This is the thread where you can never be off topic! Well, almost never. The rest of the Comment Policy applies, though.
Please put YouTube links in parentheses like so:
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvlTG4yVByY)
Scroll down a bit to see the links to the archived open threads.
A new Open Thread!
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(repost)
Arrrrgh! Why does European-American culture have to be demonized or at least given infimacy (opposite of supremacy, from the polar Latin root)? You all wonder why we try to be other things when being ourselves would mean accept being lesser until proven otherwise. Poc culture isn’t shining and perfect, sure, but it’s perfectly normal and thus worthy of existing.
I know me doing anti-racism won’t fix this because just ONE white i don’t and never will know acting up is enough for poc to righteously hate me, and it wouldn’t remove “my” past. Why is collective responsibility a thing?; I am only able to control myself. “[You] must pay for your ancestors/ cohorts/ people who resemble you because you aren’t suffering.” implies i must suffer to be a real person. Therefore, nobody should complain about some white people overvaluing suffering ever again.
Think i’m full of it? Just ask Kil Ja Kim, Suey Park, Patheos, taotesan, Mack Lyons, Mz. Nikita, Robert Jensen, and Racism Is A White Problem, whose anti-white person ideology is shone and put on a pedestal.
Also, no, i can’t magically relate to the old world. The old world sees me as fake and plastic so i can’t join them. Should i and others create a new culture for over-westernized people (it’s not just whites who are over-westernized). Also, why are these (http://www.bu.edu/isso/files/pdf/AmericanValues.pd) values evil or lesser?
FAQ
—–
No, i don’t want more white supremacy.
No, i don’t think anti-racism should stop. Just the parts that hate me for existing.
No, i don’t think i have it worse. Just bad. This isn’t episodic, it’s all the time, hence why i never complain about other things.
No, i think a kumbaya or blind trust is out of the question.
No, i don’t think poc deserve judgementality either.
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Yes, i am in a depression hit. Nobody has to answer, but can at least somebody lead me to a poc approved ally who still accepts questions?
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Actually please excuse my tone. I am going away for another week to lurk and just find answers on my own.
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@Uriel
I wish you luck.
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Read that only the USA, Myanmar and Liberia do not use Metric in the normal course of business or standard education.
Several of my cousins are schoolteachers in the USA, and they teach the metric system to their students (as a classroom exercise) but even they do not use the metric system in their daily lives and have no feeling for the measurements they represent.
Do people think that everyone should switch to metric or stick to the local system (in the case of the USA, the British imperial system).
In HK, people actually use both (which I also felt was the case in Canada). When people buy flats in HK, the area is expressed in square feet. People still use lbs. and feet and inches in some cases (eg, height and weight of people or stuff that people use). Most other things use metric, but they don’t object to using metric for the stuff they habitually use the imperial system for.
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Seriously, what is my non-colonial culture? I can’t just connect to the struggles and successes of a people i am not.
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@Jefe Unfortunately, most think we should keep our current system.
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Also, how is believing in totems (broad definition of item with spiritual significance) and spirit animals (broad definition of animal spiritually associated to a person).
How can you appropriate a belief. That’s like saying only the Chinese can be atheist.
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Why do you all need collective responsibility? Because you wanna blame people still alive. If i lived 1856-1938, and lived the same as i do now, you’d see me as another human being rather than a cancer cell.
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@Swank
Appearantly, Lindsay has a rule for the comments that says it is forbidden to call him a racist. Another rule is that he has ability to ban you for unexplained personal reasons 🙂 . I had no time to understand what Alpha was actually doing there…
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That’s true.
My focus is on removing the pseudoscience.
My goal is never to convert the person I am arguing with. That’s silly! These people are dyed-in-the-wool and hardcore.
I just leave my posts up and quietly chuckle when someone else happens on the exchange and agrees with me. Your words are in their threads for all time. Maybe you prevented someone from believing something foolish. Maybe you didn’t. Who knows…
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Yes I told him I changed my goal quick. Same as you, I eventually did comment just for visitors to see articulate contradiction and for them not to fall in the trap they can fall in when only HBDers are in the conversation. That’s the most impressive thing to me, on blogs without contradictors, they look serious, they have pseudo-specialist exchanges, their theories are tempting to an ignorant visitor and that’s only when you come poop their party that the whole edifice crumbles. Not only the flaws in their theories but their personal insanity too.
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Look at that private conversation.
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Me:
Hi Robert,
Just a little mail to tell you I’m not asking you to reinstate me this time. I have more important things to do and I don’t find the thing entertaining anymore. It was pleasant being on board for a couple days but intellectually, it was pointless.
Most of you guys are not trying to be objective whatsoever, you have a lot of anger and hatred in you and there is too much psychopathy going on in the comment section.
So I don’t have much to say except goodbye.
PS: it would be great if you make sure everybody on the blog knows I’m banned so that they won’t believe I’m being a coward.
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Me again:
Hi Robert,
First of all, thank you for having made it clear that I have been banned, at least people know why I’m not in the discussions anymore. I hope we can keep on mailing each other occasionally.
I’m not mad at you for being banned but neither do I agree that I deserved it. It’s a good thing that I’m not spending time on the blog anymore because I got kind of addicted although I really had other priorities.
However, if we except my disrespect for author’s rules, I think I did not deserve to be banned as a commenter especially if it’s only for the fact that I called you a racist and said you were doing an ugly job for that reason.
You know in my eyes, “racist” is neutral as a word, it only describes a person or an institution that judges human beings according to their race. This is the dominant opinion in france and it explains why we have no affirmative action, why we don’t collect racial statistics,why we never ask people to identify with a race for official purposes and why we are considering withdrawing the word “race” from our constitution. In our civic culture, racism starts when we simply make mention of race.
With respect to you, your racial outlook on humanity and society makes you a racist even though it does not automatically mean the vicious kind. But when you believe that human beings have inborn race-specific tendencies for certain behaviors and intellectual performances, you are racist no matter what agenda your belief is supporting.
You know, you could write about IQ, violence and everything like that without making any mention of race. All of the behavioral traits you claim to be race-specific are present in people of every race and none has exclusivity over dysfunction or excellence. Then making up biologic theories out of changing, not really accurate averages and supposed under or over-representation of certain groups is clearly racist.
You may not like it, you may not like me saying this is an ugly job but I’ve never seen you bringing up your numbers with accompanying human rights-minded solutions that secure equal treatment for people regardless of their racial background.
I think the meaning of racism would be an interesting topic for your blog.
Coming back to my exclusion, I told you I was not mad at you but I retain a kind of bitter feeling about the double standard that applied to me in my opinion. Look how Alan talks to you, look how Santoculto and Sam are just insane. I’m really not asking you to change your mind but you could try thinking about this a few seconds.
Now that’s off topic, but I’ve been thinking about your claim that West Africans appeared retarded by the way they wrote on your yahoo group. I could not get what gave you that feeling, I went to their forums like nairaland (the most popular forum in Nigeria) and it wasn’t any more moronic than any place on the internet. I hope you’re just not oblivious of the fact that all West Africans are L2 English or French speakers and it can result in writing styles and logic formulation ranging from Santoculto-like to native-like.
Regards,
PS: And by the way, I can’t decently be excluded from the conversation of which I’m the main topic or it’s mere gossiping and it doesn’t honor those who are in.
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Him:
“Hi Robert,
First of all, thank you for having made it clear that I have been banned, at least people know why I’m not in the discussions anymore. I hope we can keep on mailing each other occasionally.
Oh this is nice. I thought you hated me actually.
I’m not mad at you for being banned but neither do I agree that I deserved it. It’s a good thing that I’m not spending time on the blog anymore because I got kind of addicted although I really had other priorities.
However, if we except my disrespect for author’s rules, I think I did not deserve to be banned as a commenter especially if it’s only for the fact that I called you a racist and said you were doing an ugly job for that reason. ”
Yeah but one of the rules on the blog is you can’t call me racist. It’s just not allowed. I mean I try pretty hard to keep any real hard racism out of the site. I am not sure if you know what real ugly racism looks like, but there are a million sites out there like that, and it goes way beyond what I am doing. It’s mostly all about “tone.” It’s based on hate and I try to keep hate out of my site. I’m just interested in exploring racial differences, but I don’t want to do the hate thing.
“You know in my eyes, “racist” is neutral as a word, it only describes a person or an institution that judges human beings according to their race.”
Yeah but I try not to do that and I think it’s immoral.
“This is the dominant opinion in france and it explains why we have no affirmative action, why we don’t collect racial statistics,why we never ask people to identify with a race for official purposes and why we are considering withdrawing the word “race” from our constitution. In our civic culture, racism starts when we simply make mention of race.”
Yeah but that’s a crazy definition we don’t have here.
“With respect to you, your racial outlook on humanity and society makes you a racist even though it does not automatically mean the vicious kind.”
Well yeah then all race realists are racists. Ok but I do not accept that PC version.
“But when you believe that human beings have inborn race-specific tendencies for certain behaviors”
Yes I do believe this.
“and intellectual performances,”
This is a little tougher, but I am not a hard hereditarian at all. Most HBD’ers are hard hereditarian. I am a soft hereditarian, which honestly is mainstream scientific consensus.
Hard hereditarians believe Blacks are doomed to be stupid, violent and criminal as a group due to their genes. I understand why they think that, and I do think this group comes into the world rigged up that way. But I think if we manipulate the environment enough, we can have Blacks that may match Whites on achievement tests and may commit low levels of crime. So my position would be genes are not destiny. I also think Blacks need more help than other races on some things. But if that is true, then we need to give it to them.
“you are racist no matter what agenda your belief is supporting.”
Well that’s just race realism, and I don’t agree that race realism is racism.
“You know, you could write about IQ, violence and everything like that without making any mention of race.”
The thing is though we have a major problem with Black people in the US and probably the whole world really. They do have low intelligence at the moment – that’s a fact. Be that as it may, all sorts of problems are flowing from that, so it needs to be addressed. And Blacks are committing a tremendous amount of violence here in the US to where it is becoming a major societal issue. So Black crime and Black IQ are important issues for society and honestly for Black people themselves.
“All of the behavioral traits you claim to be race-specific are present in people of every race and none has exclusivity over dysfunction or excellence.”
Well sure but Blacks commit 7-8X as much violent crime as Whites. This causes an unbelievable amount of trauma, chaos, problems and frankly racism in our society. First of all, that 7-8X figure jumps out at you and demands an explanation.
The first step to dealing with a problem is to figure out what’s causing it. 7-8X the crime rate is a massive problem. We don’t even know what the reason for it is. All the environmental theories are garbage. Before we can even begin to address this issue, we have to figure out why it is occurring in the first place. We are not even doing that. It’s pitiful.
“Then making up biologic theories out of changing, not really accurate averages and supposed under or over-representation of certain groups is clearly racist.”
Well, at the moment I am backtracking on my testosterone theory. I am not really sure if Blacks have higher testosterone than other groups. I don’t think that is completely proven now. It seemed like a good theory though.
Let’s get real here. Blacks are vastly more violent and criminal than Whites. This is a massive issue and after thinking about it for years, I know there is biology involved. So I am trying to figure out the biology.
I wasn’t making up anything, and you guys were very outrageously playing games with numbers yourselves.
“You may not like it, you may not like me saying this is an ugly job but I’ve never seen you bringing up your numbers with accompanying human rights-minded solutions that secure equal treatment for people regardless of their racial background.”
I do not understand what you are talking about. Liberal Race Realism tries to get to the bottom of these problems so we can possibly figure out a way to ameliorate them. The purpose of LRR is to help Black people try to overcome their serious problems. The present approach is not working. LRR is pro-Black.
“I think the meaning of racism would be an interesting topic for your blog.
Coming back to my exclusion, I told you I was not mad at you but I retain a kind of bitter feeling about the double standard that applied to me in my opinion. Look how Alan talks to you,”
Yeah I let him get away with a lot of shit. He is an old friend of mine though. I was watching him the whole time and waiting for him to fuck up but he read the comments rules well and he kept skirting the ban. I don’t even think you read the rules. Did you even read the rules? I was waiting for Alan to call me a racist, and then I might ban him. But you see, we were friends going way back so I sort of gave him a break on that.
“look how Santoculto and Sam are just insane.”
You got warned once not to call me racist though. You just seemed out of control. It’s like you knew what you were not supposed to do but you just could not control yourself.
“I’m really not asking you to change your mind but you could try thinking about this a few seconds.
Now that’s off topic, but I’ve been thinking about your claim that West Africans appeared retarded by the way they wrote on your yahoo group. I could not get what gave you that feeling, I went to their forums like nairaland (the most popular forum in Nigeria) and it wasn’t any more moronic than any place on the internet.”
The way they write. They can’t even write a coherent sentence in English, and it’s supposedly their native language. If you read their writing, it looks like it was written by a retarded person.
“I hope you’re just not oblivious of the fact that all West Africans are L2 English”
English is pretty much a native language in Nigeria. I deal with L2 English speakers all the time, and most of them do not appear retarded.
Also I called up the Ghanaian Embassy in Los Angeles once and I got some African man. I didn’t have the faintest idea what he was talking about and once again, I got the impression that he was “retarded.”
“or French speakers and it can result in writing styles and logic formulation ranging from Santoculto-like to native-like.”
Santoculto doesn’t appear retarded when he writes.
This group has repeatedly received IQ test scores in the 60’s all the way up into the past two decades. No other group except Gypsies would ever get a score in the 60’s. There’s something wrong with them.
Regards,
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Me:
No, in Africa, official languages are L1 language for les than 1% of the population. Anyway, I’ve never seen West Africans writing or speaking any language in a retarded way. I think it has a lot to do with your own biases.
“The way they write. They can’t even write a coherent sentence in English, and it’s supposedly their native language. If you read their writing, it looks like it was written by a retarded person.”
Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa are the main languages of Nigeria, in addition to other minor languages, 99% of Nigerians speak an indigenous language as their first language. If you go on the streets in Africa, you hear no French or no English at all, only local languages are spoken in everyday life.
I would be pleased if you find me some typical retarded West African retarded writing on that forum: http://www.nairaland.com/
“This group has repeatedly received IQ test scores in the 60’s all the way up into the past two decades. No other group except Gypsies would ever get a score in the 60’s. There’s something wrong with them.”
I think you don’t understand what Wicherts et al. did, their studies consisted in collecting all of the existing data before sorting them to get representative numbers. And this is in all the existing studies that we find an average in the 80s, which is close to Wicherts’ estimate made from the studies he deemed representative. Only Lynn’s studies appear abnormal because he takes old data, disabled or other unrepresentative samples and his estimates rely only on a verry small minority of samples who scored in the 60s. And even with that, he only manages to get estimates in the 70s because he does not wieight averages and applies the Flynn effect correction to make seem like a study from the 1960s could be representative of today’s population. Wicherts does the actualization thing and I don’t agree either, it’s a pure matter of chronological unrepresentativeness. Numbers must be reported as they were measured and used, in the way their authors found there was nothing wrong with these people. Should we correct Einstein’s IQ for the Flynn effect ? Come on…
You know, Europe has been the colonial master of Africa for more than half a century. If your beliefs were backed by something true, Scientific racism would have emerged in the colonial administrative circles and no one would ever have spent money trying to and achieving to train illiterate tribesmen into physicians and attorneys.
“All the environmental theories are garbage.”
No, they are valid, they were found by anthropologues and sociologues, validated worldwide from direct observation, interviews and other serious social sciences methods. These are not speculations. It’s the result of hundreds of people across the world describing their feelings and their reactions regarding their environment. Then all that work is distorted by folk interpretation and ideological recuperation that lead to over-simplification. But when you read the social science papers and books, it all makes sense. This is why I will never agree with you that what you call soft-hereditarianism is not marginal in explaining group differences. It is, besides of being racist and genocidally intended.
“Well that’s just race realism, and I don’t agree that race realism is racism.”
Race realism is racism since we now know from molecular genetics that race does not corresponds to an identifiable genetic reality, it only loosely clusters with a small fraction of human genetic variation. So keeping on claiming that race is a meaningful genetic reality is just not refusing to accept what science says about it.
“and you guys were very outrageously playing games with numbers yourselves.”
No.
“LRR is pro-Black.”
I don’t think so, don’t need to go in the ghettos of the USA or in the slums of Dakar to find the persons you harm. You’re harming people like me who would not be able to advance if more people or myself thought that because I’m black, I can’t do just as well as other races, that I have to struggle against my inferior nature to be respectable and that my genes can take over at any moment to turn me into a thug. You’re not helping. The only thing I understand from what you write is that for our own well being, us black people should stop existing.
I agree I’m not serious with the rules, I did not read them and honestly, you can’t write racist post and forbid people to call you a racist ! That makes no sense.
“Oh this is nice. I thought you hated me actually.”
I’m not a child you know.
Me, still:
I have an intersting case for you. You probably know that Australia started as penal colony, it was basically the place where Victorian Britain threw her human garbage. Then why doesn’t Australia have a more dysfuctional white British population than Britain and others of her offshoots ?
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http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/
You might like that blog.
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Him:
“No, in Africa, official languages are L1 language for les than 1% of the population. Anyway, I’ve never seen West Africans writing or speaking any language in a retarded way. I think it has a lot to do with your own biases.”
I deal with English L2 speakers all the time and they almost never appear retarded. However, I did see an Aborigine once writing on the web and I was struck by how similar his writing was to the Nigerians. And he also appeared retarded.
“”The way they write. They can’t even write a coherent sentence in English, and it’s supposedly their native language. If you read their writing, it looks like it was written by a retarded person.”
Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa are the main languages of Nigeria, in addition to other minor languages, 99% of Nigerians speak an indigenous language as their first language. If you go on the streets in Africa, you hear no French or no English at all, only local languages are spoken in everyday life.”
They all speak something called Nigerian Pidgin English. Most everyone in Lagos speaks this language. English is the official language of the country for business, government, etc. There are many English language papers. There is English language TV. Bottom line, they all spoke English.
“I would be pleased if you find me some typical retarded West African retarded writing on that forum: http://www.nairaland.com/
“This group has repeatedly received IQ test scores in the 60’s all the way up into the past two decades. No other group except Gypsies would ever get a score in the 60’s. There’s something wrong with them.”
I think you don’t understand what Wicherts et al. did, their studies consisted in collecting all of the existing data before sorting them to get representative numbers.”
This is crazy! He threw out all the tests that scored in the 60’s! Why did he do that? Listen let me tell you something. You will never test any non-Black population on Earth with any IQ testing, no matter how lousy the study was, that will ever end up with a score in the 60’s. I can show you dozens of African tests with scores in the 60’s. Even if they were crappy tests, which is dubious, they should not have been scoring in the 60’s! Show men anywhere else on Earth where IQ tests regularly come up with scores in the 60’s. I dare you! Except for Aborigines, Papuans and Africans.
Do you realize that many of those scores in the 60’s were recorded in the 1990’s!? Those were bad tests? They were all reported in peer reviewed journals. If they were so scientifically shitty, how did they get past peer review?!
“And this is in all the existing studies that we find an average in the 80s, which is close to Wicherts’ estimate made from the studies he deemed representative. Only Lynn’s studies appear abnormal because he takes old data,”
No! I can show you MANY African scores in the 60’s from the 1990’s and 2000’s! Unrepresentative samples?! It doesn’t matter how unrepresentative it is. An unrepresentative sample anywhere else on Earth would never get a score in the 60’s.
“disabled or other unrepresentative samples and his estimates rely only on a verry small minority of samples who scored in the 60s.”
There is a recent article out that compares West African PISA and other achievement test scores and converts them into IQ scores by a well validated method. Those scores are from the past few years. A few West African countries were studied and they all had PISA IQ scores in the 60’s! They are still scoring in the 60’s to this day!
Very small minority?! I can show you dozens of tests with scores in the 60’s from very recently too. There should not have been ONE score in the 60’s, ever.
“And even with that, he only manages to get estimates in the 70s”
I am looking at Lynn’s data now and he is getting a lot of national scores in the 60’s. And I can see the tests he used also. From peer reviewed journals.
“because he does not weight averages and applies the Flynn effect correction to make seem like a study from the 1960s could be representative of today’s population.”
You have to do that. You have to take scores from all the eras. Unless the scores are rising, which does not appear to be the case.
“Wicherts does the actualization thing and I don’t agree either, it’s a pure matter of chronological unrepresentativeness. Numbers must be reported as they were measured and used, in the way their authors found there was nothing wrong with these people. Should we correct Einstein’s IQ for the Flynn effect ? Come on…
You know, Europe has been the colonial master of Africa for more than half a century. If your beliefs were backed by something true, Scientific racism would have emerged in the colonial administrative circles and no one would ever have spent money trying to and achieving to train illiterate tribesmen into physicians and attorneys.”
Well Africans were scoring in the 60’s during the colonial era also.
“”All the environmental theories are garbage.”
No, they are valid, they were found by anthropologues and sociologues, validated worldwide from direct observation, interviews and other serious social sciences methods. These are not speculations. It’s the result of hundreds of people across the world describing their feelings and their reactions regarding their environment.”
They are utter nonsense. There is no evidence that the African environment is making these people score in the 60’s.
“Then all that work is distorted by folk interpretation and ideological recuperation that lead to over-simplification. But when you read the social science papers and books, it all makes sense. This is why I will never agree with you that what you call soft-hereditarianism is not marginal in explaining group differences.”
The problem is that soft hereditarianism is consensus in science for individual differences in IQ and personality. Although you are correct that there is no consensus that say the Black – White IQ gap is due to genes, environment, or both. No one knows, and science is battling this question out in the journals now. Both hard hereditarianism and hard environmentalism are rejected by scientific consensus at the moment.
“It is, besides of being racist and genocidally intended.
“Well that’s just race realism, and I don’t agree that race realism is racism.”
Race realism is racism since we now know from molecular genetics that race does not corresponds to an identifiable genetic reality, it only loosely clusters with a small fraction of human genetic variation.”
That’s utter nonsense. I have taught whole classes full of different races and they behave in a completely different manner. You get the feeling that the differences are biological.
“So keeping on claiming that race is a meaningful genetic reality is just refusing to accept what science says about it.”
It is and science has shown this.
