Stacey Dash … is she with you now?
– Abagond, 2016.
See also:
537
For sure it was written by a white person who tried to hide there racism behind a black person.
What they do is ask some real proper questions.
“Why are we so quick to support a non-Black-owned business but then hesitate when it’s a Black-owned business?” there is truth to that.
But then they add in a ton of bullshit which very few sane black people would say like
“Do you really believe that Black is beautiful? Or is that something you say ’cause it sounds cool?”
Which code for a white person saying “Come on. Black people. Deep down. You know you people are ugly. Stop fronting, that you think black is beautiful. Just be honest and admit to yourself that your lying”
Or
“Why is being educated considered a “White” thing? Why can’t I love school and also be Black?”
No. Hardly any Black person thinks being educated is a white thing.
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Pretty interesting, but I’m sure that every race has questions for their own – not only Blacks folks.
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I was just going to ask you to post on this. All these new negroes Ben Carsoning with muckery.
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Some of these sound specifically like the kind of questions asked of black people by whites. Some of those questions have never been asked (of me anyway) by anybody black, like 2;8;and 10. I don’t even know what the Hell number 27 means. And the people most likely to know the words in number 2, would already know what they meant and how to use them.
Also, I can see situations in which some of these questions would be asked by a black person, as I’ve heard variations on some of them, and even asked a variation of number 22, myself. But taken out of situational context they come off as deeply insulting, as some of these, black people already know the answers.
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My favorite podcast Another Round with Heben and Tracy are on BuzzFeed and I wonder will they address this?
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Ahsante The Artist YouTube was good and I also like Evelyn of The Internet YouTube reading BuzzFeed for filth and letting them know that YouTube was trash.
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I think there is a “33 questions white people have for white people” as well. More or less dealing with White privilege. Kinda surprised buzzfeed put out a video like this.
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@lkeke35
I agree with your assessment. These “questions” read like racist hipster insults about Black people. Childish and patronizing at the same time.
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Mary, Benjamin: I searched out the videos you recc’d. Some I haven’t watched yet but that last one with the thirty three questions was hilarious, especially the ones about spices, and running away from other white people. I’m not sure yet what my deep thoughts are about that video, tho’.
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Okay, Mary, I went back and watched the ones you recc’d and I loved them. I went ahead and subscribed to Ahsante because she was awesome! And those were good, funny answers.
I did watch the one for white people but I felt those questions were white people calling other white people on their bs. This one for black people just felt wrong. They’re asking questions that “woke” black people already know the answers to, and the result of that is the questioners sound like dumba**es.
I loved Black Twitter’s response, too.
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“33 questions white people have for white people”
I’ll give it a shot.
1.) Why do we like snakes ?
2.) Why do we like our roast beef rare ?
3.) Why do we touch Black peoples hair ?
4.) Why did we invent racist jokes?
5.) Why do some of us only date only Asian women ?
6.) Why do some of us claim to be “Native American” ?
7.) Why do we always call the police ?
8.) Why do we always have an attorney ?
9.) Why do we become uncomfortable when you talk to us about race ?
10.) Why are tall, anorexic looking women considered beautiful and the standard by which all other women are judged by ?
11.) Why do we we immediately think of Angela Davis when we see a Black women with “natural” hair ?
12.) Why do we always think we are right.
13.) Why do we want to push democracy onto countries that don’t want it ?
14.) Why do we always think we know where you are from ?
15.) Why do we think its so important that POC have immediate access to abortion ?
16.) Why do we risk our lives doing extreme sports ?
17.) Why do we only trust facts coming from other white people ?
18.) Why do we need drugs ?
19.) Why do we feel the need to defend total white strangers if an altercation happens with someone of another race ?
20.) Why must all quarter backs on football teams white ?
21.) Why are we thinned skinned and think all Black people are referring to us personally when we have a conversation about race ?
22.) Why do we think “illegals” are taking our jobs when no white person has actually lost a job to an “illegal” ?
23.) Why is our sense of human value determined by arbitary lines drawn on a map ?
24.) Why are Black men always percieved dangerous to us ?
25.) Why do we always blame the victum ?
26.) Why are we fascinated with fire and why are most fireman white ?
27.) Why do we sanction the State to kill so easily both domestically and internationally ?
28.) Why do we imagine ourselves saving the world ?
29.) Why do we imagine ourselves as the inventors of all things ?