“”and you guys were very outrageously playing games with numbers yourselves.”
No.
“LRR is pro-Black.”
I don’t think so, don’t need to go in the ghettos of the USA or in the slums of Dakar to find the persons you harm. You’re harming people like me who would not be able to advance if more people or myself thought that because I’m black, I can’t do just as well as other races,”
LRR does not argue this.
“that I have to struggle against my inferior nature to be respectable”
LRR does not argue this.
“and that my genes can take over at any moment to turn me into a thug.”
LRR does not argue this.
“You’re not helping. The only thing I understand from what you write is that for our own well being, we black people should stop existing.”
They are not going to stop existing, we have to learn to deal with them.
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I don’t know what to say. I agree. The only real opposition is irrational and uninformed.
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Me:
Tell me, did you ever read Wicherts et al. at all ?
If not, you can find all his work here and you can also see Lynn’s answers:
https://scholar.google.fr/scholar?q=wicherts+IQ&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5
“They all speak something called Nigerian Pidgin English. Most everyone in Lagos speaks this language. English is the official language of the country for business, government, etc. There are many English language papers. There is English language TV. Bottom line, they all spoke English.”
The verry definition of a pidgin is that contrary to creole, it is a second language, a popular lingua franca used by people who have different mother-tongues.
You won’t have me on this one, I have spent a lot of time in Africa and you can’t do anything there without basics in the dominant native language of the place you go to. And by the way, I’m still waiting for exemples of retarded speech we can discuss.
“You have to do that. You have to take scores from all the eras. Unless the scores are rising, which does not appear to be the case. ”
They do, recently a huge sample in Kenya achieved scores in the 90s up from the 70s some decades ago.
“They are utter nonsense. There is no evidence that the African environment is making these people score in the 60’s.”
I was not even talking about IQ scores, I was talking about societal issues in general which have never been explained by IQ or genes since their IQs were never found to be abnormal.
However, if you believe that malaria, other tropical diseases, lead poisoning, starvation, or little intellectual stimulation have not been shown to depress test performance, you clearly get it wrong. Also, if you believe IQ tests are made in the same conditions in Africa, if you think that these tests are all culture fair, you clearly get it wrong. Scores in the 60s – 70s are as common in Africa, as in Latin America, South Asia and East Asia from a few studies I’ve seen searching on google scholar. Just to say I could demonstrate the inferiority of any race in the world with Lynn-like methods.
“The problem is that soft hereditarianism is consensus in science for individual differences in IQ and personality. Although you are correct that there is no consensus that say the Black – White IQ gap is due to genes, environment, or both.”
Well, you got it, now you just have to accept that the view that genes cause IQ gaps is marginal and that the consensus now regarding group differences is that 100% of the available evidence is environmental in nature and that what we now know about the genetics of race and the genetics of intelligence makes it very unlikely for the gaps to be at least part genetic in nature. Especially when IQ is not even an absolute value reflecting an identified biologic reality.
“That’s utter nonsense. I have taught whole classes full of different races and they behave in a completely different manner. You get the feeling that the differences are biological.”
And they can’t be cultural ? No ? From what I know about the way blacks behave in US schools, I can tell you nothing like that could be told about blacks in Africa or France and other European countries. So maybe you just got the worst of the African gene pool or I don’t know but you can’t say black americans are representatives of the black race.
“It is and science has shown this.”
Which science ? Psychology ? HBD ?
“They are not going to stop existing, we have to learn to deal with them.”
And how does polite scientific racism plan to deal with them ?
See, as you give irrefutable scientific value to your life experience, I will tell you a little more about mine. Not my life as a child and teenager in an artificial white controlled family environment but my life as an independent youg black adult that according to some theories you defend would have had me reverting to my dysfuctionnal genetic nature.
Recently I’ve moved to a new home that I bought since I hadn’t much money to borrow and my employment status in the near future allowed me to contract a cheap short-term loan. The development I moved in is one of the verry few American-like suburbs in the outskirts of Nantes in the west of France.
The first thing I must tell you is that house-hunting while youg, black and male never ever made me feel I had any disadvantage to acquire a home in this highly prized environment, not for one second did my real estate broker made me feel that I would not belong here. And that’s for a good reason, I come across as many black folks here in my neighborhood as I would in the inner city (which is not the ghetto in France but the place where the middle and the upper class live) . These black folks are no different from me or my white neighbors. From my white neighbors, I recieved a warm welcome and to be honest, I never expected them to treat me any other way.
Here in France, those who are stuck in the ghettos are Muslims of any race. I know Rushton said Islam is a genetic disorder and I know Muslims have integration issues in France even though we are an overwhelmingly open-minded non-prejudiced people. Actually the French are difference-loving people, I would not have enjoyed my life so much I was a regular white guy in my environment. Being black made me the cool guy every boys wanted to hang out with and the guy every girls wanted to date.
My parents adopted me and my sisters though they could have children on their own, it just happens that international adoptions are the big thing in the French upper class. It even led to an human trafficking scandal a couple years ago with around 40 Chadian children (West Africans) being kidnapped for adoption in France. So it has clearly reached obsessional levels.
So you have to realise that in a country like France, other Mainland European countries and even Britain, the stereotypes of racial differences do not even exist or are just so trivial that we all enjoy making fun of them since we all know we never meet people who fit their group’s stereotypes. Isn’t there a small part of the Liberal you who thinks that hereditarianism comes from some people’s denial of the very particular American race culture and its consequences on society ?
And please, I confessed I had no respect for the rules but don’t put it on the fact that I’m black. I did it the Latin way, the French way, you know we are rebellious and arrogant people, the stereotype is really not that far from the truth. Here we take a lot of freedom with rules and tend to do things as we please. French culture is a White Latin one though.
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wow I’m sorry for the occupation
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Me:
Hi Robert,
I’m still following the blog and I would have a lot to comment on your last posts. But before we get to that, I have to tell you I’m quite disappointed by the way you gave up on our last conversation, it was shady in my opinion. Ok, that’s an ad hominem attack and on this matter, I hope panda has been blanned or recieved a serious warning for calling you retarded. He wouldn’t be that much of a loss, he’s stupid and insane.
So you decided to take a look at the existing examples of closed black/white IQ gaps. Oh, I know you try to find some admixture to explain it but you know it has little coherence, that African admixture in Bahamians and Bermudians is still to high for them to mach Whites on IQ though their environment still lags behind in many aspects. Just for your information, 20-25% of Bahamians are recent immigrants from Haïti and due to severe brain drain, their “unrepresentative elite samples” have fled overseas. So the Bahamas, and to a lesser extent Bermuda invalidate the genetic hypothesis for the IQ gaps. I tell you scientifically, it really invalidates any kind of race-based hereditarianism, science is true everywhere in every place and unconvenient counter-exemples can’t be ignored.
I don’t know where you are with your hereditarian thoughts but as a liberal, you should never have had these leanings. As a commenter said, these small islands have governments that care for the masses and masses that identify with the institutions, hence there is common commitment to social advancement. These Islands are nothing like the super-environments that you think are the only one able to lift blacks up from chronic stupidity (as you put it, I know myself that blacks are not stupid at all), they hardly match southern Europe on many variables.
The whole thing of hereditarianism is protecting unfair privileges, it’s saying everyone deserves what they get and only have their genes to blame. That’s crazy and disgusting. So if we apply this rule, Robert Mugabe, whose military genius probably gives him a place at the best end of the bell curve is completely justified in stealing the moronic Zimbabwean population, which can only blame its fate on its supposedly moronic IQ. You know that good leaders can do anything out of any people and that social changes come from the top, not the bottom. Come on… Meritocray is a myth, innate racial unequality as well and I’m one of the better placed person to confirm both previous statements.
Since you told me the controversy about the origins of racial differentials on IQ test performance was still intense, I made my own research on google scholar to see what recent papers(since 2010) told about this and to my surprise, the debate is even more dead and the nature side has been completely dismissed now in 2015, only what remains of the pioneer fund holds on to hereditarianism.
https://scholar.google.fr/scholar?q=race+intelligence&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo=2010&as_yhi=
https://scholar.google.fr/scholar?q=race+IQ&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo=2010
https://scholar.google.fr/scholar?q=race+brain+structure&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo=2010
You know, I don’t like your attitude of explaining what you don’t understand by other’s dysfunction. If you don’t understand, the issue is that you don’t understand and not that others are dysfuctional. You write like you have universal eyes, like your life has led you to discover universal truths although you actually have little keys to understand the world and especially society.
You know, the only thing that could make people look seriously at hereditarianism is if we felt like every social science finding had been proven wrong, if every thing that had been attempted had failed, if each group’s situation appeared desperately stable and immune to any kind of intervention, if we had found that Asians could excell effortlessly while blacks could not learn whatever the level of effort they put. If all of that had been seen, well yes, hereditarianism would have become the most obvious explanation and each group would accept its genetic fate resiliently.
I hope I can get a reaction this time,
Regards,
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He’s WRONG about the “soft heredetarianism consensus” nonsense.
Here is the progression:
HBDer takes hardline stance, gets crushed, and then appeals to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation.
They do this by arguing that heritability = genetic and therefore heritability of IQ being 50% = IQ is 50% genetic, which is WRONG.
There is NO EVIDENCE of ANY genetic effect that is not also consistent with the EXACT OPPOSITE — i.e. “environmental” — effect. NO GENE for behavior or “IQ” in the normal range has been identified, but SEVERAL environmental factors have been identified that affect IQ.
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Him:
“Hi Robert,
I’m still following the blog and I would have a lot to comment on your last posts. But before we get to that, I have to tell you I’m quite disappointed by the way you gave up on our last conversation, it was shady in my opinion. Ok, that’s an ad hominem attack and on this matter, I hope panda has been blanned or recieved a serious warning for calling you retarded. He wouldn’t be that much of a loss, he’s stupid and insane.”
He already got warned. He is Chinese. They can control themselves pretty well.
“So you decided to take a look at the existing examples of closed black/white IQ gaps. Oh, I know you try to find some admixture to explain it but you know it has little coherence, that African admixture in Bahamians and Bermudians is still to high for them to mach Whites on IQ though their environment still lags behind in many aspects.”
Oh this is 100% correct. I am having a very hard time understanding why you keep pegging me as a hard HBD’er. How many times do I have to tell you that I am a soft HBD’er and soft nurturist. It does not seem to get through to you.
But you are correct and I went into that on one of my posts. I believe with White admixture, the Bahamians should be scoring maybe 92 on IQ if HBD were correct. If this latest test is an IQ test, not an achievement test (I am choosing to see it as IQ), then they closed the gap by 8 points not accounted for by HBD. This invalidates strong HBD, of course.
“Just for your information, 20-25% of Bahamians are recent immigrants from Haïti and due to severe brain drain, their “unrepresentative elite samples” have fled overseas.”
29% are recent immigrants from elsewhere in the Caribbean, probably not that high from Haiti alone.
“So the Bahamas, and to a lesser extent Bermuda invalidate the genetic hypothesis for the IQ gaps.”
The group in the Bahamas is a 13% White group that is scoring 93 on IQ tests. I have no idea where HBD would put them. 75? 80? Who knows. Yes this is correct, by HBD they should be below US Blacks.
“I tell you scientifically, it really invalidates any kind of race-based hereditarianism,”
Absolutely not. The world over Blacks consistently have low IQ. This is compatible with soft HBD and soft nurturist as I show.
“science is true everywhere in every place and inconvenient counter-examples can’t be ignored.”
The problem is the race-HBD theory of intelligence has a TON of great evidence for it.
“I don’t know where you are with your hereditarian thoughts but as a liberal, you should never have had these leanings.”
I guess I am not a liberal anymore? Right? My mother is a liberal Democrat, and she has long believed in genetics. She thinks Blacks are different biologically and innately in intelligence.
“As a commenter said, these small islands have governments that care for the masses and masses that identify with the institutions, hence there is common commitment to social advancement.”
Sure maybe.
“These Islands are nothing like the super-environments that you think are the only one able to lift blacks up from chronic stupidity (as you put it, I know myself that blacks are not stupid at all), they hardly match southern Europe on many variables. ”
I haven’t the faintest idea but the governments and enviornments on which Whites blithely score 100 IQ, Jews 113 IQ and Asians 105 IQ can be just as shitty as the ones Blacks live in. Put a Jew, an Asian and a White in some environment where Blacks get 65-75 IQ consistently. Even in that horrible environment, the White will peg in at 100, the Jew at 113 and the Asian at 105. Whites hardly need a decent environment at all for their full genetic IQ to flower.
White genetic IQ = 100?
Jewish genetic IQ = 113?
Asian genetic IQ = 105?
Black genetic IQ = 75-85
Now if you put all four groups in a really shitty environment of the type that supposedly causes the 75-85 IQ in Blacks, all of the other groups will simply meet their genetic IQ anyway. School performance may lag a bit in Whites due to poverty.
Blacks consistently create shitty environments for themselves for biological reasons. In the normal shitty Black environment, Blacks reach their genetic IQ only. If you want those 75-85 IQ Blacks to move towards 100 IQ, you are going to have to jazz up the environment a lot more than what is required for the others.
Bahamian and Bermudian Blacks have pretty high incomes I believe. This might be jacking them up right there.
“The whole thing of hereditarianism is protecting unfair privileges, it’s saying everyone deserves what they get and only have their genes to blame.”
Well it also says it’s not their fault, so they need help. I happen to think Blacks need a lot of help and it’s up to we liberal morons to give to these fucking ingrates like you no matter how much you hate us for trying to help you.
Actually the nurturist argument blames Blacks much more. You can’t help your genes. But if Blacks had the same genes as everyone else and continued to fuck up like they do, I might say the Hell with em, let em burn. Because all of their fuckups would be utterly willful. Bizarrely, this is scenario you and Swank push for Blacks. Their genes are just fine! Well then why do they fuck up? Obviously because they suck, they are immoral, they no good, etc.
The hereditarian theory is much more compassionate because it does not blame Blacks!
“That’s crazy and disgusting. So if we apply this rule, Robert Mugabe, whose military genius probably gives him a place at the best end of the bell curve is completely justified in stealing the moronic Zimbabwean population, which can only blame its fate on its supposedly moronic IQ.”
Nope I do not believe in Social Darwinism. I am a socialist. We don’t agree that just because you got lucky in the gene lottery, you get to be evil. And dumb people do not deserve to be fucked over.
“You know that good leaders can do anything out of any people and that social changes come from the top, not the bottom. Come on… Meritocracy is a myth,”
Oh no! How is it you get to be an attorney? Is your IQ 85?
“innate racial inequality as well and I’m one of the better placed person to confirm both previous statements.
Since you told me the controversy about the origins of racial differentials on IQ test performance was still intense, I made my own research on google scholar to see what recent papers(since 2010) told about this and to my surprise, the debate is even more dead and the nature side has been completely dismissed now in 2015, only what remains of the pioneer fund holds on to hereditarianism.”
HARD hereditarianism yes. And in the journals it is 100% fact that the hard hereditarians and hard nurturists continue to go at it like crazy. You’re not keeping up!
https://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2015/08/12/discussion-on-the-g-factor-of-international-cognitive-ability-comparisons-the-homogeneity-of-results-in-pisa-timss-pirls-and-iq-tests-across-nations-by-heiner-rindermann/
See that? That’s from only a few years ago. Everyone commenting is at the top of their field in the study of intelligence.
The debate ain’t over!
You really tell a ton of lies, you know that? You will make a great attorney.
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Me (final mail in the conversation)
“He already got warned. He is Chinese. They can control themselves pretty well.”
Yet he can’t control his “LOLs”, “ROFLs” or refering to himself with the third person. And I think it must be so difficult keeping calm on a blog that builds theory about you being a member of the master race. I’m so sympathetic now that I understand the load of agression he faces…
“I am having a very hard time understanding why you keep pegging me as a hard HBD’er”
There is no soft or hard scientific racism that makes sense to me. These hard/soft distinctions only make sense with religion and ideology. There is soft socialism, hard islamism, soft feminism, hard capitalism but no soft heliocentrism, hard mathematic theorems or soft genetics. Scientific content doesn’t change according to the level of politeness that scientists apply to themselves. You are just a polite scientific racist, acknowledging that pushing harder HBD will make you look more ugly and delusional.
“29% are recent immigrants from elsewhere in the Caribbean, probably not that high from Haiti alone.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Bahamian
“I guess I am not a liberal anymore? Right? My mother is a liberal Democrat, and she has long believed in genetics. She thinks Blacks are different biologically and innately in intelligence.”
How am I supposed to care about your mother ? Do you need to know what my parents and grandparents think about blacks ?
“I haven’t the faintest idea but the governments and enviornments on which Whites blithely score 100 IQ, Jews 113 IQ and Asians 105 IQ can be just as shitty as the ones Blacks live in ”
Tell me about one governement which is totally commited to improving standards for its black citizens, and tell me about one government where blacks think from the bottom of their hearts that government is on their side ? Europe comes close to that and blacks there do quite well, much better than our white post-industrial underclass. You know we have that kind of white people in europe that do not honor the white race ?
And look at the Rednecks and Afrikaners, how mediocre they stay on average after decades of institutionalized privilege. There is something wrong with these people, but I know they can be wrong in your eyes since they are white. Being not well enough, or too good to be black is a black privilege from what I know about you.
“Put a Jew, an Asian and a White in some environment where Blacks get 65-75 IQ consistently. Even in that horrible environment, the White will peg in at 100, the Jew at 113 and the Asian at 105. Whites hardly need a decent environment at all for their full genetic IQ to flower.”
I will ignore the part on which you lie about blacks consistently scoring 65-75, I did enough to prove it was wrong, then if you can’t or don’t want to realise, I won’t force myself. But anyway, what you say is pure speculation, these equalized environments do not exist naturally, some adoption and orphanage studies have shown blacks scoring the same or better than other races and in the Cayman Islands, IQs are around 75 for every race and blacks even do slightly better than whites.
“Blacks consistently create shitty environments for themselves for biological reasons.”
Your statement is twice wrong. First, you say blacks consistently create shitty environments which is not even true, some Caribbean countries and some African countries are not that bad but more importantly, rural life in Africa is far from shitty, it is harmonious, convivial and very enjoyable inspite of its technological remoteness. Second, there is no proof that social issues are biologic, the examples we are discussing dismiss this hypothesis and so does every social or biologic science.
“Bahamian and Bermudian Blacks have pretty high incomes I believe. This might be jacking them up right there.”
Incomes there are low, the financial sector artificially boosts up GDP figures but the bulk employment is in tourism, public sector and agriculture. There is little opportunity for professional carreers and few blacks reach upper-middle class standards of living there. They just seem to have enough of what allows any human being to thrive intellectually. And non-black genes do not seem to be part of the list.
“I happen to think Blacks need a lot of help and it’s up to we liberal morons to give to these fucking ingrates like you no matter how much you hate us for trying to help you.”
Please, I don’t need help from you or any social program. I know how to be grateful to those I really have to thank. And I hate nobody, sorry, hate is for the mentally impaired.
“The hereditarian theory is much more compassionate because it does not blame Blacks!”
Blacks, like any human beings need everything but compassion. In the US, they need to be held accountable for not raising their children, in Africa, they need to be held accountable for corruption and ethnic politics. There are many things blacks need to blame themselves for, but not their genes that help them surviving malaria, resisting sunburn or whatnot. It would be terrible if any race was given any privilege for doing whatever due to a genetic excuse. No one would accept that, especially in the HBD sphere whose solution is anihilation.
“See that? That’s from only a few years ago. Everyone commenting is at the top of their field in the study of intelligence.”
Then you must deal with this reality:
Click to access wicherts2010IQAFR.pdf
Predicted IQ from scholastic achievement scores
Nigeria: 89.5/87.1
Ghana: 68.8/71.8
Swaziland: 90.2
Mozambique: 83.9
Botswana: 81.8/80.5
South Africa: 80.5/72.7/67.4/74.4
Zimbabwe: 84.6
Deal with the numbers, and also deal with their diversity which indicates nothing like a racial phenotype but national level environmental particularisms.
“Oh no! How is it you get to be an attorney? Is your IQ 85?”
So you think industrialization, capitalism, and everything that leads to a modern society result from grassroot initiatives, that an anarchist governement would be perfectly workable, that North Korea’s regime has no effect whatsoever on the state of its people, that the same goes for African countries. My IQ has been tested when I had to skip a grade, I have the humility of not telling it to you.
“You really tell a ton of lies, you know that? You will make a great attorney.”
That attorneys are liars is a folk belief, we just make the best use of the reality. You know, we work with rules, man-made rules in a scientific-like argumentation process, we have strict rules to determine the legal scientific-like acceptability of any evidence we bring to a court and in a a regime of rule of law, we can’t get away with flaws in our argmumentary. More importantly, we need to understand our opponent’s strategy as much as we must make our own perfect. Here, if we we were on trial about the genetic inferiority of the black race, I would have won the case, and the scientific reality has won the case for long on this topic.
And by the way, I suppose that you don’t have any retarded typical Nigerian writing to show me, neither do you have any idea of what happened with Australian’s social scum ancestors ?
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@Swank
Yes, he’s wrong all along.
their limited cognitive function makes them believe that:
1) heritability = genetics
2) genetics = race
So from the speculated 50-80% heritability of IQ, they come to the conclusion that IQ gaps are 50-80% genetic in origin.
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And they go over their own conclusion, they claim that there is scientific consensus or debate about that when the debate is actually non-existant and much less is the consensus. Lindsay is an old man. I’m 23, when I think something is “so 2011”, it’s like prehistoric to me. But for him, non-replicated findings from the 90s are up to date information.
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I’m only just starting to understand how terrible it must feel to be black in the US. I went there twice, totally ignorant. As a tourist, I even thought blacks were not doing that bad at all, I found them not stereotypical like in the movies or music videos. I just saw the homeless who where disproportionately black but I knew that was what should be excepted from the US’s history and society. It’s only when I stayed in Williamsburg in NYC and when I visited a friend at the University of Chicago that I saw some bits of the ghetto. But I clearly understand why the average HBDer or immigrant believes that blacks’ environment nearly matches that of whites. I had to read more to understand better.
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HBD is a good springboard into ideology and realizing how large a role it plays in daily life. Economics is mostly ideology, too.
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Yes, in the case of HBD, ideology is even more important since the whole field would be useless without the genocidal agenda it supports. you only have douchebags like lindsay who say “I demonstrate black’s innate inferiority for their own well being”.
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@ Abagond
@ Mbeti
I enjoy reading your comments.
Abagond, the suggestion thread is very long and I could not download it.
One of the projects I am working on is called Black Icons.
It is a black and white collage of Black People (from around the world) whom I love, admire, or am inspired by or whose work I appreciate. Essentially, it pays homage to my ancestors, the people for fought for my freedom, exemplars of iron courage. People who have made my (our) world a better place. Initially it was big canvas, now it requires a large wall!
A suggestion for a post would be a “wall” where commenters could post their Icons, whether they be scientists, freedom fighters, poets, musicians, writers, artists, sportspeople, thinkers, inventors, ordinary men or women, etc. They could also name the category the person is famous for and why they love and/ or admire them. They could put up links, photographs, you tube videos, references.
After a while, when the thread has grown, you could, from all the names do a Top Ten: greatest artists of all time, greatest or most beloved Freedom Fighters, sportspeople, etc.
For example, a sampling of my list (in no special order) would be :
1Steve Biko
2Haile Gerima
3 Lesego Rampolokeng
4Hugh Masekela
5 Miriam Makeba
6 Langston Hughes
7 Harriet Tubman
8 Samul. L. Jackson
9 Trevor Noah
10 Patrice Lumumba
11 Chinua Achebe
12 Robert Sobukwe
13 James Baldwin
14 Neil de Grasse Tyson
15 Ida. B. Wells
16 Frantz Fanon
17 Muhammed Ali
18 Wole Soyinka
19 Doris Pilkington
20 Billie Holliday
21 Louis Armstrong
22 Adelaide Tambo
23 Bessie Head
24 Angela Basset
25 Winston Mankunku
26 Bob Marley
27 Leopold Senghor
28 Robert Johnson
29Whitney Houston
30Nelson Mandela
31 Harriet Tubman
32 Husain Bolt
33Malcolm X
34 Lira
35 Ali Fake Taure
36 Jimi Hendrix
And thousands more.
My wall of gratitude, remembrance, inspiration is not only of well-known people. My heroes are also everyday people. They are the many millions of women in my country, who some have to wake up at 4 am, sometimes commute for three to four hours each way, endure a gruelling day at work for a pittance, to provide for their family and make sure that their children at least have some type of an education. People who bear great misfortune and adversity with a hard to understand magnanimity and forbearance.
It is inspiration from men and women when entire odds are stacked against them, put one foot in front of the other, and try their best to forge a better life.
Also, admiration for children who are hungry for education- getting up before the crack of dawn , also walking for hours, sometimes in very dangerous surrounds, an empty stomach, to get to school.
Of course, there are many more examples of courage, humility, hard work, love, beauty in Africa and in the African diaspora.
The Black man who is taught to hate himself and yet loves himself, his women and children.
The Black woman, who is the most discriminated against on the planet, walks upright with blinding beauty and unmatched courage.
Apology again for such a long post.
taotesan
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typos: the people who fought for my freedom
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aargh: ^ typo.
and correction: And millions more.
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@ taotesan
Interesting idea, interesting list.
Another typo: Usain Bolt.
You are right about my Suggestions page. I need to do something about that.
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Seriously, how am i, personally (among others), responsible for poc suffering? Why can’t we have individual accountability?; my culture(?) isn’t magically evil. Moreover, i will never be able to control whether i have privilege or not. And even if i could, do you prefer i live in poverty and danger and oblivion for not being born correctly?
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@Uriel
Come on, you really expect people to walk you through this whole “how do I redeem myself in the eyes of the colored people” schtick?
The idea of “individual accountability” is a dodge – it keeps people from thinking too much about the collective actions of their culture and, in essence, gives the collective a huge pass.
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@ Abagond.
Thanks. Graduated from hen and peck typing
Red faced. Another typo : Samuel. L Jackson
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Julian Bond Rest in peace.
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@ Mary Burrell
Thank you for noting the legends passing. Rest In Power Mr. Bond and all respect & love to his family and all the people he helped.
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@A: Thank you for your post comments as well i enjoy reading you.
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R.I.P. Julian Bond (i wonder if Abagond took his name from a variation of his)
Hey Abagond, may you please do a post on the “classical” pirates? I want to give up my problematical white American culture and create a new one based off pirates-of-that-time ideals, hobos-of-the-thirties ideals, and general justice. If you can’t do the post, do you think my idea is a good and just one?
@Mack Lyons
It’s not a schtick if i’m not pulling a ruse or a joke.
I have no sure power over anyone but myself, and i can’t justly control the past or modern and future benefits of its misdoings. Why can’t you attack ideas like whiteness not cultures like whatever the French have, for instance? I mean, conquest, unfortunately is natural- look at China. Racism came from colorism (by way of puritanical ideologies), which is natural- not Europeans reaching their full evil potential.
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@ Uriel
Why pirates? Aren’t they evil too? How are they any different, deep down morally, than, say, slave traders? Or Western imperialists?
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@Abagond
For the record, when i say “pirate” i don’t mean “privateer” or “seadog”.
I mean, pirates had (usually) codes of fair conduct that didn’t blindly equalize, but equitized (verb form of equity). They also picked up escaped slaves and let them be as equals on board, they didn’t use their money to build an empire- only just support themselves, and they were progressive on their stances toward racism and ableism.
Of course, they were not perfect and were pretty misogynistic and misoqueer. Not to mention they had a scant idea of how the world works, and lacked a fundamental understanding of privilege. Oh, and they were outstandingly cruel to people who didn’t deserve it.
However, flaws like that are/ were present in each culture- and they, along with the hoboes (and wobblies), were the closest the post-1500 Anglo Western world ever came to being as human as poc.
I’m also somewhat hesitant about this, because i’m afraid i’m committing class appropriation as an upper-middle-class person, but then again both my parents grew up poor and i don’t intend to live off too much, even if i have kids.
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@Mirkwood
There is no such thing as overthought. Also, i don’t consider you a reputable source on racism and colonialism just yet, considering your track record.
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@Critical Equality Studies
“You are being told you are wrong because, well, you are wrong.”—Then by your logic my comments to follow should simply state you are wrong. Such fine debating skills of a 2 year old.
1. Where did I say (please quote me) that I was not responding to you.
2. Bring up what whites stole is not white-centric. Do try again. Familiarize yourself with what the word actually means and we can continue from there. Also reread what I said because mentioning whites does not negate it change that you are using the term white-centric as a means to poorly debunk what I said. It does not.
3. I don’t think so. If we take your logic then explain what is at the heart of self-interest? Fear. Even without a threat to power the fear is still there. Fear of not having. Fear of being without. Fear is the driving force you want to ignore. A person will go into the wild and hunt for food and may even get more than needed out of fear of dying of hunger.
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Abagond, what’s your take on this recent meeting between Hillary Clinton and the Boston chapter of #BlackLivesMatter?
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eCraUvIq-s&list=PLUgRTD1mpwSV7arDsfvTHRta0lM0hs8nX&index=1)
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What does anyone not white and not whitewashed think of my idea?
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Nelson Mandela’s Grandson charged with rape. Seriously, WTF?
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/18/nelson-mandela-grandson-court-charged-rape-mbuso-mandela
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@ Mack Lyons
I heard that this was on video and that she “lectured” them. Thank you!
It went better than I expected. I think Hillary Clinton is right that BLM needs to bake down their demands to workable government policies that politicians can sell as part of their package.
Alicia Garza, one of the founders of BLM, danced around that question of policy demands on the Rachel Maddow show:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UnBykVezRI)
Both Garza and the BLM activists in your video seem to expect candidates to come up with the policies. That is a mistake.
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Ava DuVernay’s review of “Straight Outta Compton”, tweet by tweet:
http://entertainthis.usatoday.com/2015/08/18/ava-duvernay-tweets-straight-outta-compton-review/
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http://gawker.com/heres-whats-missing-from-straight-outta-compton-me-and-1724735910
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http://www.avclub.com/article/jared-subway-will-reportedly-plead-guilty-child-po-224056
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Really enjoyed Straight Outta Compton. I don’t think the trailer did it justice but the performances by the main cast were spectacular. Very informative, funny, sad in some parts and well done. Ice Cube’s son spectacularly played his dad. Well done…Well done….
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@ Pumpkin
I was not planning to do a post on “Straight Outta Compton”. Ava DuVernay grew up in that time and place and is a wonderful film director, so I do not see how I have anything to add to what she said.
If you want to do a guest post, though, I will gladly put it up:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2011/09/17/guidelines-for-guest-posts/
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@Lord Of Mirkwood
You do realize Democrats are just as racist, right?
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I am on the fence about Straight Outta Compton i hated NWA’s music and the misogyny/misogynoire. I hate that Dr. Dre beat women and i hate the name calling of black women and the violence. I get that people are angry at the present brutality and killing of unarmed black men by the police but i just can’t bring myself to support this.
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@Mary Burrell,
I’m not supporting it either, not 1 red cent.
@ Abagond- are you going to do a book review of T. Coates book, Between the World and Me? It’s on my book list.
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14 trillion dollars? Pocs aren’t asking for much my ass. I(among others)’d literally have to sell my limbs out of their sockets to break half of that.
Like, do you want me (among others) to live in poverty and danger? Why am i not entitled to basic living, expanse, and safety? (just read Abagond’s posts on why white America- among other places is rich, if you think i’m feeding you bullsh-t): because a) apparently benefiting from privilege means you deserve hatred, b) benefiting is not forgivable even if it was out of one’s control, and c) an impossible goal is what it takes to have even a chance of being liked.
Do i really have to give that much for shit i couldn’t control? Does anyone period deserve more than a certain amount in cash and items? Like, it’s literally easier to find a shortcut with brain chemicals to cancel out all the pain poc face/ revive a human being then get that much money. Why not just hack brains and revive people? It’s more cheap and doable.
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Expanse is expansion of property, privileges, etc. provided it doesn’t get in the way of others’ rights.
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I wish we could edit posts, so i (among others) would avoid sounding pissy and ridiculous.
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Not to say anyone recently sounds pissy, only i do afaict.
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@ Uriel
If you write two posts that begin the same way, I will delete the older one and keep the newer one assuming that it is a correction.
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@ Uriel
I doubt anyone wants that. Yet you and others who oppose reparations seem to be QUITE FINE with Black and Native Americans suffering high rates of poverty relative to Whites, which are caused in large part by the trillions of dollars of land and labour that Whites took from them at gunpoint.
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@Abagond1
Thanks, okay i’ll that then.
@Abagond2
I’m not. I am for reparations, just not as much to make them rich, but make everyone middle class. I guess equity could come by by giving them first dibs at any device that cures trauma, desensitizes pain, or revives the dead.
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@ Uriel
I am completely against brain hacking. I saw a form of it in my younger days: the Crack Epidemic.
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How is removing serious pain from human beings anything like the crack epidemic?
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@ Mary
I haven’t seen Straight Outta Compton yet but I will soon. As noted on older posts I’m not a fan of the sub-genre of gangsta rap but a huge follower of hip hop in general. I hear you when you reference their violence against women but seeing as it’s a period piece I think the flaws of the protagonists gives it a level of realism. Think about it, Prince slapped the HELL out of Apollonia in Purple Rain, and he’s a little dude with an effeminate voice, androgynous appearance & personality. Which proves just how commonplace that type of nonsense was and is. NWA came to prominence just a few years later which means this was still a significant part of the culture by that point so while I understand the concern I also acknowledge that it would be extremely unrealistic to not have domestic violence and misogyny as characteristics of the protagonists in a film of this nature.
James Brown admitted to serially beating women and nobody really had an issue going to see his biopic. Part of it is because we have a glamorized view of America pre-1980’s. Everyone refers to the 70’s and decades prior as the good ol’ days but seem to forget that many men Black, White or otherwise abused their wives and children and many others that didn’t still wouldn’t say a word to those who did which means they were part of the problem. The only difference was that there wasn’t a women’s lib movement and a 24 hour media cycle to highlight wrongdoings of men against women. Trust and believe if there were the average household patriarch regardless of race might make Ray Rice look like an amateur by comparison.
Its sort of reminiscent of Hannibal Burress & young Black men’s issues with older Black men like Bill Cosby attempting to lecture us;
“In my day men married women before they had children”
A lot of these guys had 2nd families they didn’t even tell their wives about so when they say something of this nature the 1st thing that comes to mind is “which woman?” Back then even in the face of blatant racism a Black man could still get a job working in a factory that paid a living salary. If all else fell through the Black community was economically tight-knit so one could get a job from another Black man if necessary. Marriage is a financial decision and men with said finances regardless of race do wed before having children writ large. Since these things weren’t spoke of in music as often & words like “B***h” & “hoe” were never used we forget how much uglier gender relations were which leads to a lack of backlash over the image and legacy of a James Brown versus that of an Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, 2Pac etc. But when it’s all said and done the latter generation of men directly succeeded the self righteous generation who “took care” of the family which proves their foolishness; They don’t realize how self incriminating their critiques of us are.
I don’t think it’s as simple as recognizing something from the past=glamorizing it so long as everyone understands what was wrong about said behavior and learns a lesson. Dre has done interviews saying he regrets his actions and feels he’s a better man. Don’t know if it’s true or not as I obviously don’t know him personally but as I’ve stated before I listened to gangsta rap back in the day but simply outgrew it as time went on. I never listened to hear violence & misogyny, just to hear anti police brutality messages, sick beats, verbal gymnastics, tales of Black poverty and things that resembled the environment I grew up in . After a while the former features of the genre turned me off and led me in the direction of rap that only/mostly catered to the latter.
I would just like to see what happened behind the scenes with these guys and hope that it’s not seen as synonymous with disrespecting Black women. And much like you that’s the crux of my issue with gangsta rap is the conflicted feeling it left me with; how the hell can someone the greatest rapper of all time make a song like “Keep Ya Head Up” referring to Black women as Sista, Girl, Mother, then turn around and make a song like “I Get Around” calling Black women hoes? How can someone make a track decrying police brutality then shout how he’s “finna kill some n***as” the next? It’s clear these guys were intelligent on some level but since misogyny is so omnipresent they still absorbed it and it came out in their music and lives. 2Pac even went to jail for sex offense which he swore was a false allegation and his mother Afeni still does to this day. At the very least whether we see the film or not we can use it as a universal lesson of how NOT to treat women and your community. But make no mistake, I completely respect you opinion and see where you’re coming from. I would never tell anyone how to feel I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in is all.
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“how the hell can someone the greatest rapper of all time”
* how the hell can the greatest rapper of all time
My bad.
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@A:Always enjoy reading your post thanks for reading mine and responding.
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I plan to read T.Coates new book Between the World and Me.
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The new thread post is about Lacey Schwartz and her racial identity the next BLM activist Shaun King this is the trending topic on black social media. I think people should let this brother do his work, this is just a distraction to divert from the more pressing issue of police brutality and killing of unarmed black people.
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@A: I am unable i just can’t do Straight Outta Compton.
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@ lifelearner @ Mary @ Pumpkin @ Mbeti
I ordered Coates’s new book. I will probably do posts on both him and the book in two weeks or so.
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Read a Michael Jon Barker comment on something recently and thought:
Why does Mirkwood (or anyone) need to study afrocentrism and black power to fix his progressivism? Isn’t the former just illogical and the latter already a given? Afrocentrism is still unneeded hierarchy, but with blacks on top instead of whites- moreover why would it be necessary for anything outside personal history? As for black power, why should it go beyond equity?
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Beyond equity being liberation that is.
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@Mary
“The new thread post is about Lacey Schwartz and her racial identity the next BLM activist Shaun King this is the trending topic on black social media. I think people should let this brother do his work, this is just a distraction to divert from the more pressing issue of police brutality and killing of unarmed black people.’
Agree 100% regarding Shaun King. I read his personal essay and it really saddens me that he felt he had to even prove his identity to the conservative media. It was such a personal attack on him. Clearly what he and some of the other prominent BLM activists write about has struck a nerve. So what better way to distract than to question someone’s full racial identity? Which begs the question, how Black do you have to be/look to support BLM? The conservative media divide and conquer tactic is not going to work. They need to stop the BS…
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I hate holism. Why is it needed? So one can lump people together and judge them for stuff they can’t control! So essentialism can exist! So everything can coalesce with the ridiculous views of “EVERYTHING being connected.”, and “There’s not a tree, but there are many forests.”, and “I’m gonna give circuitous idioms* as actual advice even though they make no sense.”, and “the spirit is more important then the body.”, and most importantly “everything is permanent.”.
I also call it on reverse prejudice being righteous. What did most, personally, do to you? Every human privileged and oppressed alike is an individual, and therefore should be judged as such. Cultures exist in a continuum not thick lines, not not at all, and not as being one and the same.
Also, why do people wonder why the privileged idolize suffering, when to not suffer (i.e. benefit from privilege) is to be a mountain of evil?
*like koans, but not used in a spiritual sense.
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Again, i’m venting stress because privileged self care is wrong.
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Not sure if privileged self care from reverse prejudice is wrong.
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@Abagond- Cool, looking for to your commentary.
Here’s another good food for thought critique of Straight Out of Compton
http://beansouptimes.com/arrested-developments-lead-singer-speech-thomas-shares-thoughts-on-straight-outta-compton/#sthash.j9Y8w7rA.ILhWduO5.dpbs
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*forward
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@Mary Burrell
I did go see straight out of Compton. In my eyes is it not one of the revolutionary movies that empower. It was more a sign of the times type movies.
It was shocking that I grew up listening to that type stuff and still turned out the way I did. It was not a bad things but the misogyny in the movie was scary.
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@lifelearner
I wonder why no one is trying to do a movie on The Black Panthers. I am ready for one and that is one I think will really open some eyes.
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As a side note I wonder if black panthers had to deal with a all panthers type crowd.
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@ abagond.. This happened near me in CA and while it’s not gaining national news, I thought it was very interesting how a group of Black women can’t even enjoy life on a wine train without it being an issue. Note one of the reader comments in the blog where a passenger actually witnessed the women being harassed and scolded, when other people were doing essentially the same thing… When can we live and enjoy life without being held to a double standard? So now “Laughing while Black” gets you thrown off of a wine train..
http://verysmartbrothas.com/getting-kicked-off-a-wine-tour-for-laughingwhileblack-is-the-blackest-thing-that-ever-happened-this-week/
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@bygodsloveandgrace: I read that on another site i had to wonder wth? So a group of ladies can’t go out and enjoy a wine tasting? I read that their is a noise ordinance so there must be quiet. Really? While people are enjoying a glass of wine and socializing they must do it in silence? I call bull s**t on that whole thing. The oldest lady in the group was probably in her 80’s and they called the police on these women. That is just insulting. I know if they had been white they wouldn’t have called the cops.
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*there*^^^
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@ Mary
Apparently they can’t. My friend has been on one of the wine trains here and she mentioned that it’s basically a bar on wheels. Additionally, she’s endured a lot of White men being rowdy and saying all kinds of things very loudly yet no one complains.. However a group of Black women who were part of a book club can’t enjoy themselves on the train… The double standards abound…
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@sharinalr: Yeah, i get that it was the times but i just hated NWA’s music. I will not support that film. But i am glad yo enjoyed it.
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@lifelearner: Thanks for that link i wondered where Speech was after all these years? I loved Arrested Development back in the day. That was good consciousness music with good messages.
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So there is a double standard for Black Americans and the other group doing the same thing. Thank God the cops didn’t shot those ladies or brutalize them. This country is going backwards. We are in retrograde.
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*shoot* ^^
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Retrograde? Seems like this “the same as it ever was”, except it has a helluva lot more coverage thanks to social media and international press.
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“Black pitmasters left out of US barbecue boom” | http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33994947
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@Mary
I understand. I personally can’t say I enjoyed it, but can’t say I hated it either. I’m just on the fence with it. Not sure what to take from it other than a bit refreshing that it was simply raw.
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@Mary B- I know right, Speech was such an awesome conscious rapper-TENNESEE- my fav.
@Sharina- yes, it would be AWESOME if there was a true to life Black Panther film (maybe Ava Duvernay would give it justice-if she was ever approached to do such a film)
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These white folks just keep pushing and pushing black people to the brink and one black man finally couldn’t take it anymore and killed two white people.
He alleges racial discrimination as he was fired ( No surprise there ) for a News Station. supposedly had issues with the camera man, no word on the white female anchor, whether or not she had an issue with him or vice versa.
breaking news below….
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/wdbj7-reporter-alison-parker-photographer-adam-ward-killed-live-tv-n416221
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Vester Lee Flanagan II, 41, also known as Bryce Williams.
He’s also a dead, shot himself upon state troopers, apprehending him.
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These racist white people feel brazen and bold to create, hostile work environments for black people and have no consequences.
I don’t condone the killing of these two white folks but you reap what you sow.
I am positive that if there is proof that this station and the people who worked with Bryce Williams, did treat him horribly because he was a black man, it won’t be bought to light for the sole purpose of preserving the victims squeaky clean image.
Therefore, i feel its safe to say that this is another example of work place, racial discrimination.
White people that don’t like working with black people, purposelessly create hostile work environments for black people, so they can either quit or document trivial incidents as to create a history, so they can use to fire black people.
pigeon holding, no promotions or monetary raises is also used to push out black people for companies across America.
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more info on his past law suit against another news station for racial discrimination.
https://twitter.com/search?q=Vester+Flanagan&ref_src=twsrcgoogle|twcampserp|twgrsearch
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Here’s the story:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/vester-flanagan-lawsuit-racism_55ddefa8e4b08cd3359e336e?ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000067
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Here’s more:
http://hollywoodlife.com/2015/08/26/vester-flanagan-suicide-note-bryce-williams-wdbj-news-shooting-virginia/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
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The above link has the actual video of the shooters hand, holding the gun, before the shooting takes place. They didn’t even notice him.