30.) Why do we see hippies as always cool and white ?
31.) Why do we send our parents off to old folk homes to die ?
32.) Why do we make sure they sign “the papers” before we send them off to the old folks home ?
33.) Why can’t we acknowledge that white supremacy exists ?
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@MichaelJohnBarker
Great questions! Here’s a few more to add from a white person’s point of view.
34.) Why do we wear sandals and shorts sub freezing weather?
35.) Why do we feel more empathy for puppies and trees than we do for Black people?
36.) Why do we think other people’s resources naturally belong to us?
37.) Why do we arrest our protesting elderly for following the first amendment?
38.) Why do we not abide in our own constitution – or work to change it according to the law?
39.) Why didn’t we stop being racist after slavery and Jim Crow ended?
40.) Why are we marrying up the available pool of Asian women, causing some serious azz-hurt to the psyches of some Asian men????
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Blavity’s spoof:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndvHGs_R0lY)
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OMG, those people in the video look so “rented”!
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steve harvey was talkin to this white hillbilly from tennessee about ‘talkin country’ on “little big shots” surely some of us are making an effort
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The producer of the video (not sure how much say she has) is a black African woman named Daysha Edewi. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwixkfrRsJPMAhVRwmMKHeoRC0wQFggcMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fdayshaveronica%3Flang%3Den&usg=AFQjCNEm8A58vraR4EX-HZC1AFlRmQ3RsQ&bvm=bv.119745492,d.cGc
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OK, watched the spoof.
The point was to show they were bought. But, I do wonder how many people (in the US and overseas) can recognize the buzzfeed video as using rented spokespersons.
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This video by BuzzFeed would’ve been more legitimate and given a little more credence if it was captioned in the following manner: “27 Questions White People Have for Black People, but are Too Much of a Coward to ask.”
This was nothing short of a coontastic video with self-hatred internalized by the actors auditioning for an updated version of Stepin Fetchit.
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Questions white people have for white people
410 Why do white women fake smile at Black people?
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@ taotesan
Wow, they do that in South Africa too?
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The Blavity YouTube was hilarious showing how you can pay certain black folks off to spew anti-black self hatred. Thanks for that link Abagond.
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@Michael Jon Barker: Those were spot on.@Fan…..That was spot on too.
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But there are many self hating black folks in real life who ask these same ridiculous questions in the video i have a best friend who asks these questions. I even have a few family members that would ask these questions and they make me so sad. There are many so called “rented negros” out here.
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This is completely off-topic, but I figured somebody here might have the answer.
Why is Modupe Ozolua as fair skinned as she is since her parents are black?
(http://www.yeoal.com/2015/08/check-out-this-throwback-pic-of-modupe.html)
It seems the older she gets the whiter she gets!
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@gro jo: It possible she is skin bleaching that’s a pretty big thing now a days. Black people hating the melanin the Creator blessed them with is my guess.
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@gro jo
I second Mary on the skin bleaching.
The article you linked to had this major clue:
Perhaps she is her own best customer? Skin bleaching is a big deal in Nigeria. So sad.
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Mary and Afrofem, did the bleaching start at birth? Her picture as a girl indicates that she was a shade or two lighter than her parents. Is she a changeling, a cuckoo dropped in someone else’s nest? or the Nigerian Sandra Liang? Skin bleaching is a good explanation, but how did it start? Could she have gotten compliments for being so light skinned, and decided to go all the way? What would that say about the values of Blacks concerning skin color? In a world where one can have a sex reassignment, is color reassignment an abomination?
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@Gro Jo
Also, compare early 90s Al
CharlatanSharpton with MSNBC Al Sharpton.LikeLike
Heh. Typicall listastic BuzzFeed clickbait. Moving On………….
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@ gro jo
This thread is about media misrepresentation and yet you ask this question?
The media does not present the world as it is. It adds layers of publicists, PR firms, make-up artists, lighting and photoshopping, among other things (see above). For years I thought Mariah Carey was lighter than she was.
My brother used to work for a magazine. He photoshopped images, even the ones you would think were not photoshopped. Publicists also photoshop images.
I used to work for a magazine and was told NOT to fact check press releases. The Wall Street Journal was doing the same. Whatever companies said about themselves was printed as fact, without quotes or anything.