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@agabond,
Are you going to do a post on Hillary Clinton? If so, it would be interesting to compare her to an old politician Louise Day Hicks. I’m thinking along the lines of a woman who pushed for gender equality issues but fought against racial equality. Not that Hillary is doing that but it is interesting to look at how white women address the two issues when involved in politics.
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@afrosapiens,
I can’t believe you stuck with that argument for so long. You’re a better person than I am.
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@Sharina
Thanks for sharing! Definitely supporting Healthy Roots
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Pumpkin
“sondis check your email.”
I didn’t get any email from you….what email address did you send it?
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@sharinalr: I love that video that is something that is needed in our community. I hope that sister is successful and all of our little ones embrace their beautiful uniqueness. That was lovely.
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@sharinalr Loved the video! Nice to see a company providing inspirational characters for girls of color. I wish I had some How To natural hair care books as a kid. When I think back to how much I hated my hair growing up. However now I embrace it whether I make it straight or naturally curly… I went natural in 2010 so it’s been an amazing journey…
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My copy of Coates’s “Between the World and Me” has arrived. It looks smaller in real life.
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Hey everyone, what’s your all’s opinion on hoboes and the wobblies? Those subcultures seem to be the only two good things to come out of the US. Is white American culture inherently colonial and wrong?
Mirkwood don’t answer.
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Dang, i wish i was a European-by-birthplace-and-raisingplace. How’s it fair they get cultures and i don’t? I need culture, yet everyone good (as in not a murderer, rapist, thief, or anyone ignorant) sees whatever i have as colonial and pathetic. But Europeans have real cultures.
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Also, does anyone know how to incorporate foreign cultural influences into one’s art with being white-gazy and theftful? Or at least knows a primer on such?
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@Abagond: My T. Coates book is in my Amazon cart.
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Yep folks, you can now be tailed by a police officer for.. gasp.. making direct eye contact.
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/08/ohio-cop-tells-black-man-he-tailed-him-and-pulled-him-over-for-direct-eye-contact/
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It’s been 10 years since Katrina hit New Orleans God bless the folks in the 9th ward. RIP and Happy Birthday to the King of Pop Michael Jackson.
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bygodsloveandgrace: I am not surprised by any of this it’s always something. Black folks have to be careful in the divided states of America. Black lives have never mattered in America. From slavery to the Civil Rights era to now in the age of Obama, the oppressive power continues to demonstrate ways to keep black people down but black folks need to keep fighting.
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Anytime ladies. 🙂
It is very much needed.
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I don’t know which one that is. just tell me which email you sent it too. so i can check it.
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“bygodsloveandgrace
Yep folks, you can now be tailed by a police officer for.. gasp.. making direct eye contact.”
Yeah, i read an article on that one. I saw the video also. White cops always threaten black people with harsher charges, if we complain about being racially profiled and unlawfully stopped.
You see in the video, the black man asking why did he pull him over. The cops tells him, because you looked at me!
The black guys objects and lets the cop know he’s not happy and as a result, the cop threatens him with a worse charge! why? because he’s objecting to being discriminated against? These racist white people will say anything! I’m glad he got it on video!
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@Mary @Sondis….. It’s a sad day when just looking at a cop can now get you pulled over. My God.. any excuse.. And some wonder why we’re beyond irritated.
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Abagond, can you please make “…but what’s MY (GOOD)* culture?” a broken record or something? I am desperate to know what you and this circle thinks about white Americans and whites “from” outside Europe only having evil culture(s). I can’t magically relate to a culture i wasn’t raised by. Why is it wrong for you to lease off parts off your culture so we can create new cultures? Going back to what we gave up is always seen as hypocritical, stagnant, and supportive of evil ethnicities.
If you wonder why we appropriate your cultures, it’s usually because of entitlement, yes- but at least 25% of the time it’s because the only people who view our culture as at least benign are horrible human beings. Who on earth would want to belong with nothing but a hive of murderers, rapists, and thieves?
Also, why do you think colonialism wouldn’t have happened had poc or non-Germanic Europeans (and the French) gained power? I do however agree genocide and racism are not common.
*The ‘GOOD’ is always implied even if it’s barely ever said. Nobody deserves or wants a culture that is uniquely and basically evil. Whites may not be uniquely evil, but those born and/ or raised outside Europe seem to be. Even once they return to Europe.
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Feel free not to answer much, and ask much more. Not that i’m the final arbiter of anything. I especially regret mentioning evil ethnicities since it wanes my point about born-and-raised Europeans being the only whites who are not uniquely evil.
Again, apologies for my tone.
My reasons for a lack of a roots revival in white diaspora are as follows:
*We are usually mixed ethnicity, and therefore we’d be going nowhere.
*We have much more in common with random dolts we grew up nearby than anyone who is a member of the same ethnicity.
*Their heritage is way too different from ours. The time to re-join them has long been up. Just look at Israel.
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@Abagond
You need to write about this.Pleaase!!!
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24KYINdqG-A)
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Idris Elba too “street” to play Bond, says writer of newest 007 novel.
http://variety.com/2015/film/news/idris-elba-james-bond-too-street-author-anthony-horowitz-1201582692/#respond
When will they LEARN!!??? Lol
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Suggestions
Conservative: The “Polar Bear Hunting” Meme
Liberal: The article “Taxis and the Meaning of Work”
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Hey sharinalr. I’m srry I bothered u before. I just ghi k I didn’t or fo t get the way you worded your old response. Please forgive me and I’ll will leave alone fir good all I ask if to clear up my last question. So is it cultural appropriation for whites to own jewlery period. Like don’t whites own certain types of jewlery? , and the same question applies to knives to. Please and thank you. Again I’m sorry for my ignorance
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@ satanforce
Thanks!
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@Nathan t
Ornamental or functional jewelry? Functional jewelry and knives are free reign. If a culture holds back a non-artistic or non-aesthetic innovation, they are greedy no questions asked. Also, individual species of plants and animals are not off limits as food, maybe some dishes from them are. Henna= okay, Mehndi=bad. Who would want to hoard safety to themselves?
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I don’t know if Abagond knows about this, but I did a blog post on Texas yahoo Nathan Ener’s Youtubed threats against blacks: http://macklyons.blogspot.com/2015/09/white-mobs-black-lives-and-you.html?spref=tw
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@abagond
Was wondering if you did any blogs on archeologists findings that the first Americans (both North/South) we Black? Someone recently posted a YouTube video that I’m partially through viewing. I’m waiting for the meat which is why I haven’t posted it here.. However I came across this article as I’m fascinated by this topic…
http://vveasey.hubpages.com/hub/Black-People-Were-The-First-People-In-America
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@Nathan t
I do believe I answered that on the culture appropriation thread.
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The other side of Gandhi.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/09/03/what-did-mahatma-gandhi-think-of-black-people/
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@King
If true, this really breaks my heart. Gandhi… Wow.
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@King
He also refused to give his wife quinine and betrayed the Dalits. Gandhi, along with Lennon and Lincoln are really overrated as humane beings.
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Ok sharinalr, so I’m good then, thank you
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@ King.
I actually had an English teacher in high school that put us onto Ghandis true feelings about Blacks. I was surprised because most public schools are factories who have a specific set of propaganda they aim to brainwash their students with. She however was a very unconventional & highly intelligent individual and for that reason ended up being everyone’s favorite teacher by years end. Sad that some non-Black POC spew so much anti-Black garbage that it would make a Klansmen look tame by comparison.
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As I read this I’m thinking, I hope no one messes this up.
http://www.africanglobe.net/africa/africa-income-country-2050/
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Abagond could you do a post on the deflective “what about black on black crime?” argument that gets spewed every time someone tries to speak on Black lives.
The people that regurgitate this nonsense don’t seem to realize that their isn’t a single major city in America with a significant Black population that doesn’t have some sort of anti-violence & gang intervention activist group that works endlessly to end PROXIMITY crime in Black neighborhoods.
It has nothing to do with Black people not caring about it, it is our family members & friends being killed & assaulted out in the streets. The White owned media just refuses to show up to rallies and events held by these groups because it doesn’t fit their anti-Black agenda; if they showed Blacks working collectively to solve our issues it would destroy the “savage negro” propaganda they broadcast daily.
Since this is now the go to argument of the coon & their white handlers I fear if not debunked thoroughly & swiftly we’ll never be able to advance the conversation further. Its pull your hair out frustrating to hear, at least to me anyway.
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@ A
That is Broken Record #23:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2013/07/29/the-black-on-black-crime-argument/
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Our connection to ice hockey… Interesting..
http://blacktimetravel.com/black-ice-documentary-details-how-black-men-created-hockey/
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LoM,
What you are talking about is tokenism, and Abagond did touch on it in a post about teaching US history. We could easily extend the idea to other areas, eg, popular entertainment.
(https://abagond.wordpress.com/2013/09/24/vine-deloria-jr-on-the-whitenesss-of-american-history/)
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I read that about Ghandi too and i kind of hurt me a little. I am very sad and disappointed to learn this about him as well.
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Abagond,
Could you do a post on Black Agenda Report? They provide a highly systematic and highly radical perspective on contemporary events. This perspective seems to be based in an important tradition of Black Radical thought.
As far as I can tell, they get very little uptake from the blogosphere. This seems unfortunate.
Who are Glen Ford and the other editors? What exactly are their background political assumptions? What have they gotten right? What have they gotten wrong?
Thanks for considering my request!
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Wanted to share another black business.
https://www.abanashoes.com/home
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Sharina, Thanks for the link, In this day of internet and social media it would be very easy to connect Black businesses and even make e-maps for major cities and metros so everyone can buy Black as often as possible.
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To hear a career sing Geronimo; Damon Wayans defends Pill Cosby.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ebonycom/why-would-damon-wayans-de_b_8105486.html
I hope his words don’t drag the rest of the family down. Though some of their work is clearly buffoonish they’re one of the few if only Black families in Hollywood who work together that produce, write, & direct their own projects. The image is positive for Blacks that want to do something in media as a collective, minus the aforementioned tomfoolery.
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I knew about Gandhi, just like I knew about Lincoln. There are some things I’m not too shock about anymore. I think the more history we are fed the more dirt one can find. There are several versions of a story when it comes to icons from the past and present. Jus like MLK and the extramarital affairs. Everyone like this nice cookie cunot to make too many “famous people” role models due to the disappointment factor.
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*cookie cutter image of their hero/sheros. I try not to make… my role model (I need to wake up-sorry for the typos 😀 )
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@ Kiwi
“I think of Gandhi’s legacy as being similar to that of Martin Luther King. The reason they’re so famous and idolized in the West is because Whites perceive them as peaceful and unthreatening and therefore more acceptable.”
Many on this blog have said similar and there is certainly some truth to it. But I think it only applies to those whites who have a stake in not changing the status-quo too radically. Those can be either racists who don’t really want to change white supremacy or people who want to change it but not risk other aspects of that society. The most extreme white racists on the other hand don’t seem to favour the non-violent activsts, they mostly hope for an all-out race war which requires violent anti-racists.
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http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/more-sports/ex-tennis-star-james-blake-mistakenly-tackled-white-cops-article-1.2353983
Let’s see the NYPD try to spin this…
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Hey, guys i just wanted to apologize for my recent actions. I’m gonna leave the blog until i’m all sorted out. I realize that taking my anger out on allies and misguided poc is just wrong and i’ll never do it again.Tell swank if he wants to message me about cultural appropriation to email me.
Feel free to send me an email about any time a white commenter is acting bratty about any anti-racism topic bar most cultural appropriation. I have a quite a bit of patience dealing with fools. Anyway, also give me a message if i’m needed for other reasons.
Also, abagond, are you going to change the credits in the cultural appropriation post and delete my posts under other names?
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@ Uriel
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2015/07/15/cultural-appropriation/
I deleted those posts.
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One of my buddies was in the Windows of the World restaurant exactly 14 years ago this morning.
Just want to let him know that he still lives in our hearts and minds.
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@Abagond thanks.
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RIP Marcy Borders the iconic dust covered woman in the 9/11 attacks dies from stomach cancer.
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“Just before noon on Wednesday, September 9, 2015, while I was standing on a sidewalk outside my hotel in midtown Manhattan waiting for a car to take me to the U.S. Open, a plainclothes New York City police officer tackled me to the ground, handcuffed me, paraded me down a crowded sidewalk, and detained me for ten minutes before he and his four colleagues realized they had the wrong man. The officer, who was apparently investigating a case of credit card fraud, did not identify himself as a member of law enforcement, ask my name, read me my rights or in any way afford me the dignity and respect due every person who walks the streets of this country. And while I continue to believe the vast majority of our police officers are dedicated public servants who conduct themselves appropriately, I know that what happened to me is not uncommon.
When this incident was reported in the news media, Mayor de Blasio and Commissioner Bratton both called me to extend their personal apologies, and I greatly appreciate those gestures. But extending courtesy to a public figure mistreated by police is not enough. As I told the Commissioner, I am determined to use my voice to turn this unfortunate incident into a catalyst for change in the relationship between the police and the public they serve. For that reason, I am calling upon the City of New York to make a significant financial commitment to improving that relationship, particularly in those neighbourhoods where incidents of the type I experienced occur all too frequently. The Commissioner has agreed to meet with my representatives and me to discuss our ideas in that regard, and we very much look forward to that meeting.”
Statement from James Blake. I hope something comes of this.
http://www.businessinsider.com/nypd-video-of-tennis-star-james-blake-being-thrown-to-the-ground-2015-9
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@bygodsloveandgrace: I saw that huge eff up by the NYPD. They just love to profile and harrass Black men that’s just what they do. But James Blake got his Negro wake up call also. IJS.
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I am sad and disappointed for Serena Williams losing but she is still the GOAT and i will always love and respect her.
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The only difference between James Blake and other Black men in New York is that Blake is famous enough where the (White) press will talk to him and take him seriously.
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@Abagond: That is true i think they apologized to him i haven’t been following this really close.
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But James Blake got his Negro wake up call also
I saw this man on CNN and he says he didn’t think it was wholly racial. Perhaps he needs some more wakeup call?
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So the James Blake kerfuffle resulting in the officer being put on administrative leave and an apology from the Mayor and police chief.
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@Herneith: He is he naive or stupid or both?
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RIP Moses Malone
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@Mary.. Even more sad, is that the NYPD rushed to post a photo of the supposed “suspect” who it turned out was also innocent. They tried to find someone who closely resembled James to justify the eff up.. This is just further proof that respectability politics won’t work. Some of these cops are used to doing whatever they want without so much as a slap on the wrist. Enough is enough.
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@Herneith
Sounds like a guy who wants the media to focus solely on the police misconduct end of things, because pinning the blame mostly on racism will simply make white people tune out of listening. Just a guess.
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He is he naive or stupid or both?
I think he is in denial. This is what happens when you are white washed. When something like this happens, the person in denial that racism is institutional and socially systemic, goes into shock. This is why it is important to educate yourselves in ‘code’, and other ‘subtle’ forms of behaviour perpetrated on an almost daily basis on Black people by whites and their ‘allies’. Oddly enough, it is ‘liberating’ and makes for a healthier life style when you realize what ‘day’ it is.
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Sounds like a guy who wants the media to focus solely on the police misconduct end of things, because pinning the blame mostly on racism will simply make white people tune out of listening. Just a guess.
You are absolutely correct in your assumption as that is what he said in the interview. He kept saying that racism was ‘another issue’ and he wanted to focus on police conduct. He kept saying racism was for another ‘discussion’. I guess he was afraid to scare off his sponsors(if he had any), or potential business from whites. I refer to these types as PTWI (pandering to white interests). I get the sneaking suspicion that he doesn’t really consider himself Black, at least like those lowly ‘stereotypical’ other ones. I have not sympathy for him as did not take the opportunity to protest it as the racist act it was.
My question to the police would be thus; If he had been a white suspect, would he have been treated thusly? The suspect was involved in white collar crimes which in general do not involve violence. How dangerous would this ‘suspect’ be to the point such a violent take down was warranted.? Had it been myself involved in a case of mistaken identity and treated similarly, I would be enraged and up in arms. I would call it what is is, racism/white supremacy.
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So outrageous.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kamilah-brock-nypd-bmw_55f2c9aae4b063ecbfa3e60d
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@ Sharina
Wow.
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Pumpkin:
interesting…..very interesting indeed. @ : o l ) >
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32 years later the Miss America Pageant apologizes to Vanessa Williams after trying to literally destroy her but she was resilient and continue to be a success in spite of it all. Great ending to that chapter to her life.
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@Pumpkin
I did. The comments are hilarious. In between the largely white commentariat recasting itself as oppressed victims, “race fatigue” and general ignorance, I found this gem:
Followed by:
Blacks: Can’t Live With Them, Can’t Live Without Them.
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@ pumpkin
I did not see that. Thanks! The racist commenters almost make her point for her even though they think they are disproving her.
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@Lord of Mirkwood
You mean the Irish-Americans who’ve managed to transition into the Great White Collective while black Americans continue to be treated as outsiders in their own country?
Do tell…
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@ Mary… I think Vanessa is the only Miss America who I remember and stands out. Not too many could do that! Hats off to her success and how she handled things with grace and dignity.
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So happy for Viola Davis and her Emmy win. #Team Viola
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Dear Abby, get on the right side, vote for Rand. I will battle the f out anyone who say other wise. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vimZj8HW0Kg)
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Rand Paul is the only one going into those debates with real ammo. The good.. Rand Paul… The Bad ..another Bush. .. The Ugly.. Donald Trump (https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=19&v=a41bERTFBUI)
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Actually Abagond, I like this version better. For your listening pleasure. I’m a gracious adversary. ..good movie too. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOr0na6mKJQ)
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@ Dave
I like some of what Rand Paul says, like about the police and the NSA, but in general he is way too libertarian, a philosophy that favours the rich.
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Bold
Italic
Underline
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I was on Google+ And a poster raised the question who was Nat Turner was he a hero or villian? Many said he was a hero. I would like to believe he was a hero because his intentions were good to free the slaves but there were some who may feel it is kind of complex. I wonder what some of you here on Abagond feel? I especially wonder what Abagond thinks about Nat Turner?
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@Mary.
I would say Nat Tuner did what he did to free Blacks from slavery. It required violence to do that. But let’s not forget about the violence plantation owners leveled against their slaves and violence begets violence. I’m sure he understood his actions woukd result in his death. But he did what he thought was the right thing to do.
I think he is more of what a hero should look like as opposed to somebody like Chris Kyle in American Sniper who muderer a few hundred people in the “defense” of his country.
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@ Mary
I would count him as a hero. Slaves have a right to rebel. If George Washington is hero, then Nat Turner certainly is.
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on Nat Turner
I think the morality of use of force in an uprising is dependent on a) the level of opression and b) if there were other more lenient means of protest. In the case of American slavery the opressin was near total and no other means available, so the use of force was justified. Not so however the killing of those who could take no active part in the suppression of the rebellion – like children and the elderly.
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@ Abagond
Do you have any thoughts on the international refugee situation?
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@Everyone: Thank you for your responses.
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@ Kartoffel
1. People in the West act like this is the worst refugee crisis since the Second World War. From what I know, it is the worst one that has affected THEM. Lebanon, for example, had tons of refugees from the Syrian Civil War. It was not considered a “crisis” then. Why is that? I remember Malawi once had tons of refugees from Mozambique. Again, no “crisis”. Kenya, last I knew, had a half million people from Somalia.
2. Refugees should be divided up among Western countries according to how many bombs they dropped on the countries that the refugees are coming from. That means the US would probably get the lion’s share.
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1. That is definitly true. In Germany I think we had four stages of how the refugee situation was perceived.
a) Anything that happens outside of the Middle East ist barely noticed.
b) Refugees in Lebanon and Trukey. That got some coverage, but beyond some lip service to “international action” you heard little.
c) A lot of refugees in the southern border states. A lot of coverqage and extensive discussion on how disfunctional the European asylum system is. Some political action, but when sytmied the governnment let it go.
d) Refugees in Germany. Not a day without extensive coverage. The government mobilizes a lot of resources and political capital and starts to bully the other European governments to an actual reform.
2. Something along that lines is discussed a lot in Germany. Especially the position of the UK irks many. On some far right sites they even float the idea that the refugees are brought in by an American (and of course Zionist) conspiracy to destroy Europe.
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London Club apparently not letting in women because of their complexion and size. Geez, whatever next.
http://www.clutchmagonline.com/2015/09/popular-london-nightclub-under-fire-for-refusing-to-let-black-women-in-for-being-too-dark-too-fat/
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@Onipresent: I read that and it’s disgusting that kind of thing is what breeds narcissistic a**holes and does damage to people’s psyches. Not to mention it’s racist as hell. This is why women hurt themselves with eating disorders. I thought the young women who were not allowed into the club were attractive and dressed fashionable. Black folks need to quit begging these a* holes to take their money and begging to be let in to places where they are not wanted. I hope they shut that shi**ty club down.
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@Omnipresent: So they want all the top shelf women meaning biracial and light skin or white or probably Asian for their so called posh establishment. No dark skinned plus sized women. I can’t believe this is real life.
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Mary Burrell
I did a double take when I read this because from what I picked up, some of the people not wanting these women in the clubs are black men! I know from my teens, I had friends who experienced the ‘10% black entry’ that was little known but prevalent in a lot of clubs in the UK but I thought this was dead and buried 20 odd years ago!
Yes, this ridiculous behaviour can breed low self esteem. Hearing this though, I hope all women boycott their friggin club. Plus, if some of the parties involved from the club are black, they must be some wretched individuals and there must be some deep self loathing going on.
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@Omnipresent: I am not surprised that black men are complicit in this garbage. There many self hating coons. SMDH.
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Another mass shooting. Nothing confirmed but most likely acted out by a White male. Another incident where no one in the lamestream media will tie his race to his act. Again, race isn’t confirmed yet but it happened in Central Oregon, I think my assumption is fairly safe. If I’m incorrect I apologize but my point of the double standard stands.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/official-at-least-7-dead-20-hurt-in-oregon-shooting/ar-AAf0Xnl?ocid=ansmsnnews11
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@ A: Yeah, I concur and they (white America) always talking about their rights to bear arms and those crazy NRA gun nuts. When it’s white shooters the mainstream media keeps it low and keeps the details about what happened sketchy. Was he mentally ill and didn’t take his medications? When it’s a black shooter for example the black guy and the white anchor woman and the camera man, they plastered the dead black mans face all over the screen.
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@ Mary Burrell
It’s like 2Pac said “recollect ya thoughts don’t get caught up in the mix, cuz the media is full of dirty tricks”
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Abagond. If I recall you did a post on a university study on empathy triggers that unintentionally discovered that Whites didn’t empathize with Blacks. I may be mistaken and had actually read it on another blog and I apologize if so but if it is here do you remember what the name is?
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@A: That’s food for thought and good advice the media is full of dirty tricks.
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An app created to rate people, yes you heard me people. Not cars, music, or restaurants but people. The level of narcissism has risen to the point that 2 women were tone deaf enough to create a platform of this nature.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/10/01/coming-peeple-app-like-yelp-humans/73146488/
Do they not realize the most fanatic social media users are attention whores with nothing positive, interesting or intelligent to say? This will turn into a place where people go to trash their ex the moment they break up in the heat of emotion. Or says things that possibly aren’t even true of another simply because they don’t like them. Once posted it could ruin a reputation forever. That’s to say nothing of the inevitable sexism and racism that will inevitably pollute the app. An online version of high school more or less, SMH.
The reaction by the rest of social media however is overwhelmingly negative. Which gives me a small sigh of relief considering the content and culture of the more frequent users. When will people learn.
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@ Pumpkin
Wow. Thanks.
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@ A
Gutsell & Inzlicht: Empathy constrained: Prejudice predicts reduced mental simulation of actions during observation of outgroups
Here is the post I did on it:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/the-hearts-of-white-people-the-science/
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@EPGAH
“Would THAT be ad hom?”—Not unless you can find a post where you proved it was not true. Plus I debunked what you said and then called you a name. I did not just rely on name calling to refute you. Plus did you lie on another post claiming you knew what an ad hominem was. Is this your way of admitting you have no clue?
A long paragraph deflecting is just a long paragraph deflecting.
“We didn’t STEAL land, we CONQUERED it.”—CONQUERED is just a fancy way of saying “We stole it with force.” doesn’t mean you did not steal it. It just means it is how you justify it.
“I mentioned that before. Why didn’t you get that?”—You mentioned a lot of things that were lies and foolishness. I can’t read it all without dying of laughter. At any rate it here is me refuting it now.
“If I lived in your house, would you put up with me complaining that you get to do things I don’t, just because you’re the OWNER OF THE HOUSE?”—I wouldn’t allow you to live in my house and if I stole it from you then you have a right to complain. That is life.
“Laws? Hammurabi made the FIRST laws…but Greece made BETTER ones!”—That is great, but we are not talking about what Greeks did now are we. choo choo… all aboard the derail train.
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@sharinalr:
“CONQUERED is just a fancy way of saying “We stole it with force.”” — Want to just tack on that there’s another word for that type of thing: robbery. Europeans robbed Native Americans of their land and resources.
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@ sharinalr
White extremists, like EPGAH and the other White trolls, love to lie and make rhetorical statements like:
1. Whites didn’t steal other people’s land, Whites conquered them.
2. Whites aren’t the result of human genetic mutation, Whites are the result of human evolution.
3. Whites are not racist, it’s Blacks who are racist.
4. Blacks – not Whites – are the leading welfare recipients in America.
5. Blacks – not Whites – are the biggest criminals.
6. Western food doesn’t kill, Blacks have a recessive immune system.
7. Black people’s high bone mineral density prevents them from being good swimmers.
8. The tropics excelled Black maturation but didn’t develop their cognitive capacity and temperament that eventually led to civilization complexity.
9. The Black phenotype is a primitive one.
10. Blacks are good at sports because of their archaic physical strength like speed and fast-twitch muscle strength.
I’ve heard it all from the White supremacists and White extremists. Their rhetoric is old and tired. I love debunking their rhetoric. That’s what I do, sistah. Keep informative us with truth.
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@mike4ty4
Agreed, but we need also add rape.
@Michael Cooper
True, but you know how desperate they are for blacks to be as miserable as them.
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To all the folks in South Carolina stay safe and dry. And the brothers and sisters in the Bahamas stay safe.
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@Uriel I couldn’t understand half of what you were saying. The tone was way off you sound confused. @jefe I have believed for a long time that we should adopt the metric system. It just makes more sense.
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@afrosapiens Good information on the post at Sat 15 Aug 2015 at 00:55:57
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https://plus.google.com/108302836768948259389/posts
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Pumpkin said
“AMEN STOP BEGGING TO BE IN THESE DAMN CLUBS. F-CK THEM!”
Agreed but think that it would need to be endorsed by some to the celebrities that attend and for some reason I don’t think that is going to happen any time soon, but it should.
Pumpkin said
“THEY REALLY WOULD TURN DOWN SOME WOMEN LIKE THIS? ”
I guess it depends on whether her star was rising and she was deemed a celebrity. However, I think most normal men would flock to the club if she was there dancing 😉
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Love this! http://ringoffireradio.com/2015/10/03/prison-debate-team-beats-harvard-debate-team-in-national-competition-now-you-know-why-innocent-people-are-on-death-ro/
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@bygodsloveandgrace
Thank you so much for posting that.
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Just wanted to say hi. I like Back to the Future banner!
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My pleasure sharinalr
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http://www.theblackhomeschool.com/2014/02/05/meet-tony-at-14-he-invented-surgical-technique-and-will-soon-be-a-neurosurgeon/
Another positive story I love.
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@ Mira
Hi! Welcome back.
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@ Pumpkin
I am not into parties. This is how they seem to me:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKp2CrfmVfw)
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I’d like to contribute more but I’m busy with my PhD studies. I still visit from time to time.
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@ Abagond
I concur brother. The introvert struggle is real. I’d much rather kick back with family and friends that I consider family in a small-ish group and shoot some pool, talk sh!t and listen to music. I never understood the extraverts need to socializing endlessly in giant groups but all respect to their preference. The huge clouds of weed smoke at every party are particularly annoying. I can barely take the smell let alone be enveloped by it. Who knows, to each their own.
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NYPD steals Black woman’s BMW, commit her to a psych ward when she asks for it back
http://www.blacklistednews.com/NYPD_steal_womans_BMW%2C_commit_her_when_she_asks_for_it_back/46540/0/38/38/Y/M.html
I guess she’s lucky she didn’t become a fatality.. suicide by cop.
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Pumpkin,
I feel that way about parties sometimes too, but this would’ve been a virtual party, that’s a lot more laid back and easy going. we’d start a party thread, get our snacks and post some music videos etc.
huh? @ : o O ) >
Pumpkin…seriously. You need to get out more and experience life! Throwing a e-party on a blog via posting music videos and eating snacks? lol
Talk about cringe worthy……
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http://blackthen.com/happy-birthday-to-the-man-responsible-for-one-of-the-most-important-historical-records-regarding-the-underground-railroad-william-still/
#history
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What’s wrong with doing stuff like reading and writing?
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@ Pumpkin
I did. I am not sure what to say.
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@ jefe
I agree with Pumpkin: reading and writing is great.
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Pumpkin:
Not harsh, just saying you should enjoy your youth, being you only are young once. @ : o / ) >
I responded to you about a month ago and asked you what email address did you send your email from. I didn’t receive anything from my email i use on a daily bases. You never responded to me.
It wasn’t as if i was ignoring you as i have no reason to, being i have nothing against you. @ : o l ) >
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Pumpkin:
“well why didn’t you respond?”
Because i didn’t receive an email from you. I have no way of knowing if you even used the correct email you used, while composing that supposed email you sent. Ya dig? @ : o l ) >
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Just something (semi) personal to share…
I got a US visa the other day, which means that, for the first time in my life, I am allowed to enter USA. And I feel… happy? Happy that I was deemed worthy enough as a human being to go to US instead of a second-class human being. And it should not feel like this; nobody should be proud of something like that so I am pretty much ashamed of myself.
I still want to go an visit US, though.
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One question, Abagond: was there/will there be a post on Nicki Minaj?
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@ Mira
Why, what has she done now?
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Nothing in particular, but there was the cover of the New York Times, her dissing Miley and, well, generally being a woman in mostly male genre. So, a general post on her?
I don’t know, I just though she was interesting enough to talk about. Not in a negative way (unless there is something bad about her that I don’t know about).
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@ Mira
Have you been to the US before?
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Abagond,
Nope, I never had a visa and I never had a chance to get a visa (US government is very strict when it comes to my country; it’s very difficult to get in). But now that I have a study permit and long visa for Canada they gave me a visa. I guess they rely on the fact they can just send me back to Canada/I’m Canada’s problem if I misbehave (not that I will, but I guess that’s the idea).
What I feel ashamed of is that I’m so happy that US validated me. I should not be, I mean, what difference does it make for my self-worth if US government deems me good enough to go to USA?
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“Outside” investigators rule Tamir Rice shooting justifiable. I think we know what’s most likely to happen next. I need a one way ticket to a time machine or off this planet.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/11/tamir-rice-shooting-justified-say-expert-reports-as-grand-jury-process-continues
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@Pumpkin:
i have a question, does anyone here believe in ghosts?
I am not sure if I believe but I had some pretty weird/creepy experiences as a teen when my friend and I made a board to talk to ghosts and… Some creepy things happened that I cannot explain to this day. Even talking (typing) about it makes my skin crawl.
My culture is big on ghosts and dead people roaming the Earth (for at least 40 days after death), vampires etc. so it’s understood this is not something to mess with. Stupid teenagers, I have no idea why I did that but I regret it and just thinking about it makes me scared.
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No, it wasn’t really that kind of a board, it was something we made out of paper. But it had letters and stuff. Ugh. Like I said, it creeps me out even to think about it.
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http://www.alternet.org/16-times-onion-brilliantly-skewered-our-insane-politics?akid=13576.1929437.mmYv8b&rd=1&src=newsletter1044106&t=4
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At this point, I don’t really care who Asian women sleep with. If they get something like AIDS and die, all the better.
That… doesn’t sound like you don’t care, sorry.
The problem is that people of color are seen as a collective and that if one person does something it somehow “reflects” the whole race/group. This is what we should all fight against.
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I wanted to ask something: is it true that the term “fu.kboy” is AAVE in origin? As in, is appropriative to use it if you are not black. I know this insult is gaining momentum among white people but no idea about its origins.
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@ Mira.
Lol yes the term was more or less birthed from AAVE. The South specifically made the term popular. Rappers from Atlanta, Houston, New Orleans & such were using the term as far back as the early 90’s. By the mid to late 2000’s rappers from every other region were using it as well and it subsequently fell into the general AAVE lexicon.
Unlike you however I don’t think I’ve ever heard a White person use that term. Even Whites from the so-called hood. Only Black/Spanish use it around my way. SE Asians use it as well but where I’m from they live side by side with us due to their poverty levels so unlike most cities all 3 races tend to be roughly one big group and actually get along more or less.
Blacks & SE Asians in particular are REALLY tight. How tight? Let’s put it like this; they can say the N word. Writ large. Yes you heard it.
It’s a relationship that most people can’t understand due to the stereotype of some East & South Asians having anti-Black attitudes. Most peoples ignorance of Asian Americans makes them believe all Asian/Black relations are horrible & while its true in some instances in others its the exact opposite. Its harder to hate someone when they’re your neighbor and you consort with them more often. Taking poverty levels into account again its even harder to hate someone when each has to ask the other for food to borrow.
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Unlike you however I don’t think I’ve ever heard a White person use that term.
It is a huge word these days among many so-called “social justice warriors”, many of whom are white. I am not sure about the original/AAVE meaning, but in SJW sphere, the term is used as a derogatory term, usually for a type of a man who is a MRA.
One of the reasons why this term is getting so popular in these discussions is that you do not really have a derogatory term for a man in a sexual/morality sense the way you have for women. We all know those derogatory words for women, but not for men. So, this word is gaining popularity among (internet?) feminists and other social justice boggers to signify a certain type of a man (usually MRA type). The insult is powerful because the men in question didn’t choose it for themselves and they don’t particularly like it.
That being said, if it’s cultural appropriation then it’s bad and I wouldn’t use it.
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“Neckbeard” is sometimes used in a similar context.
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I’ve heard neckbeard used as a way to describe MRA’s before. Amongst Black people it’s more or less another way of saying a**hole or punk mother****er.
Though I see a reason for dissing the ideologues of the movement who come off as insane I don’t necessarily see a problem with the proposed issues.
I’ve been to family court and seen first hand just how difficult it is for a man to get even the slightest amount of time with his kids. I’ve also seen women not abide by the custody ruling at all with the courts not inflicting any punishment upon her for not allowing the father to see his kids. If/when its the other way around a man will likely be locked up or pursued for not paying his child support.
Also in regards to domestic violence against men people act as if it’s something that never happens and shouldn’t be taken seriously. I’ve seen otherwise my entire life so I won’t bother with anecdotes I’ll just leave you with a true story that encompasses what a man deals with when he has an abusive partner.
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2007/02/25/me/
There were only a few lines in this post but if I’m not mistaken believe there was another more in depth post that he did on the subject of his wife’s violence towards he and their sons.
@ Abagond. If I’m out of bounds for this then I do apologize but since you’ve written about it yourself I thought it might be ok to link the post. I figure if people hear (remember) it from a voice as credible as yours then it would be harder to deny than if a random commenter spoke on it.
Also this;
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3PgH86OyEM)
When Solange attacked Jay-Z in the elevator people made jokes, memes and asked what did Jay-Z say to Solange that made her act that way. The only reason she didn’t connect on the strikes was because he blocked them. But then ask yourself if Ray Rice’s strikes were blocked or evaded by Janay Rice would that have made the situation better? Many feminists online were doing backflips and handstands trying to explain why the situation was “different” from “real” domestic violence and it was all a bunch of bull***T.
As a person that would not have been blamed for putting her hands on a woman, Beyoncé stood by and did nothing to restrain her sister. If that were Jay-Z’s brother swinging on Bey and he did nothing he would (rightfully) be called a fu.kboi lol
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Maybe we should not mention the word itself to continue this conversation. We know which word we’re talking about so perhaps go without referencing it? I’d like to learn more about this.
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My comment was long and I only used it in context but I’ll continue about your last question. If White people say the word it doesn’t bother me. But like most cultural appropriation once it hits the White mainstream it will most likely be considered cool. I don’t remember anyone White specifically criticizing the term but most Black slang and general speech patterns of Blacks are mocked by Whites so its safe to say that this is typical White appropriation.
My cousin had a birthday party a while back and she introduced my mother to one of her friends, a White guy. My mother simply stated “hello nice to meet you” to which he replied ( get ready) “well you knooow, the question around here is, are you about that life?” With the silliest tone imaginable. Like when a child first learns how to curse, making it obvious that he didn’t know how to use the term correctly and was simply the garden variety sheep/follower. My mother looked as if she didn’t even know what to say but as a woman who is no nonsense and never has been she said “honey i’m about this life, that one and the one before it” She was going to continue but my Aunt cut her off as everyone awkwardly laughed. I couldn’t help but shake my head because this is a term that I had heard since I was a child. I literally cannot remember a time in my life when people around me weren’t using the term and I don’t even use it myself.
This is the real problem with appropriation; Blacks consistently lead pop culture in terms of music, fashion, slang & many other trends but almost all of them are looked at as ignorant or repulsive when they’re exclusively Black. Once Whites appropriate them no one even implies a lack of intelligence and it becomes the coolest thing in the world. By the time Whites get to whatever respective trend they get to we’ve already moved on. Usually because its just old and time to evolve or because like the guy at my cousins party Whites have made it corny at which point the ignorant vs cool double standard starts all over again.
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^ Kiwi, I brought this topic up a lot, and saw a problem with it, but you told me several times that it is normal for people to call it as they see it, and that my point of view was somehow very narrow or intolerant.
Therefore, I got the impression that for you, it is not a concern for, say, Bruno Mars (who is basically Eurasian) to be mistaken as black or if Kirk Acevedo (Puerto Rican / Chinese) to be mistaken as white, as this is normal or natural for humans to make these snap judgements.
I have a Chinese-American male cousin (both parents from China) who married a Puerto Rican woman (2nd marriage) who would never impress you as being white (she definitely passes easily as a Puerto Rican Latino) but I could see how their daughter would often be mistaken as white, despite neither parent being white and the fact that she learned to speak Spanish fluently and is living with a Black male partner. My cousin’s first wife was Jewish American, whom he divorced short after their son’s birth, yet their boy, who was ritually circumcised at 8 days, sent to Hebrew school and attended his bar mitzvah, often got mistaken as Chinese and got ridiculed by Chinese-American kids for not speaking Chinese.
Maybe you should count yourself lucky that the ethnicity that people assume you are often indeed is the same or very close to what you actually identify as.
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@Kiwi,
You mentioned many times that your parents and / or grandparents grew up in abject poverty in Taiwan, yet your great-grandmothers had bound feet, which signified that she (or more likely her husband) was wealthy enough so that she would be a prized foot bound wife.
Did something happen in your grandparents’ lives that caused them to go from being quite rich to very poor during their lifetimes? Did they lose everything in some war (ie, WWII, or Sino-Japanese war) or in a typhoon, or were among those who fled the mainland with just the clothes on their back?
In any case, if they were once rich, that could explain their impetus (and social capital) to lift their kids out of poverty.
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https://www.change.org/p/amazon-stop-selling-hate-books?utm_source=action_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=417263&alert_id=gjHQXTYVgH_YXR9doFXlOx6OIzvr7QVdAqZU%2B45Db69J7ettxgs47k%3D
This petition is for Amazon to stop selling a Hate book called, “I hate black women” and other Hate books in general. Just needs 13 more signatures to reach 2,500
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I singed the petition!
I’m going to vote, Canadian federal elections. I hope my party as well as the Jays wins!
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lol @ Herneith. I admire your enthusiasm. ^_^
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And just to correct ya…”singed” is spelled, “signed” ^_^
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@ Sondis
I signed the petition as well. All aspects of (Uncle) TomCoonery must be checked at every opportunity. No exceptions.
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I am not a citizen so I could not vote, but I do hope Harper is gone. Is there a chance for this happening?
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A,
Sorry for my late reply! So, to continue the discussion about the word I asked about.
First of all, apologies for not knowing the word’s original meaning in AAVE. I only know how it’s used among (white? Not even sure if it’s just white) so-called “social justice warriors”. It seems to be a term many (white?) feminists readily embrace because in their context it is used as one of the rare derogatory terms for men of a certain behavior/character. The only other I can think of is “neckbeard”.
If White people say the word it doesn’t bother me. But like most cultural appropriation once it hits the White mainstream it will most likely be considered cool.
I am not sure if it’s considered “cool” at the moment, mainly because it’s not used by white mainstream. Again, it seems to be a term only feminists and other social justice warrior use (and mostly online) in discussions about male privilege, sexism, homophobia, etc. As such, it’s definitely NOT used as white men (as far as I know) so the word’s usage is still not in the mainstream. So, I wouldn’t say it’s considered “cool” or part of a white slang – it is more used in intellectual (and pseudo-intellectual) discussions.
I don’t remember anyone White specifically criticizing the term but most Black slang and general speech patterns of Blacks are mocked by Whites so its safe to say that this is typical White appropriation.
The word is not used as mockery – but it might as well be because most people do not know it comes from AAVE. Among the groups I’m talking about, it’s not seen as a black slang word, so this might be why it’s not used as a mockery or to “be cool”. It is used to mock people (as an insult) but the word itself is not used in a way other AAVE words are misused by whites. (At least at the moment, and at least within groups I know).
“well you knooow, the question around here is, are you about that life?”
I don’t understand this, sorry. I am not a native English speaker and I am not American so this term is something I am not familiar with. I understand it’s a misuse/mockery of black culture.
This is the real problem with appropriation; Blacks consistently lead pop culture in terms of music, fashion, slang & many other trends but almost all of them are looked at as ignorant or repulsive when they’re exclusively Black.
Yes, I know. See twerking. See rock music. Heck, jazz music! See dreadlocks. See anything ever white people appropriated.
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My dear Canadians, the early reports say that Harper is gone and defeated. Please tell me this is true!
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@ Mira
I got a New York Times news alert saying the Liberal Party is projected to win.
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That’s great! That being said, as with any vote “against” (Harper) people need to realize that the new candidate is not perfect. (I mean, I have no idea about his politics but it goes without saying). I am glad Harper is out, though.
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@Kiwi,
Maybe the majority for the time being, but certainly not the vast majority. And many did so because they were forced to as multiracial identities were not tolerated by society. If you study the impact of Jim Crow, you will know what happened – people were forced to abandon their multiracial identities.
And It likely may not always be the majority going forward. Two indications to consider from the US census:
1990-2000: Asian, white and Pacific Islander numbers dropped precipitously in Hawaii, while the multiracial categories became the plurality (not unexpected from a place like Hawaii). Certainly many will choose to identify as multiracial if given the choice.
2000-2010: Mississippi had the largest increase in persons who ticked 2 or more or 3 or more races during this period, and it was NOT because they had higher increases in interracial marriage (which I believe should be the State of Washington). It occurred because Mississippi had forced people to assume a monoracial identity during Jim Crow, and on census forms until 2000, so once they realized they had the opportunity to express themselves without social castigation, they chose to do so.
And a fixed sense of racial identity is also not something that people carry from cradle to grave, and a sense of racial identity was always in flux, even during Slavery and Jim crow. People have been switching their racial identities throughout their lives throughout US history. Millions have done that. Anatole Broyard was certainly not alone. Mildred Loving marked “colored” on her racial category form in Virginia, but she was always outspoken about her being mixed African, Rappahanock and white ancestry. A fixed sense of racial identity throughout one’s life was not a given thing even during Jim Crow. And after studying a bit about the American Indian movement in the 20th century, I noted the growth of the concept of American Indian identity as more a political phenomenon rather than one based strictly on some fixed racial identity. Most seem to know and acknowledge that they are racially mixed.
So, I really do not see where you get this “vast majority” when it is a thing that never really was and will become less and less going forward in the future.