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……Then again, if someone were to look at trends from about the last 8 to 10 years or so, sveral changes have been occuring in America, most notably the removal of the “One-Drop Rule” and the creation of 3 separate black ethnic groups – Biracial , Black American, and Black Immigrant (black people with accents, come from foreigncountries and dress funny, or can prove that a family member comes from Africa, or the Caribbean. Usually an Amy Chua house slave type in the case of my example). The assumption that the black writer and black actors were “cooning” ignores the fact they might actually belive this sort of thing – “smoking their own dope” as one might say.
Notice that the video was produced by someone who seems to be a Black Immigran who may have bought into the sterreotypes about Black Americans, all while thinking herself as “black”.But black is now just a general heading for the three groups described, whcich she herself doesn’t understand because she didn’t create the category. The Black Immigrant is just unknowingly(?) playing into the idea that Bakra Massa will pick her if she remains “obective” and distances herself from Black American and their low-class self-hating and hypocritical behaviour.
For another example of this see the 2015 movie “Dope”, directed by and depicting a Nigerian-American.
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There are dozens of spinoffs to this now!
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Honestly, taking the question seriously, there is only one question that I have ever wanted to ask black people as a people. And i have been asking it for almost eight years now.
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@nomad: What is the question?
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“abagond
@ gro jo
This thread is about media misrepresentation and yet you ask this question?”
Because the following questions reminded me of Modupe Ozolua:
“Why do we think people with light skin look better than people with dark skin?
Do you really believe that Black is beautiful? Or is that something you say ’cause it sounds cool?
Why do some Black people say that you’re pretty “for a dark-skinned girl”?
Why do some Black men only date White women?
Why is it okay for Black men to date White women but not okay for a Black woman to date outside her race?”
She is a role model for some Nigerian women. The media pushing her image is owned and operated by Blacks, so the image she’s conveying has resonance with a certain sector of Black public opinion. I thought it might be of interest to delve into this issue instead of dealing with it as an external assault on Blacks by Whites.
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@gro jo
I placed my response to your question in the Colorism thread:
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One question that I a have, and I mean it repsectfuly, is do you think Blacks having access to abortion over the last 30 years, has it had a positive effect on the Black community or a negative effect on the Black community ?
It seems the conversation about abortion gets some stuck between the Christian right interfering with the rights of women verses feminists fighting to for the rights of women.
What I haven’t seen is a conversation about the economic and social implications resulting from the millions of abortions that have happened within the Black community in the U.S.
I have always been strongly pro choice but a conversation I had with a Black friend a few weeks blew up my prochoice choice paradigm I had always held. I’m still pro choice but I also have come to belive that abortion has weekend the Black community not empowered it.
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@nomad: What is the question?
lol. I don’t want to sound like a broken record. Why do “yall” (not you, but the collective “yall”, you know, black people in general) support (idolize) Obama? Even at this late date. I’ve been asking it since 2009 when i discovered just how treacherous he really was.
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@michaeljonbarker
To whom is your question addressed?
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Not to anybody in particular.
The thread is called “questions Black people have for Black people” and though that piece was meant to enforce stereotypes that represent whites view of Black culture my question is meant to start a conversation about something that happened to the Black community that I think has contributed in part to weakening Black family structure just as mass incarceration has.
I’m going to speculate that if the abortion rate was half of what it has been the Black community, the Bkack middle class would be far greater today, Black families stronger and Blacks would have greater politicale influence.
As a white person bring this up my apologies if it comes off as paternalistic, intervening or condemning. That’s not my intent.
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Hmm, I can see how a white person had wrote this, but sometimes I be asking the same questions myself, and I’m black.
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“Obama? Even at this late date. I’ve been asking it since 2009 when i discovered just how treacherous he really was.”
.
I hear you Nomad!
Why do Black people love Obomba?
Haven’t we learned yet that to get (s)elected, one has to ALWAYS prostrate their self to someone else’s agenda?
Obomba was never really about Black people. Ever. Unless you call public chastising …. We should have recognized when he threw his former pastor, J Wright, under the bus what he was truly about.
But watch …. both he and Black people will both catch a lot of blame for what’s coming to Amerika!
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@Fan
Like.
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@ Yes, Abagond. And I am thinking it is the same trans-continental ‘smile’.
Kind of the cross-section of a deer caught in the headlights with a put on hyphen painfully stretched across the lower part of the face. I was the recipient of one such this morning.
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“But watch …. both he and Black people will both catch a lot of blame for what’s coming to Amerika!”