Contrary to what you believe, I fully acknowledge and tolerate your view about racial identity, esp. in the context of your experience. I am certainly not intolerant of your point of view. I simply disagree with your assertion about this “vast majority” thing, esp. in the USA, and ESPECIALLY going forward in the future. If merely out of politeness, it is better (in my humble opinion) not to assign a fixed racial identity to other people. Let them do it themselves. and let them change it if they want.
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@Kiwi
So none of your family is actually Taiwanese? Did they all come from the same province or different provinces? They lived in Taiwan for scarcely a generation (and by now have been living longer in the USA). Did most of your family leave Taiwan or did some relatives stay behind?
That might explain some of the attitudes that some of them hold in the USA. They had no mindset of going “back” to anywhere.
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Trudeau won in a landslide! I voted for the liberals to ensure this POS Harper was shown the door. The Liberals were more left of centre than the NDP. Oh, the Jays won too!
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@ Mira.
I don’t follow feminism/mens rights because while I believe in equality between the genders many of the figureheads of either movement come across as a bit crazy. As I stated before I really don’t mind Whites using it in any context only the double standard of critiquing the usage by Blacks but not themselves.
As far as “are you about that life” is concerned it more or less means a person has stated they are capable of a certain feat to which the person they’re speaking to replies “you’re not about that life” in other words they’re bull****ing about a supposed ability they claim to have. It’s used often in particularly hostile exchanges like the lead up to a fight.
If two guys are getting tangled up on the basketball court and playing unusually physically/dirty the situation might get heated to a point where both are seconds away from an altercation. I.E.;
“If you throw one more elbow when I come down from a rebound its gonna be a problem”
Implying he’s willing and capable of besting the other in an altercation
“N***a please, you ain’t about that life”
Not taking the threat seriously and firing back that the person in question is just talking tough but doesn’t have anything tangible to back up his words.
But its increasingly used in a humorous manner when two people are having a playful conversation. Some friends of mine were playing Uno and were jokingly trash talking about how either would win to which both simultaneously replied “you ain’t about that life” Lol
The inquisitive form “are you” about that life is a variation of the term but asking if someone is/isn’t capable instead of outright telling them they aren’t but sometimes sarcastically used to make fun of the person who made the initial claim in a daring put up or shut up manner. Hope I explained that well enough Lol
In either case he still misused the term because it only makes sense after someone has claimed to be capable of something, NOT when they say who they are. My mother only introduced herself to him which was when this reply came. Like most Whites who appropriate he sounded foolish and corny as all hell due to the misuse. My mother most likely got perturbed for this very reason and I believe she may have interpreted it as mockery-which is something she doesn’t tolerate.
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@ Herneith
Could you break down for me how the Canadian parties are positioned realative to the UK parties?
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A,
Thanks for the explanation! I think I understand the context. The word I mentioned is not used in this sense but I do think it’s appropriative.
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Could you break down for me how the Canadian parties are positioned realative to the UK parties?
Nope, google it!
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Problem with that is that one only gets their psitioning within the Canadian spectrum. So Harper is the conservative boogeyman, but should I rather imagine him as David Cameron or rather Ted Cruz?
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Kartoffel,
Why do you expect Canadians to know details of UK politics? Heck, I’m European and I do not know anything about Ted Cruz. Not saying that Herneith (or other Canadians) do not know the answer but still.
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US and UK politics are fairly well known internationally, thath’s why I thought I had the best shot with that. Bit unrealistic would be to ask somebody the same question in regards to Polish politics.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/23/opinion/keynes-comes-to-canada.html
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/23/opinion/canada-elections-justin-trudeau.html?&moduleDetail=section-news-3&action=click&contentCollection=Opinion®ion=Footer&module=MoreInSection&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=article
This election was a complete rout. They would have voted for Bugs Bunny to get rid of that racist clown Harper. A great example of strategic voting.
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So Harper is the conservative boogeyman, but should I rather imagine him as David Cameron or rather Ted Cruz?
Why do people love to compare one ahole to another? Fellow Canadian Ted Cruz is in a class of his own as is Harper. Conservative, Liberal, Socialist, an ahole or aholes, do not need a particular political stripe to be one. I find there are two types of politicians, in general, the wealthy, privileged power seeking ahole or aholes who are ideologue martinets. The ones who are genuinely interested in doing their civic duty soon learn what day it is. If they manage to remain in politics for any length of time, they go their way without adhering to any one political ideology; in other words they are flexible. Many politicians are sociopaths, demons in disguise. It’s a matter of which one will do the less damage to you and yours.
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@ Kartoffel
You should maybe ask Lord of Mirkwood. He follows both US and Canadian politics.
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@Kiwi,
The US Census is hardly an accurate representation of how people actually identify on a racial basis or what races they recognize in their heritage. For example, nearly every Native American that I have met acknowledges that they are racially mixed, but they may just tick American Indian on Census forms. 2 or more races was not even recorded at all before 2000. Just because they added that category does not mean that people who acknowledge that they are multiracial will tick it, esp. if there is some social or emotional or political issue surrounding it. I am not even sure I would. And people switch too.
It is probably better if people tell you than if you assign them.
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I am somewhat conversant with British politics. The Canadian political system is based on the British system including ‘first past the gate’. Conservatives=Conservatives, Liberals=Liberal Democrats, NDP=The Labour Party. I am not a fan of ‘first past the gate’ as it is not representative of voters, i.e.; the Liberals only got 39. something of the popular vote. I prefer something akin to the American system whereby you vote for your particular candidate at each level of government as opposed to a particular party. The operative word here is similar to the American system, not the same. This comparison of Canadian and British political systems is a somewhat terse description; I do not enjoy long drawn commentary. One should be able to be able to simplify concepts, ideologies, etc., succinctly. If you want more in-depth details, google the rest.
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Thanks everybody.
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I would have preferred for Mulcair to win, but I can live with Trudeau.
So can the millions of broads who voted for him. They think he is a ‘babe'(I don’t).
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@Abagond
Have you seen this http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/us/racial-disparity-traffic-stops-driving-black.html?_r=1
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Just watched today the execution of the theme song “Glory” from the 2014 film “Selma” and I could not help but feel deeply moved by it. I rushed to the Youtube and downloaded 2 versions of it:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUZOKvYcx_o)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9MKXR4gLjQ) (Oscar Performance)
and heard them more than 5 times each, in a row!!!
This is really a epic song and the events it refer to are equally epic!
Hearing it I felt a cascade of emotions invading my soul.
Some parts just trigger in me memories of the Beethoven’s 5th Symphony!
And there is the eloquence of the words coming from the mouth of the rapper Common!
And what about his connection of the Selma events to the more recent Ferguson shooting followed by protests?
Some of the invited to the Oscar ceremony could not escape blurting out a few tears! Powerful indeed!
Both, Common and John Legend are to be congratulated. Work well done!
You have done a good job in shaking and waking up consciences all over America and the Globe!
I hope to see the movie “Selma” as soon as possible!
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@Sharina& Leigh: Are you guys still doing TWD? Do you think Glenn is dead? I hope those were Nicolas’s guts. I think Enid is a wolf, what do you guys think?
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@Sharina & Leigh: Are you guys still watching TWD? I can’t accept that Glenn is dead. What do you guys think.
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@ villagewriter
Thanks for the link.
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@ Abagond,
What is the significance behind your new masthead?
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@ lifelearner
https://abagond.wordpress.com/contact/#mastheads
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Thanks! Abagond 😁
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I wanted to take a quick moment to say thank you. While Abagond’s posts are often excellent jumping off points, the discussions in the comments are equally, if not more, insightful. Several very good book, blog and podcast recommendations have been made by commenters and I figure those regular commenters also read this thread occasionally. So, to all of you that have made such suggestions, thanks.
Thomas Gray wrote, “Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.” I get where he was coming from. However, I couldn’t disagree more.
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@Mary Burrell
I still watch and I am hoping with all I have that he is not dead. The problem is that even if they are eating Nicholas eventually they will have to get to Glenn. How will he get out? That is fresh guts to them so he could not use it to throw them off. On the other hand there is speculation that this is just Nicholas having a mental flash breakdown and it is not really happening.
On another note, what of Rick? He had little or no time to get out of that RV.
I have to keep a closer eye on Enid. Something about her does not sit right, but I am not sure if it is good or bad yet.
I wanted Morgan to return for so long and now I feel as if I might regret it.
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Pumpkin,
Did you dance to the coon train song in the YouTube link i posted? lmao!
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@pumpkin, why would they have a petition like that? America is as much black Americans home as it is anyone else’s. American society should change instead of black Americans leaving.
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https://www.change.org/p/drop-all-charges-against-spring-valley-high-students?recruiter=14520678&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink
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@Kiwi,
Your statement makes you appear a bit clueless to the issues that multiracial people have to face. You should be happy that you do not need to (or at least have chosen not to) carry that burden.
You also put way too much faith and meaning into government statistics and documents. Did you know that my father is marked as being “white” on my birth certificate, but not in his marriage certificate? He did not even have his actual name or the valid names of his parents on his birth certificate. I had a hell of a time helping him to apply for a US passport or US Social security because of all the screw-ups.
Have you gone to the US Archives and poured over Census records? There is so much misinformation there, esp. on data such as “race”.
I used to work at the US Census Bureau too. There is a limit to how much interpretation you can make about that data, esp. social inferences.
I would repost Maria P.P. Root’s Bill of Rights for People of Mixed Heritage, but I am not sure that you would understand some of the significance of its declarations. You would remain convinced of the “facts” you have fed yourself. *Sigh*
Also, to you, the problems of Jim Crow must look like ancient history, not something that left us with a multitude of unsolved problems, of which stuff like modern day multiracial activism (and other things, like the American Indian Movement) is only a part. And they are not only group movements, but affect individuals in widely different ways.
I would like to see more of this taught in U.S. Social Science classrooms.
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test
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Greetings everyone! 🙂
@ King (and anyone who knows)
Good brother, how are you? King, do you know of a history book that chronicles examples of intellectuals (university professors and other respected thinkers of their own day; excepting politicians) going along with and supporting movements that are now recognized as crimes and/or embarrassing and shameful social movements?
examples of supported things:
-slavery
-eugenics
-the fascist movements and takeovers of the 30’s
-mass incarceration (ok that is more modern, I suppose)
-those lovely postcards of lynched black men (and other kinds of hate art)
-pro Apartheid views
-mmm, and other horrible things which escape my mind right now.
@ Kiwi
Your comment above on China’s lengthy period of decline and stagnation was very thought provoking.
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Venting like a mofo. Omg, I b*tched out a white woman for touching my hair today at my local gym! Here’s what went down. Well, I decided to straighten my long hair this morning because I felt like it. My hair is naturally wavy – Type 2A. I put up my hair in a ponytail and I worked out. Afterward, I went to the locker room, and stood in front of a mirror. I pulled out the ponytail and fingercombed it into place. I kid you not. A white woman stood behind me and started touching my hair! She said, “I love your hair! Asian hair is always so straight and soft.” (B*tch, did you just touch my hair? Oh, hell no! Now we have a problem.) I was so angry she touched my hair, I told her to fcuk off. This has happened to me once before.
Anyway, one of the gym staff members heard me and she asked me what the problem was. I told her about the white woman touching my hair and she looked at her like she was an idiot. The white woman profusely apologized but I wasn’t having it. I said, “Would you like it if a stranger fcuking touched your fcuking hair without even fcuking asking?!?!” And she kept repeating, “Sorry, I didn’t know.” And I replied, “Now you know, b*tch. Keep your hands to your damn self!” And by the looks of the white women in the gym, they thought I overreacted because I made a commotion about it. Sorry, I don’t care who you are! NO ONE TOUCHES MY HAIR!! (Rant over)
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@ Legion
In regrds to the Third Reich the book Ingo Müller: Hitler’s Justice. The Courts of the Third Reich, Cambridge 1991 comes to mind. It looks at the role people of the legal profession played in the Third Reich, including their intellectual background and their post-war attempts to hinder justice. I don’t know if that book is known outside of Germany, but here it was a bestseller and shapes the discussion on the issue to this day. It’s original title “Furchtbare Juristen” (awful lawyers) has become a standaard saying in the context of criticism of the legal profession.
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Now I know why Angel Haze is my favorite fem-cee. She said she wants to “talk” to Raven Symone about her commentary on race lol
http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/highlight/angel-haze-still-wants-to-fight-raven-symon-someone-needs-to-smack-her/56326a456f753a3110000365
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People are too through with Miss Raven-Symoné. After her comments about not wanting to hire people with ethnic names, and her more recent statement about the teen assaulted by an officer at Spring Valley High School, the public has had enough.
Wednesday, Che Scott-Heron of London started a petition urging Barbara Walters to cut the former child star from The View’s panel. Her petition reads:
Raven Symone has been spouting her ignorant and self hating spiel on the view for Long enough, from stating that she wouldn’t hire somebody for having a ghetto name, to openly complaining about reverse racism, the final straw was her comment about the recent viral video of the school police officer assaulting the student, where Raven Symone said “get off your phone in school then.”
African Americans and black people around the diaspora need a voice representative of their views and not a voice representative of what white people want us to say. We need strong black role models in prominent positions on television and Raven Symone cannot provide that. That is why I ask that we petition to remove her from “The View.”
Within 24 hours, the petition attracted 48,788 signatures. While we highly doubt Raven will be fired behind this petition alone, it may be enough for producers over at ABC to take notice.
https://www.change.org/p/barbara-walters-petition-to-remove-raven-symone-from-the-view?recruiter=14520678&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink
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@ Kartoffel @ Legion
A recent case like that in the US are the lawyers and psychologists who enabled CIA torture under President Bush.
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happy halloween
@ lotr i thought the marissa johnson thread was the wrong place to post this,
i don’t like open thread because it doesn’t show up in recent comments!
““What have I got in my pocket?” he said aloud. He was talking to himself, but Gollum thought it was a riddle, and he was frightfully upset.”
-JRR Tolkien
http://esl-bits.net/ESL.English.Learning.Audiobooks/The.Hobbit/05A/text.html
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@ Abagond and Kartoffel
I just posted an NYT article in the Just World Doctrine thread that fits in with the topic we’re discussing.
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@ abagond
I think there is a major difference. Dick Cheney can still come on TV and defend his actions and half of the US eats it up. The architects of Bush’s reign are still accepted members of society, not despite but because of their role. I think that seperates it from historical evils who sometimes are downplayed today, but rarely defended.
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A,
I like Angel Haze but I am not sure if I’d refer to them as “she”. I believe Angel identifies as agender, but I might be wrong about it. They are often posted on lists of non-binary celebs, though.
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I didn’t know where to put this as their isn’t a post dedicated to just BLM.
In L.A. their appears to be a split between the “old guard” and the L.A. chapter of Black Lives Matter.
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-black-lives-matter-20151030-story.html
The Huffington post also picked up on the story.
“It is therefore, far more regretful to me that controlling the microphone and acting civil towards public servants whom have done our community grave disservice, is SO grievous to ‘our’ leaders that they call press conferences and post on Facebook to denounce it.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/angela-james/black-lives-mattertoo-muc_b_8436242.html
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@Abagond: I like the masthead many African Americans and First nation people came together and had families there is some criticism from other African Americans because many claim “I have Native American in my blood” getting ridiculed. There really was relationships of black slaves and Native Americans. I don’t understand where this foolishness to ridicule those black Americans who claim blood ties with native Americans.
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@ Mira
Yes you’re right thank you for correcting me. Angel Haze does like to be referred to as they instead of she or her.
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Abagond,
are you going to do anything on Anonymous outing the KKK?
they are planning to release the names of 1000 KKK members because they were able to hack into 2 of their internet accounts.
this will be a power struggle worth watching!
There was a release this week of politicians names who are in the KKK but Anonymous is claiming it wasn’t them and can’t validate the list
The real Anonymous is planning to do their real release of names on Nov 24
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3300936/US-Senator-Kentucky-mayor-forced-deny-Ku-Klux-Klan-list-members-released-online.html
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@ Mary Burrell – it’s just that so many claim what they cannot prove. Most tribes require proof to be counted as a member.
@ Ab – Do you think the spike in heroin use by suburban whites (prescription drugs are thought to have been the gateway) will be part of the war on drugs?
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@ Linda
It depends what Anonymous comes up with. I am not holding my breath. I remember they said they knew who Michael Brown’s killer was, but did not.
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@ Uglyblackjohn
No. The War on Drugs was never a war on drugs. It is a war on Black people:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/racial-profiling/
White heroin users, unlike Black heroin users, are Real People, especially if they have good health insurance:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/the-four-kinds-of-humans/
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@ Pumpkin
I have not heard of Rex 84, but of things like it.
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I have 2 questions for Abagond and I hope he sees and answers them:
1. In the Republican camp Ben Carson – a Black American – is now considered a very serious contender to the primary and eventually to next year Presidential elections. How do you see this development? This it means that Republicans have become less racist and are now more likely to accept a Black as President of the USA? Or is it because many of them are deeply religious persons (Christians) and Ben Carson’s personal history of “divine awakening” resonated with them? Or is there a more profound explanation for this development?
2. I notice that in the “Good stuff” rubric you have (almost) always listed the post entitled “Signs that your wife is having an affair” as one of the top posts you have in your blog. Why? Other posts come to that rubric and after while disappear from it, but that one seems to enjoy a particular “privilege”! Is the choice of the posts which go to “Good stuff”‘s list automatic, or is it done manually by you? If manual which are the criteria that explains the steady presence of that particular post in the list?
Thanks for the attention.
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Corrections for the comment above:
Instead of “…and after while disappear…” should be “...and after awhile disappear…“.
And instead of “…the criteria that explains…” should be “…the criteria that explains…“.
Sorry for the grammatical errors. I’m not a English native speaker!
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Should be explain instead of explains
Arrgh….
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@ munubantu
Good Stuff Is a list of those posts that have received the most page views over the past 48 hours. I do not have any manual control over it other than to set its length.
Ben Carson is a conservative Christian, a Seventh Day Adventist, giving him a strong appeal to an important wing of the party. He is the only one who seems to speak to them. Huckabee is a Baptist minister, but has never had much luck in that regard.
Like the Rented Negroes who appear on Fox News, he seems to confirm rather than challenge White Republican ideas about Black people.
I will start doing posts on the candidates who are highest in the polls, probably starting in December.
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Everything is going backwards or is that we are going forward but it feels the same as before since history repeats itself. I haven’t seen much coverage of this officer who raped black women.
http://www.theroot.com/articles/news/2015/11/hate_crime_if_daniel_holtzclaw_s_victims_were_white_everyone_would_know.html
The jury is white no black folks, I will not be surprised if he gets off. Black women are seen as unrapable to them especially the ones he did this to.
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@ Abagond
“Like the Rented Negroes who appear on Fox News, he seems to confirm rather than challenge White Republican ideas about Black people.”
I have a hard time to believe that that applies to presidential candidates as well. I can’t really imagine an open racist supporting – not just tolerating – a black candidate even if he confirms stereotypes.
I always got the impression, from my limited exposure online, that the evangelicals are less racist than the Trump supporters or the establishment Republicans. At least they talk about race significantly less.
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@ Kartoffel
You are making the Black Friend argument.
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@ Uglyblackjohn
There was a very recent article in the NYT on the different institutional treatment being given to white suburban Heroin users as contrasted with institutional treatment of black drug users. It was emotionally hard for me to read; I only got through half of it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/31/us/heroin-war-on-drugs-parents.html?&moduleDetail=section-news-0&action=click&contentCollection=U.S.®ion=Footer&module=MoreInSection&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=article&_r=0
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@ Abagond
I don’t think that Carson supporters fall in the same category with the people who claim the can’t be racist because “some of their best friends are black” (or some other form of non-white depending on context). Would an open racist vote for a black person in the general election if he becomes the Republican candidate? Probably. But I think the support for a candidate in the primary is markably different, especially when we’re talking about a non-establishment candidate. People pin all their hopes for the future on that person, can an open racist do that with somebody non-white? My instinct tells me rather not, but that of course is pure guesswork, one would need polling that comopares the racial attitudes of Carson supporters with other Republicans.
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@ Kartoffel
Are Carson supporters LESS racist on average? Probably. Are most Carson supporters racist? Probably.
White Americans are fully capable of being racist, even openly racist, and still be, say, fans of Oprah or Michael Jordan or Michael Jackson:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2012/08/09/exceptional-negroes/
Some even marry Black people:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/08/12/dr-laura-and-the-n-word/
Madonna has a Black daughter, Mercy James, but still uses the N-word. That makes her openly racist even by White standards.
Ben Fields, the police officer who dragged and threw that high school girl the other week, had a Black girlfriend.
Etc.
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@Kiwi,
It is about freedom to express oneself, not about ensuring the USA govt has better or more accurate statistics. Even mass DNA testing of every individual might not effect that.
Now the USA is obligated to collect some kind of statistics. Even the Constitution demands it. The Census Bureau can never be shut down. What it collects and how it collects it can certainly change over time.
Have you learned about, say, Singapore’s or Malaysia’s racial identity system? Singapore’s was revamped in 2010. Do you think it is necessarily more (or less) reflective of racial or social realities?
I hope Abagond will put up his post on Walter Plecker soon.
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“How Clair landed in this predicament is a story of sloppy police work, unsavory government witnesses, incompetent defense lawyering and a sneaky prosecutor who helped to keep more than a dozen crucial, pro-defense facts from an overwhelmingly Caucasian jury. Yet this story is more than an alarming history lesson. Evidence shows that the same unethical, win-at-all-costs prosecution mindset employed against Clair 28 years ago continues to taint present-day cases in Orange County.”
http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2015/11/linda_faye_rodgers_kenneth_clair_murder_santa_ana.php
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Agabond, please do a post comparing the treatment of the Chris Few case and the Tamir Rice case. A table with side by side comparisons would be very telling.
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@ Anne
Good idea. I was thinking of maybe doing a post on that, but now that you have asked, I will.
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I’ve returned, I guess. I found absolutely nothing that wasn’t either a) explicitly not for white people to bother with or b) something i didn’t already know.
I found white friends who are normal, but i should mention this has been the case since about a week after the post directed at me was up.
If a white person complains about anything that I don’t complain about, feel free to message me. I have a hefty patience for fools.
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Anyways, abagond, you should do posts on the following topics:
I’m not saying you should do all or most of these, just please do enough. Or at least form an opinion on some of them.
– Future Of Racism
– Future Of The Police
– Future Of POC
– Future Of White People
– Black “Hebrew Israelites”
– East Asian Jews (Kaifeng, Bene Israel, Cochin, Bene Menashe, Bene Ephraim, Bukharan Jews)
– Mizrahim
– Ashkenazim
– Armenians
– Persians
– Metis
– AngloMetis
– New Netherlands
– Anglo-Saxon England
– Nation
– Physical Handicap
– Mental Handicap
– Trauma
– Theatre
– Traveling/ Tourism
– Internet Celebrity
– Non-Ashkenazi European Jews
– Romani People
– Saami People
– Euskaran (Basque) People
– Khazar Hypothesis
– Birobidzhan/ Jewish Autonomous Oblast
– Samaritan People
– Video Games
– Nation Of “Islam”
– Religious Conversion
– Roots Revival
– Comic Books
– Animation
– Weeaboo
– -Aboo
– Subculture
– Hoboes and Wobblies
– Downshifting
– Ralph Bakshi
– Underground Comix
– Independent Media
– Game Shows
– Who Owned What Parts Of America Before Colonization?
– European Paganism/ Pre-Christian Europe
– Metal Music
– Dance Music (House, Disco, Funk,
– Folk Music/ World Music)
– Yeniche People and non-Romani Iternerant Europeans
– African Jews (Beta Yisrael, Abayudaya, Lemba)
– Attributive Thinking
– (POC) Stereotypes (masterpost for the blog)
– “Artist means Illustrator/ Painter.”
– Queer
– QTPOC
– Trans/ Non-Binary
– Disabled POC
– Resurrection
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I also have broken record suggestions for questions I have been asking for years and still haven’t gotten enough answers from (it makes zero sense to only get one from one source) anywhere. I know it’s okay if only one person responds at this point.
– “Do you have any solutions that don’t involve punishing me for my birth?”
– “But i’m only liked by horrible people and their willing accomplices!”
– “You’d rather I be in poverty, scorn, and danger!”
– “So i should be treated like a paroled sex offender even no matter what?”
– “So I should break my arm every day because you are an amputee?”
– “If you’re angry about systems, why do you take it ou
– “What benign and complete culture do I have?”
– “POC are not uniquely good.”
– “You expect me to control the universe.”
– “Why is wanting to be seen as a benign human by social justice and have benign associations fee-fees.”
– “You want to be a part of everything I have even if you aren’t my ethnicity.”
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@ Uriel
Thanks for your suggestions. While you were away, I wrote about the future of US racism:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2015/10/05/the-future-of-race-in-the-us/
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Pumpkin
“my lower back hurts.”
Whatchu been doin’? lol
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Abagond,
When are you going to write about what’s going on with black and brown people around the world….I know your focus is US but black people are dying around the world and white supremacy is ratcheting up…
The sh’t is about to hit the fan in Europe
the refugees bum-rushing Europe is the catalyst and they will be going into protection mode… there was a reason why Hitler was successful.
Paris just got attacked and the blow back is going to land in the middle east and Africa, and affect all the black and brown people in Europe.
WW3 is not far away… how will it affect us as people of colour
Israel has been killing black people for the last year… no posts, not a word… your tax dollars supports Israel.
European leaders just held a meeting in Malta this weekend, offering Africa 2 billion dollars in exchange for African countries keeping people from coming to Europe..
Europe has robbed more than 2 billion dollars from Africa… chump change
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@ Linda
I agree, a post on Black people in Israel is way overdue.
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@Linda
The 2 billion dollars for 20 countries is a joke. They still think they can bully Africa; we are waiting for their demands and any of our leaders who bows to those scoundrels will be deposed.
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ATTACK IN PARIS…
This is the main event in the news: a terrorist attack have just took place in the center of the heartland of Europe and the West. More than 120 dead with more to succumb because of serious injuries… And in this year, this is the second time in the same city, the same country and with the usual suspects!
In 1929 Sigmund Freud wrote a book entitled “Das Unbehagen in der Kultur” (Civilization and its Discontents) where he posited that the grow of the modern world in Europe had been achieved by putting aside and trying to ignore a powerful “force” that has being repressed until then: the libido.
Nowadays I think that the (Western) Civilization has created its well-being putting aside and trying to ignore a large part of humankind that sometimes erupts in acts of “inexplicable” violence hitting the Civilization in its core: the Muslim and Arab World are indeed “das Unbehagen” of the contemporary world since the creation of the state of Israel and the greedy exploitation of crude oil in the Middle East!
God save our souls!
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Do you have any intel connecting the Levi Strauss logo with slavery? The two-horse carts pulling the pants apart isn’t that how whites used to kill/torture black slaves? Help appreciated!
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@Abagond
I have always wondered why some successful blacks criticize Black Lives Matter and other movements meant to improve black lives. I did my research and unearthed this jewel. Check it out guys
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcJqjgB4tyQ)
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The 2 billion dollars for 20 countries is a joke.
That’s akin to them buying land from First Nations people with blankets and trinkets.
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“abagond @ Linda
I agree, a post on Black people in Israel is way overdue.”
Linda says,
for sure
and just in case you aren’t keeping up with world wide anti-black/brown racism
I’ll post a few incidents for you:
Here’s a nice and blatant one from Australia:
A video showing a group of African students being asked to leave an Apple store at a Melbourne. An Apple staff member telling the students boys that the store’s security staff were concerned they were going to shoplift.
“These guys are just a bit worried about your presence in our store,” an Apple staff member is heard telling the teenagers. “They’re just a bit worried you might steal something.”
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR2PX97itSs)
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@Linda
Most White Australians are super racist and then white Afrikaners are super duper racist.
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villagewriter,
I believe it about Australians
but for some reason, they have a reputation as being “nice laid-back blokes” around the world, thanks to Crocodile Dundee.
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“The 2 billion dollars for 20 countries is a joke.
That’s akin to them buying land from First Nations people with blankets and trinkets.”
Herneith, Villagewriter,
no lies were told!
Here is a small view as to how the money was supposed to flow:
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/475375/EU-send-failed-migrants-Africa-1bn-aid-deal-snubbed
“European leaders had offered a £1billion aid package. The fund would support projects to combat poverty, slow down migration and speed up repatriation programs.
David Cameron announced the UK would use £200m of aid money to help African countries tackle economic pressures, environmental disasters and corruption.
Ethiopia will receive £125m to help deal with its refugee population,
(which has soared from 90,000 in 2011 to 700,000 in 2015.)
Another £5m will be used to provide life-saving humanitarian assistance in Mali and Burkina Faso.”
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The Flipside:
Guess how much money France alone gets out of Africa as of today 2015?
500 billion dollars!!
and here’s an article that explains how France is still making it “rain” by taking food out of African mouths
“The article called attention to an ongoing practice by which former African countries are forced to pay a colonial tax to France – even today.
In fact, France continues to thrive on the practice, which extracts approximately 500 billion dollars from African countries each year.”
http://www.siliconafrica.com/france-colonial-tax/
As of today, 2014:
14 African countries still have to pay colonial debt to France.
In order to gain “Independence” from France, African countries had to sign binding “Cooperation Accords”.
through the colonial pact, African nations had to put 85% of their foreign reserve into France central bank under French minister of Finance control.
France has been holding the national reserves of 14 African countries since 1961:
Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Togo, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.
France allows them to access only 15% of the money in any given year.
If they need more than that, they have to borrow the extra money from their own 65% from the French Treasury at commercial rates.
To make things more tragic, France impose a cap on the amount of money the countries could borrow from the reserve. The cap is fixed at 20% of their public revenue in the preceding year.
If the countries need to borrow more than 20% of their own money, France has a veto.
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France is the most evil European nation on Earth. They behave like snakes. (By that I mean the French elite)
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Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania also have a lot of refugees from all over the world and now Europe is behaving like it is a problem that only affects them. SNAKES!!!
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@villagewriter:
Portugal and Spain could and probably do give France a run for it’s money.
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@ Linda
Thanks for the link on the Apple store incident.
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@ Pumpkin
Same here.
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@ Pumpkin
I heard about that.
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Kiwi, not only are white men entitled to things better than service jobs (except as stepping stones, felony punishments, exclusive qualification, and if the individual likes it), but so is everyone else. Service jobs like telemarketing or waiting are for robots and teenagers. Some service jobs like firefighter should be done volunteers or as a personal thing rather than an actual industry, or should at least become as well paying as something like an accountant.
That said, if somebody is acting entitled in a service job to random people NOW, they are indeed being petulant. I wish my agreement with you about that part of the issue was implied, but it’s not, so excuse my saying of it.
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Folks, I just got an email from PayPal stating I could earn five dollars if I sent five hundred dollars. What should I do?
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I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be a trick question, but I’d see about changing my email password first, then my PayPal password next.
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@Abagond
Thanks for following my blog. I need to post more articles.
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The sooner Trump’s campaign is derailed, the better.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3328786/Black-Lives-Matter-protester-thrown-ground-kicked-mob-supporters-Trump-rally-Donald-yells-Hell-here.html
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@Kiwi
So, are you saying that Asiaphilia is a real thing? What I have noticed over here is European mostly German women coming to marry Maasai men because they wear traditional costumes and carry spears and clubs (its weird I know).
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@ Kiwi
I heard. Trump is a bully, a liar and a racist. If he wins, CANADA might have to build a wall.
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Donald Trump is such a vile and misogynist and racist cretin.
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@ Abagond
That’s a big “if”. I still believe the GOP wants an easily controllable establishment candidate. Trump definitely ain’t that, especially since he’s winning over the virulent bigots and other loudmouthed red meat eaters.
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@ Mack Lyons
The Republican establishment is getting a taste of their own medicine with Trump. They are the ones who have made it into a billionaire’s game, they are the ones who have made it into a rank appeal to White bigotry. He is their Frankenstein.
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From Dave Winer:
http://scripting.com/liveblog/users/davewiner/2015/11/23/0404.html
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@Abagond
“The Republican establishment is getting a taste of their own medicine with Trump. They are the ones who have made it into a billionaire’s game, they are the ones who have made it into a rank appeal to White bigotry. He is their Frankenstein.”
Lol..they created the python but could not feed it. Looks like the python will be eating them.
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Meanwhile Israel mistreats African refugees. sigh!
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/31/opinion/sunday/exposures-israel-chilly-reception-for-african-asylum-seekers.html
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I liked what I saw in following CNN Internet page:
(http://edition.cnn.com/2015/11/23/opinions/ben-ghiat-donald-trump/index.html)
Here in this blog we oft see critics of the way White people (especially White Americans) do not seem to easily empathize with the Black experience in America.
So I’m glad to see that there are honorable exceptions to that rule as is the case of that Professor (Ben Ghiat; Jewish apparently… but White nevertheless!).
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Kiwi, i’m sorry for talking down to you. I stand by my points made, but i won’t used such a tone with you or other poc again.
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@Abagond
“They vote for people who make them feel good and powerful and deserving of love.”
While I like the rest of the article, this last statement pisses me off- bar the part about “they like people who make them feel powerful”.
Why do white people apparently deserve to be utterly hated or at least looked down upon by poc for what is merely an error in their birth? Why can’t at least some of us be seen as equal without giving up self-determination?
I know most poc don’t think that way, but most poc involved with social justice do. As well as most whites who are. Being not involved with social justice is a good sign the person is amoral.
This is dooming me to hatred by anyone good, i.e. benign at least, i.e. morally better than Eminem, for instance. How on earth is it feelings to demand acceptance from them? This problem can be solved in a matter of seconds by not seeing me as akin to Leopold II for existing.
You can’t say both “We don’t expect you to end racism tomorrow or in your lifetime.” and “Until whites end racism, they deserve whatever they get from poc.”.
tldr; Why do all whites deserve hatred and condescension unless they give up autonomy?
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I re-read the post about me.
Who would living like the Medieval English (or whatever) help? Me. Because within my culture I either don’t actually own it, or it is bad. How could it hurt to use what is ostensibly mine AND good? If poc don’t need to share their stuff, neither do I. I doubt every single thing I own was glamorized during colonialism.
Why am I obsessed with social justice acceptance? Because social justice’s literal only flaw is dooming me to be evil. Everything else is at least three times worse.
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This is what Trump’s brand of neo-nativism is leading to: http://www.startribune.com/several-people-were-shot-near-black-lives-matter-protest-site/353121881/
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Anyone hear, read about this potential time bomb?:
http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/teen-shot-16-times-murder-charge-expected-for-chicago-cop-1.2671869
Apparently this kid was shot sixteen times by the police in Chicago. The officer who shot the teen, has surrendered himself to authorities already. Apparently there is a video(s) taken at the scene. The police department has been fighting to keep the videos from going public. They lost so the video(s) are slated to be released today. I got this off a local Toronto news site so that they may be anticipating this as a potentially big story.
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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-chicago-cop-shooting-video-laquan-mcdonald-charges-20151124-story.html
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The four inch folding knife must have been extremely dangerous from 15 feet away!
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Here’s an excerpt;
Van Dyke is shown on a dash-cam video jumping out of his squad car and within seconds unloading 16 rounds into 17-year-old McDonald, lawyers for McDonald’s family have said.
After the first few shots knocked McDonald to the ground, Van Dyke fired another volley that struck the teen repeatedly as his body lay in almost a fetal position on the ground, according to the lawyers.
Police said McDonald, who had PCP in his system when he died, was behaving erratically and refusing police commands to drop a 4-inch folding knife. The police union has maintained the officer fired in fear of his life because the teen lunged at him and his partner with the knife. Van Dyke’s lawyer also has said the officer feared for his life.
Van Dyke, 37, has been on paid desk duty since the October 2014 incident.
The case would mark the first time a Chicago police officer has been charged with first-degree murder for an on-duty fatality in nearly 35 years. Van Dyke would face a minimum of 20 years in prison if convicted of the first-degree murder charge.
The charges would come less than a week after a Cook County judge ordered the release of the video, which Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration had long sought to keep out of public view. As Emanuel urged prosecutors to conclude their investigation Monday, he met with community leaders and aldermen to defend his handling of the controversy amid criticism that City Hall has not done enough to address police misconduct.
Ordered to release the video no later than Wednesday, the mayor called on religious leaders and activists to encourage peaceful demonstrations even as staff prepared for the public fallout and discussed the best way to unveil the video.
Federal authorities continue to investigate whether Van Dyke violated McDonald’s civil rights protecting him from excessive force by the police. A federal grand jury has heard testimony from dozens of witnesses over the course of several months.
The city lost its court fight last week to keep the video under wraps when the judge ruled in favor of freelance journalist Brandon Smith, who sued under the state’s open records law.
Lawyers for McDonald’s family, who won a $5 million settlement from the city even before filing a lawsuit, have said Van Dyke emptied his Smith & Wesson 9 mm semi-automatic handgun. None of the five other officers at the scene fired a shot, according to city officials.
McDonald’s autopsy found he was shot once on each side of his chest and suffered single bullet wounds in the scalp and neck, two in his back, seven in his arms, one in his right hand and two in his right leg. According to the report, nine of the 16 entrance wounds had a downward or slightly downward trajectory.
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@ Herneith
I heard about it too. I will probably be doing a post on it later today. Thanks for the links.
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Van Dyke has been the subject of 18 complaints ranging from using racial epithets to excessive force to illegally arresting people, according to personnel records obtained by the Invisible Institute, a police-accountability nonprofit.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/24/will-chicago-cop-face-murder-charge-for-firing-every-bullet-into-teen.html?via=newsletter&source=CSAMedition
A year after McDonald’s death, and on the day prosecutors are set to determine if Van Dyke should be charged with murder, the Chicago Police Department still hasn’t concluded whether or not the officer should be disciplined.
This cop should have been fired immediately, not given a temporary desk job. In instances where police are charged, they should be fired. Should they beat the charges, they can they can then try and get their jobs back through the arbitration process. The above quote is from the same article.
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2015/11/24/five-shot-near-minneapolis-protests.html?via=newsletter&source=DDMorning
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Meanwhile, Van Dyke’s wife, Tiffany, has set up a GoFundMe page asking for online donations for her husband’s bond. Although the page does not mention her husband by name, it describes him as a 15-year veteran officer “fighting for his freedom and justice.
“He is a highly decorated and respected officer,” Tiffany Van Dyke wrote. “He was in a shooting that has been covered extensively by the media and we ask for your patience for all the facts to come out in the trial. We want him to be home with his family as we go through this judicial process.”
The page asks for donations “very quickly” so Van Dyke can pay whatever bond is set and he can be home for the holidays.
As of 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, donors, mostly anonymous, had given $9,700 of the $80,000 sought.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-chicago-cop-shooting-video-laquan-mcdonald-charges-20151124-story.html
Didn’t take them long did it? Hopefully the judge set the bond for millions!
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@ Uriel
As I said in that post, you make it all about you and your feelings. That is not helpful. At least it is not helpful in terms of anti-racism. That kind of guilt is what gave rise to racism in the first place. Unless you question and deconstruct your own racism, it will just assume a different form. As it has in White American culture as a whole after the fall of Jim Crow.
Speaking for myself, I do not want you to hate or pity yourself. I want you to learn about racism and tell other Whites. That would be a good first step. I said that in My Advice to White People post and again in the post I wrote to you.
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Agabond,
Some people tried agitating by shooting protesters a BLM protest only to end up getting caught. There is a link at the end of the article that goes to the 4 chan email chain of the shooters.
http://wonkette.com/596372/white-dudes-shoot-up-black-lives-matter-crowd-minneapolis-pd-maces-them-all-lives-matter
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http://wonkette.com/596372/white-dudes-shoot-up-black-lives-matter-crowd-minneapolis-pd-maces-them-all-lives-matter
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@abagond
Why are you twisting my posts into being about “hurt feelings” and me pettily doing nothing. Do you think I am embedding a code or implying something I am not directly saying?
I am not making it all about my feelings. Why? Because not getting acceptance from the good people in the world is not hurt feelings. It is ostracism that leaves me with only irredeemable people (Bill Murray, domestic abuser) and their apologists like Lorne Michaels (creator of SNL) to be with, for things I, personally, have zero control over.
Social justice cannot say any culture I could possibly have is forever evil/ lesser or will always be evil/ lesser in my lifetime and expect me to like it in any way shape or form.
I never said I won’t do any work until I get my answers. I am asking all the while “Why can’t it be just (social justice-wise) to be seen as human?”. I can ask questions and do work at the same time. There is no need to decide. Your advice to me centered around ending racism, something I generally understand how to do and do in some extent. I do not know where is any good place I belong with people who do see me as human.
—-
I do thank you for taking seconds out of your life since some time ago to see white people as human. If you don’t know the answers to my other questions, just say so. I apologize if I came off expecting you to be the all-knowing one or something. If you don’t know about others in any capacity, I understand.
I don’t hate myself. Others hate me, and refuse social (as in further potential to be liked by others, not just by the individual person I wronged) forgiveness and in doing so doom me to be evil. Nobody is entitled to view me as pathetic and lesser no matter what, or at least do so and get a decent audience.
I don’t pity myself because the reason I complain all the time isn’t because this is the worst problem ever (nor does it have to be), but because it affects me all the time (as in not episodically) and can be solved in seconds.
tldr; I am not trying to pull strings or avoid work, I am asking for absolution in some form while I’m still alive.
Look, as I have said before, if you don’t wanna answer anything else, answer this: do you know anybody social justice-approved that’ll answer my questions?
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@ Anne @ michaeljonbarker @ Kiwi
Thank you for the links on Minneapolis! There is a good chance I will be doing a post on it, hopefully tomorrow.
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I understand racism can’t be about me 24/7. But I’m 100% positive 80% of whites think what I think deep down (the rest: 10% genuinely malevolent, 5% super strong and do not need others, and 5% will never be cognizant of racism).
Not only that, but the only reason social justice movements split is ultimately from difference in thought over what to do with privileged people.
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The video of Laquan McDonald getting gunned down by Chicago police is about to be made public, probably within the hour:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-chicago-cop-shooting-video-release-laquan-mcdonald-20151124-story.html
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The press is trying to download the video now…
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Agabond,
You have to read the link from the other article that goes tot he 4 chan email chain that these guys were using to plan the shooting. Scary.
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Oh, by the way, can I please not have an open letter directed at me again, Abagond? Please just respond normally or thru an email.
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@ Uriel
No.
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@ Uriel
All right. No more open letters.
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On another post, Kartoffel had made a statement that he thought Europeans were more racist than white Americans- but I beg to differ.
Here’s a blatant example of how ‘ingrained” anti-black prejudice is in the USA.
This white woman on the Maury show, found out she was part “African” American and fell out like her life was coming to an end!
DNA result came back like this: 15% African, 5% Native America, 80% European.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlhF8DTqhSs)
This young woman, Mary, thought she was part Cherokee all her life because her great-grandmother said she was Cherokee.
Mary is proud of her Native American ancestry and said “her friends did not believe her because she is her very pale and has red hair.”
She got her DNA results (the one I listed above)
and immediately broke down crying, stating “she is glad her mother is dead so that she would never know the Truth” that they aren’t actually “Native Americans” — but black
the great-Grandmother’s “dark skin” came courtesy of Africa with a touch of Cherokee
white Americans LOVE to claim Native American heritage, when in reality, it’s black African blood running through their veins.
that’s why Mary’s grandfather and mother told her that their family were “Native Indian” descendants, because great-Grandmother had to LIE and hide her African identity
I’m sure great-grandma wasn’t trying to get caught up by Jim Crow apartheid laws, since she married a white man
and now 50+ years later,this pale-faced, red-headed white woman, breaks down sobbing because she found out she is part-black/African descended (crying hard too) best laugh I had in years
f’king boo hoo hoo — too bad she can’t keep it a secret since it was live on TV
that in a nutshell, is White America: (anything is better than being black)
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@ Linda
If I recall correctly I said that I thought that Europeans are more opnely racist than Americans. That was meant of course as a general statement regarding mainstrem culture and media. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t masses of open racists in the US.