Bingo bango, Fan! That was the plan all along.
Barama came literally out of nowhere. He was planned engineered and placed. He was the black leader given to us by powerful forces (the white man). To do exactly what he did and to put the blame on exactly whom it will be placed. There’s a shit storm coming.
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@nomad
I see the storm coming too.
Funny how the people who have been responding to racial “dog whistle” politics for a generation and voting in climate deniers,etc. are now having their homes blown to bits by super hurricanes, hail and floods. No doubt they will blame that on Black folk, too. They certainly will not take responsibility for their errors in judgement or outright stupidity.
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@Afrofem
You and I will be seen as Obama supporters in the public eye. We will be identified on sight as Obama supporters by virtue of the color of our skins.
There is a passage in The Invisible Man, it’s been so long ago that I’ve read it I don’t recall the details. But in it someone says to a white authority figure regarding the protagonist. “Behold, sir! Your greatest creation! The invisible man!” But that was the 20th century. In the 21st century, the white man’s greatest creation is Barack Obama.
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I actually had a clown at work ask me why did all the Black people vote for Obama?. I told him I didn’t as I am Canadian and cannot vote in the American election. That went over his head and he persisted in his questions. I finally told him that I don not know every Black person in the States or Canada so could answer him. Again this went over his head. This guy was Sri Lankan by the way. Many of the white supremacist/racist I work with ‘hate’ Obama. When asked why they cannot give an informed answer. But I know why. I ask them why they are telling me this? They become flustered as they cannot provide an answer.
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Sorry, I was flustered when typing this excuse the typos!
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@Herneith
That flustering is always a dead giveaway, isn’t it?
You just look at their faces and have to keep yourself from laughing or saying “boo” in a loud voice.
Silliness coupled with deadliness…a really bad combination.
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^^^sillyness?
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@Herneith
“I actually had a clown at work ask me why did all the Black people vote for Obama?.”
Right. Because you’re black you obviously are of the Obama tribe. Doesn’t matter how much you may have actually ranted and raged against his administration as an individual. You’re black, like Obama. Therefore you are tainted with his crimes and shortfalls. He was, after all and in spite of what he said himself, YOUR president.
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absolutely. as citizens of the us not only do we all (not just …) bear the responsibility and the consequence for the actions, unfortuneately we are all held hostage by the respective military powers. clinton said it best those with ‘the monopoly on the means of force’
just like when you turn on that tv tube and expect something different, it’s the lowest common denominator, with commercial interruptions
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@v8driver
Around the time of Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, I read someone who described Americans who disagreed with the invasion as “passengers on a runaway jet.” Even though they see the plane headed for a crash landing, they can’t get off. They are unwilling passengers along for the ride and had to suffer the pain of the crash with the willing passengers.
Perhaps that describes anyone who goes through life with their eyes wide open.
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He was, after all and in spite of what he said himself, YOUR president.
The comical thing was I couldn’t have voted for Obama as I am Canadian and live in Toronto; This went over this fools head even though I reiterated this fact several times. The hilarious thing is, you come up against this mindset in varying degrees all the time. If it’s not Obama, it’s the old ‘why do Black people do this(insert dumb question)’ meme. It’s a good thing I find such encounters jocular or I’d be in jail by now. Fortunately, I find stupidity jocular.
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Yeah. I was at the dental college last year, standing in this long line for discount patients. Right? I happened to strike up a conversation with the middle aged white security guard as the line passed his desk. Which is odd, ’cause white people generally don’t talk to me. I am an invisible man. So as I passed his desk, the guy behind me, also white, also middle aged, starts talking to the friendly guard. Over hearing their conversation I learned that they were both vets, the latter just retired. He was complaining about the decline of decorum among recently recruited younger soldiers. Since I had just conversed with the guy he was talking to and I wanted to know about this decline, against my better judgement I asked him about it. He immediately went into a tirade about what an awful commander in chief Obama was (for not further decimating Iraq, I think). I’m not sure. I stopped talking because I don’t talk politics with strangers. The point is, because I am black, he assumed I was an Obama supporter and saw this as an opportunity to express his displeasure to my presumed political stance. I’m black, therefore I must be an Obama supporter.
Used to be I was just a suspected thief when out in public. Now I’m also a suspected Obama supporter.
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“Used to be I was just a suspected thief when out in public. Now I’m also a suspected Obama supporter.”
.
Hey Nomad,
Are they only suspecting you of two things?
They suspect me of everything!
I can’t even walk down the produce aisle at the local supermarket without some produce guy eyeing me nervously. smh
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guilty until proven respectable
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I went to this health food store here(Toronto), and they kept eyeballing me and asking constantly if I needed ‘help’? Meanwhile, there were dozens of people in the store who they didn’t approach while I was there. I don’t know, maybe it was my leather boots and handbag that caused the vegan/vegetarians to bug me. However, I have not been back since and tell anyone I know not to go there if they mention it and I tell them why. Besides, they were grossly overpriced much like Whole PayCheque, I mean Whole Foods. Don’t shop where you are not wanted.
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oh I got a million of em. buying expensive shoes. sas. clerk couldn’t process transaction. no change for 3 hundred dollar bills for 260 dollar purchase.
??? probably thought I counterfeited them. his loss I guess
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I can count on one hand the number of times a pale-skinned woman has walked past me without tightening the grip on her purse. Or alternatively, crossing the street.
In years past, I got pretty steamed about that behavior. Then I realized they didn’t see me. They saw a dark-skinned figure approach and they projected images from their own minds onto my body.
As a human, I was invisible. To all of those women, I was just a thing that approached them that reminded them of the Black stereotypes they:
📺see on television news and movies
💻read about in papers, magazines and sites online
📻hear about in their homes and on radio and podcasts
Once I realized that I was essentially invisible to those women, I stopped caring about their behavior. Their blindness was their problem, not mine.
I started to focus on people who were decent to me. The others were not worth the emotional energy I had previously expended on them.
I can’t control how other people act, but like you (Fan, Herneith and nomad), I can choose my response.
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@Afrofem: There is a book called Whistling Vivaldi How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do by Claude Steele.One of the essays talks about a black man who is large in stature and dark skinned. He talks about how his physical appearance makes whites uncomfortable when they see him approaching. Women clutch their purses or by the body language of whites. So to put them at ease he whistles a tune from the classical music medley Vivaldi. This too me is ridiculous. Supposedly this puts them at ease showing that he is a cultured black man and not some black brute or thug. Respectability politics do not work. Trying put white people at ease by whistling classical music. I just had to shake my head at this.
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@Mary Burrell
So true! It was a series of hard lessons that led me to that conclusion, too.
Considering the history of this country, people should be trying to put Black people at ease instead of the reverse.
Mary, thanks for mentioning the book. It seems the author is dealing with a major scandal at UC-Berkeley right now.
http://www.dailycal.org/2016/04/18/campus-community-reacts-claude-steeles-resignation-statement/
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@Afrofem: Thanks for the link
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“Trying put white people at ease by whistling classical music. ”
,
@ Mary
While growing up, I witnessed a lot of brothers using humor attempting to put white people at peace … laughing and making them comfortable. Arghh!!
No thanks!!!
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“a lot of brothers using humor attempting to put white people at peace ”
half the field of black entertainment is based on that
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“half the field of black entertainment is based on that”
.
Whatever the percentage is – in music, dance, sports or comedy, the effects of the this “entertainment” are rather short lived. They seem to prefer to keep and maintain their fear.
Is that white genetic survival (on auto) at work? lol
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Playing at respectability just enrages them because then you think you are better than them. I;ll stick to chuckling at their antics or cursing them out each work as it disempowers them. I couldn’t care less if they think I am a dumb N******. it throws them off kilter when they realize you aren’t.
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Speaking of the question I asked about unconditional love of Obama, I’m not the only one asking. Solomon Comissiong asks it real good.
“Despite Barack Obama’s overall foreign and domestic record, masses of African/black people continue to support him. African/black people have historically been the most socially progressive on many issues such as war and imperialism. However, with the advent of the Obama presidency, all of that has radically changed. All it took was the combination of a brown face and a Democrat Party affiliation, and presto – they are now staunch supporters of war and imperialism. Even when that brown-faced Democrat commits acts of war on African nations they still support his actions. ”
http://www.blackagendareport.com/node/14625
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oops. that link doesn’t appear to work. anyway it can be found here
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I’m 100% black (100% African) and I’d ask #1, 8, 10, 12, 21, 24, and 26. Those are all valid questions I can relate with. A few of those questions should be directed towards white people, though, like #6 and 9.
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