It also wasn’t meant as a measure if non-whites face more or less discrimination in Europe or the US. I am badly placed to judge that. What I can measure is how much racist talk is tolerated in the media and in social circles. And here it appeared to me that Americans have stricter rules what you can and can’t say about race issues. For example it completly baffled me that there are actual White Americans who deny to notice skin colour. Not just as hyperbole to emphasize their support ofr equality, but literally in everyday life.
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@ Linda
The poor woman! *sniff*
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@Linda
I wanted to cry with her but ended up laughing hard…I feel bad now.
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Nope, not even the Canadian one in October. Unthanksgiving Day sounds like a new holiday, though! Think I’ll start celebrating it!
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No it ain’t. i’ll have you know I do my civic duty by keeping the American economy going. I have been shopping non-stop on the early ‘Black Friday’ sales!!!!!
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Turkey isn’t all it’s cracked up to be anyways.
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Black people united together in Chicago protesting shutting down Michigan Avenue protesting the death of Lequan McDonald. They all became a monolith united together. I wish black people could get together for more injustices in this country and shut the injustice down in our communities.
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Wow, the Gods of Egypt were all White!
http://www.thewrap.com/gods-of-egypt-castng-diversity-apologize-alex-proyas-lionsgate/
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Something is really screwed up with the comment news feed.
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@King: In regards to The Gods Of Egypt casting craziness my take away on that is i find it strange they are just now apologizing, but why apologize at all. They only apologize in a “sorry not sorry” kind of way. I would rather they not apologize at all especially after the damage is done.
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@ Mary
The very fact that they have the kind of mindset where they wouldn’t think of it itself speaks volumes!
– Would they have cast a TV drama about Vikings with 100% Chinese cast and then say, “Wow, our bad!”
– Would they cast a Roman war drama with all Black Roman legionnaires? “Oops! we didn’t even realize that we were lacking in anglo diversity!”
Yet they can cast an Egyptian drama with 100% White people!!
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@King: Exactly.
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@Kiwi:
If it’s any consolation, I am seeing less of these pairings in Toronto here. I see a lot of inter-ethnic pairings such as Chinese/Phillipino, Korean/Chinese etc. I think the white men are losing their lustre for many of the young Asian women, either that or they are ‘waking up’ to what day it is.
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@Uriel @Abagond
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbdxeFcQtaU)
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@villagewriter
Thanks.
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Hi everyone, I only just realised there is an open thread.
@Abagond
I did a quick search, but I didn’t find anything.
Have you done an article on the Belgian Congo?
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Abagond,
I’m surprised you haven’t wrote a piece on 19-year-old Sarah Furay of College Station, Texas. Which the white media as dubbed her as an “adorable drug kingpin”. You’re slippin’ ^_^
she was arrested for alleged possession and delivery of 31.5 grams of cocaine, 126 grams of high-grade marijuana, 29 tablets of Ecstasy, an undisclosed amount of methamphetamine and 60 hits of LSD.
The Black Lives Matter movement, among other criminal justice activists, called out the hypocrisy of the media’s lighthearted approach to Furay’s arrest.
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@ Somali Prince
Aside from passing references, it is touched on in two posts:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/an-open-letter-to-king-leopold-ii/
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2014/08/04/du-bois-the-souls-of-white-folk/
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@Abagond
I am still new to this whole wordpress thing, is there any way to get notifications of new comments rather than having to press ‘F5’ everytime?
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Here’s the article about Sarah Furray.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/01/when-white-girls-deal-drugs-they-walk.html
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Anne,
I read about her on other sites but i would like to know if A Bro is going to write a piece. I like for his racist white lurkers to get twisted and make excuses for this one! lol
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Sondis
I will do a post on her tomorrow.
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abagond:
“I will do a post on her tomorrow.”
Sounds good to me….
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@ Mary
I accidentally deleted a comment of yours in the spam filter. You can resubmit it.
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Thanks for the link, Pumpkin
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@Abagond: Will you be doing a post on the shootings today in San Bernardino shootings today?
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Marry Burrell:
Oh no you don’t….I already put in a request, before you. 🙂
“sondis
Abagond,
I’m surprised you haven’t wrote a piece on 19-year-old Sarah Furay of College Station, Texas. Which the white media as dubbed her as an “adorable drug kingpin”. You’re slippin’ ^_^
she was arrested for alleged possession and delivery of 31.5 grams of cocaine, 126 grams of high-grade marijuana, 29 tablets of Ecstasy, an undisclosed amount of methamphetamine and 60 hits of LSD.
The Black Lives Matter movement, among other criminal justice activists, called out the hypocrisy of the media’s lighthearted approach to Furay’s arrest.”
“abagond
Sondis
I will do a post on her tomorrow”
Maybe he got behind as i don’t see that he posted it. ^_^
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@ Sondis
It is on its way! It should be up shortly.
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Awesome!! ^_^
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Miss Furay:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2015/12/03/sarah-furay/
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Poland is one of those places where a black person is hard to find. Yet, the Polish have a Neo-Nazi group that is against black and brown people. They also don’t like the Jews yet many Jews are already leaving the country anyway. Sooner or later they will be left with the reality that they are losers and that is why they are not comfortable in their own skin. Anyone from Poland here?
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@ Mary
Maybe. It depends on how it shakes out. Last I knew, there was not even an apparent motive.
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@Uglyblackjohn
Got a few questions on your journey with rental homes. If you are interested in answering that is. Let me know.
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Have to admire these individuals.
http://urbanintellectuals.com/2015/12/03/black-activists-raise-money-purchase-village-johnsonville-moodus-connecticut/
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@ ALL
Do you think that the Zwarte Piet feature describe in the article:
(http://edition.cnn.com/2015/11/30/world/blackface-documentary-zwarte-piet-feat/index.html)
is indeed a case of racism or not?
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@munubantu: I have always hated that Zwarte Piet character and i think it’s racist. But the folks in the Netherlands where this racist character is advocated just don’t see how effed up this is.
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@Kiwi
You should check this page out. Been subscribed for about a few weeks now and guy is on point.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=940097696081710&id=100744900016998
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@agabond,
Here’s a story that might inspire you. Or just make you laugh a little.
The Bacon Story
Years ago back when I was in school, I took a home economics class. One of our classes was literally learning how to properly cook bacon. The teacher split us up into groups of two. I was put with a white girl who I was friends with so I thought the activity would be fun. We were each given some bacon and a single frying pan to cook on. My friend took half of the bacon and gave me the other half. She said that we would each cook our half on our side of the pan. I said okay. I thought it was bacon how hard can this be. She placed her half of the bacon on the pan and left it there and proceeded to talk. I did the same but also kept moving the bacon around to keep it from burning. She told me I was cooking it wrong and once again emphasized that we were each cooking our own batch of bacon. She delineated the imaginary line between our bacon to show they were different when she heard the teacher was coming to check on our work. Then her bacon started burning and she had to flip it over to keep it from burning completely. My bacon was fully cooked without burning. As the teacher approached, my friend quickly stirred all of our bacon together in the middle of the pan and told the teacher we were finished. No mention was made of us cooking separate pieces of bacon or the imaginary line in the middle of the pan.
The moral of this story is to never let your bacon burn.
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Daniel Holtzclaw convicted and possibly looking at a 200+ year sentence. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/11/daniel-holtzclaw-conviction-all-white-jury-justice
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@ Abagond’s: Will you be doing a post on Justice Scallia’s racist comment about blacks not performing well in schools where they may seem challenged more and they should probably stay in all black colleges/universities that he thinks the bar is set lower. His statements were very insulting. I wonder what Clarence Thomas thinks of this?
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@ Mary
Maybe. From what I understand, his comments were taken out of context. If so, there is not much to say.
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Since Mirkwood’s responses on “Stuff White People Probably Shouldn’t Say”(but not anything else, including his posts) are starting to resemble issues I have with being good enough for most people involved in social justice.
Before I go any further understand I realize this is not nearly as bad as what poc and other oppressed peoples face and I don’t want poc to answer me as much as white people deemed good enough by most poc like Solitaire and Michael Jon Barker.:
Why is being entitled to be seen as enough bad? How does it hurt to have to give me and many things I am associated with respect (not deference) at all instead of scorn? Seriously, does it take longer than five seconds? If it’s wrong to get acceptance from them, is understanding an option at all? They will be the future history writers and makers. Why must I always be their enemy?
I know most oppressed people don’t hate their privileged counterparts for explicitly being privileged, think of them or their associations as lesser for being privileged in origin, or even try to antagonize them for other reasons that are ultimately subconscious prejudice.
I also know not enough oppressed people or oppressed people supporters have heard of social justice and therefore believe in nonsense spun to make people like myself feel like a deity and thus are living falsehoods and aren’t gaining my trust about many things. And a few might even be using for their own ends.
It is impossible to fix the subconscious, let alone a whole society in my lifetime, so why is it white tears to be liked? It’s not like most of the people who do like me are worthy of accepting respect from, as in:
Do you notice today most murderers, abusers, fraudsters, and thieves are white or at least privileged in other capacities? Even to other privileged people this is the case.
I know many are venting or joking or otherwise not saying what they mean, but many more aren’t and why must I be happy with being hated by many individuals? Moreover, why does anyone send me to read vents or satire like I’ll be able to understand everything because I have superhuman comprehension. Some really do hate me or loathe me but are horrible for other reasons (Dwight York) or are unpopular anyway, though I’m not referring to them.
My goal is to gain a shread of dignity and respect (not worship) in the eyes of the people I dignify and respect before I stop being an agent in my legacy or self.
I recognize my unintentional misunderstanding, melodrama, and miscommunications stem from my foolishness, naivete, and personal illnesses (Asperger’s, serious depression) and I am not omnipotent or omniscient- which is why I’m here for help (and because there is no non-bad forum for discussing oppression that actually gives me any leeway), but if anyone’s confused why do they “decode” my words instead of just plain asking for clarification based off ill said points?
I am not some superstrong island that can live with deserving (albeit limited due to oppression) scorn by most of the world.
tldr; If only the (metaphorically powerful) Manson “family” and a dozen others who actually aren’t bad like said Mansons cared a lick about you, you are not enough. You are a problem who happens to be tolerated by the strongest of the good.
Also, I haven’t found anything or anywhere that answers my questions yet.
Thank you if you have read this.
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EDIT: I meant St-pid* Stuff White People Say.
*St-pid is a slur because it demonizes those who don’t have a choice in their cognition or adjustability. It also assumes intelligence is universal. Please don’t be ableist and continue to use it.
I realize it is awful to utter and I deserve accountability for times I have said it, and I apologize to the mentally handicapped.
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For all blacks who think racists can change their hearts; good luck with that. Maybe this can help open your eyes so that you know what you are dealing with
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=XVw9UjHPEt8)
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@ Ural
You are over analyzing everything and making it harder then it really is.
You worry to much about what other people think about you. It doesn’t matter what other people think. The only thing that matters is how you act.
It is through your actions that gains repect or disrespect.
The default should be that all people are equally repected in society and not seen through biases. It is people’s actions that determine their character and from that respect is reaffirmed.
We have been raised to trust in authority. When we see a police office for example we belive that the officer has our best interests in mind. In reality the officer is no different then any other human. The officers authority is an illusion based on a construct that resembles a public superstition.
Do we see homeless people as having the same value as police officers ? Most people do not, even though their human value is the same. So a police officer can beat a homeless man to death on video tape and still be found not guilty of murder. That is because society values police officers more then they value the homeless. Their “authority” gives them privilages.
Racsim functions similarly in society. That why I’m using that example.
How you live your life is your choice. Choose a set of ethics and make the right choices based on values that moves humanity forward. See people as individuals and don’t make assumptions based on sterotypes.
It doesn’t matter if white people or POC accept you or not. Those are not valid reasons to bother worrying about.
At this point in your life you are looking for direction. Follow your heart and feed your mind and you will eventually find meaning.
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Since affirmative action is back in the news with the SCOTUS case I had to look up this rather unsurprising study about how white people view “merit” when it comes to college admissions. Namely, whites are perfectly willing to say “we should emphasize scores and GPA more” when they think it means judging black and brown students on “merit” but when they’re told that what this does is actually help asians at the expense of whites, they quickly change their tune: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/08/13/white-definitions-merit-and-admissions-change-when-they-think-about-asian-americans
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@ Pumpkin
SCOTUS = Supreme Court of the United States
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Probably within the next 24 hours, this blog will reach 200,000 posted comments. I will point out the 200,000th one.
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Will the 200,000th poster win a prize?
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@ Herneith
I will do a post of their choice (within reason – not something too personal or that would not be out of place on this blog).
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abagond
“Probably within the next 24 hours, this blog will reach 200,000 posted comments. I will point out the 200,000th one.”
I thought you would enter your posters into a drawing to win……A BRAND NEW CAR! lmaoo! ^_^
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Queen Serena Williams new Boss Chick Sports Illustrated cover is remarkable and the racist jack holes tried it by juxtaposing her to the horse American Pharoah. Even with their foul shade, Queen Serena still comes out smelling like a rose. She is GOAT. Greatest of all time.
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Finished T. Coates letter to his son “Between the World and Me”. I thought it had some great insights. I couldn’t relate too much to his world view being an atheist. I still enjoyed the frank honest of his heart and the great love he has for his son. The only critique is it being a bit too melancholy and depressing regarding destruction of black bodies. Still waiting on your review Abagond.
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@ lifelearner
Wait no longer:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2015/09/29/ta-nehisi-coates-between-the-world-and-me/
Cut and paste your comment there if you can.
Thanks!
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^^ thanks Abagond. I guess it’s my Momnesia acting up again, lol. Will do! 😁
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@lifelearner: I was listening to on of my favorite podcast Another Round on Buzzfeed ta-meniscus-coates was the guest and he mentioned how lots of reviewers critiqued his book saying it was a downer. He made a statement saying when he is helping his son navigate through life he will not sugar coat things, because he said the reality of life for black boys is they could end up like Tamir Rice and he just doesn’t do the rose colored glasses bit. He said it wasn’t his job to make people comfortable in regards to his work. He said if people want to read something happy go look at a Disney movie. He was pretty funny and engaging. He said his favorite romantic comedy was 40 Year Old Virgin. And Four Weddings And A Funeral. His favorite cuss word was the N-word. I was a little disappointed in that because I hate that word. Otherwise he is an interesting person. He said if he was writing he would be delivering food because he was lousy at other jobs. He writes because he must he says.
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Abagond: You should do a post on Trevor Noah he’s smart and charming and very insightful. He’s an excellent choice for Jon Stewart’s replacement on The Daily Show.
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*one of my favorite * ^^^^ and *ta-nehisi-Coates*^^^^^
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Has anyone seen “Chi-Raq”? Was it any good?
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@Abagond
I saw it. I thought it was pretty good.
It’s basically satire. I think a lot of people misunderstood that it is meant to be satirical.
It’s based on the Greek classic ‘Lysistrata’.
Since you have an affinity for the Greeks, you’ll probably enjoy it.
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@Abagond
Maybe you have already done something on this, but wouldn’t it be a good idea to have a small section somewhere on how to add quotations, italics, bold etc. to wordpress comments?
I often find some comments hard to read when people don’t use blockquotes, for instance.
Might be useful to have a link somewhere for those just starting out.
I found a good link here:
(https://wpbtips.wordpress.com/2012/02/05/introduction-to-html-for-wordpress-com-users/3/)
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@Abagond: I haven’t seen Chiraq I will probably wait for it to come out on Netflix.
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Also Chance the Rapper came out to speak against it. He was quite critical of the film.
And then Spike Lee pointed out that Chance the Rapper’s father is Rahm Emanuel’s deputy Chief of Staff.
Yes, Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago, the same guy who fought so hard to stop the Laquan McDonald video from being published.
Kind of makes you question those who criticise the film…
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@ Mary Burrell
I get that about T. Coates. He knows he is a pessimist and that’s perfectly ok. I know it wouldn’t work on my kids. Yes racism exist, it sucks. But I’m not going to live my life nor advise my kids to live in constant fear about what might happen. And the book just gives too much into that type of thinking. It’s fatiguing, but there were definitely some great pearls of wisdoms throughout. Like traveling/the African Diaspora, etc. I give it a B- 😀
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The 200,000th comment was made by Solitaire to Jefe on the Daniel Holtzclaw thread:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2015/11/09/daniel-holtzclaw/#comment-304021
As her prize she wants:
Which I will do.
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@michaeljonbarker
Apologies for the late post, I had some kinks to work out. Please do not decode this like Swank and look for “the real meaning”. I mean exactly what I say, if you have questions, just ask.
By the way, my name is Uriel not Ural. I understand you misread it or something, but your posts won’t show up in my notifications if my name is misspelled. I know I misspelled your name in the past too, so please excuse me there as I am excusing you.
“You are over analyzing everything and making it harder then it really is.”
How so?
“You worry to much about what other people think about you. It doesn’t matter what other people think. The only thing that matters is how you act.”
Here’s my logic process:
Good people believe in justice for all.
Social justice is where all or almost all good people are.
A widespread tennant of the social justice movements is “The privileged aren’t entitled to be seen as enough until they end bigotry”.
Bigotry will take a while to end.
Everyone should only treat acceptance from good people as enough.
Therefore, all privileged people no matter what are not enough, and won’t be in my lifetime.
I understand poc or other oppressed people looking down on me with matters regarding them foremost like bigotry, oppressed people not trusting me at first (but at least eventually), and doing work period.
I even understand and sometimes excuse demonization, hatred, or condescension from actual oppressed people not normal privileged people- because allies don’t suffer and have zero right to be impatient unless they, personally are being harassed. Moreover, I realize prejudice will always exist and many oppressed person loathing their privileged counterpart groups don’t always get support.
I’m solely asking to have acceptance and dignity for priviliged people be seen as more than luxury. I am not an island that can survive without others or only bad others.
“It is through your actions that gains repect or disrespect…”
You’re right, nobody should rely exclusively on intent or effort to make decisions, I can control my life/ safety, and acceptance should not be the one goal.
However, I think intent and effort mitigate offenses not remove them entirely. Many people are heartless toolsheds that don’t forgive over the slightest infraction, yet I’m supposed to like them. Even the worst offense should be forgiven by others if the offender is truly repetant. Why bother trying when only final effect matters? Nobody’s Superman.
I understand individuals I affected in the past hating me, but not them dooming me to hatred by anyone else good.
Moreover, I know I won’t die if nobody good likes me, but how is wanting acceptance and social justice contradictory?
(I know you didn’t say this one in the post, but I’ve heard it all to often before):
“Educate yourself and you’ll find away.”
I will never know enough. I also can’t ask queries to books, zines, webpages, or others (at least without getting harassed) if I get stuck. I get doomed to be bad if I make enough mistakes, yet I am expected to be perfect.
I know my meaning and purpose, and it’s not to be exclusively a footnote in somebody else’s story or life. I want to be a person on my own yet still be accepted (provided I do work).
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Also, I’ve read quite a bit. Far to many posts are just venting or other exaggeration I can’t decipher or posts explicitly not for me, despite being put on anti-oppression lists. I don’t like reciting them all because care rather little where the source of info is coming from beyond the oppressions and experiences the author has.
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@Pumpkin I’m referring to staving off depression and finding a job.
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My conditions aren’t a big deal, really, if anyone was wondering.
Also, i’ve decided to make a blog for myself and others not in the know about social justice. It’s largely under construction.
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Anyone want me to follow their blog? I figure i should become an educator to privileged people, but without charging money, writing the anti-bigotry script, or pretending educating other privileged people is a burden.
I’m gonna keep whinings and ventings here to a minimum from now on, now that i found an actual community for social justice queries. I understand i won’t be forgiven by everyone, but if you are among the ones who don’t like me- please don’t try to convince other people to do so as well.
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@ Uriel
There is a saying I have heard in diversity workshops.
“Lean into the discomfort.”
When a privileged person tries to learn more about the anti-racist mindset (or anti-sexist or anti-ableist, etc.), it isn’t always going to feel good.
Sometimes it’s going to feel uncomfortable. Sometimes it’s going to hurt.
You know how when you exercise a muscle, it hurts at first, but then it gets stronger? Able to bear more weight, run longer, jump farther?
It’s the same idea.
Try not to worry so much about whether good people are going to accept you.
Sometimes those good people may seem not to like you when they say things that sound harsh, but they’re actually trying to push and prod you out of your set ways and help you grow.
Maybe you can compare it to how a coach or personal trainer might come down hard on you if they don’t think you’re giving it your all.
It isn’t because they don’t like you. It’s because they’re trying to get you to lean into the discomfort.
It gets easier with practice 🙂
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@ Uriel
“I don’t want poc to answer me as much as white people deemed good enough by most poc like Solitaire…”
I don’t really think this is true of me.
Most PoC when I first meet them are as wary of me as they would be of any other white person. I have to prove myself. It can take a very long time to prove myself, and even then the PoC may never fully let down their guard with me the way they would another PoC.
I think that’s understandable. I don’t let it hurt me that I’m never 100% accepted because I know they are just trying to protect themselves. PoC are emotionally hurt by things like microaggressions every day. They have the right to do whatever they can to guard against such pain.
I also still make mistakes. I have been with my PoC spouse for a very long time, and I’m much better than I was when we first met, but I still make mistakes. Sometimes I still have trouble understanding what he’s going through, or I say the wrong thing, or I say something that isn’t helpful, something that comes from a white lens, from a white perspective, and from white privilege.
He doesn’t always get angry at me when I make a mistake, but sometimes he does, if it really hurts him or he’s feeling especially vulnerable.
He can get angry at me for saying something racist and hurtful, and yet he can still love me at the same time, and he can still think that I’m a good person at the same time.
He knows that I grew up in a racist world and from the time I was very little, through no fault of my own, I was learning racism from everyone and everything around me. He knows that when I slip up, it is from unthinking and unintentional racism. It’s because I’ve stumbled on another unconscious racist belief that I hadn’t yet examined and unlearned.
He believes this is true of all of us, including himself, even though he is a PoC. From the time we are born, we learn racism. When we are adults, some of us begin to try to unlearn that racism. It will take us our entire lives, and we will never attain perfection. But we can get better.
I don’t know as much as I should about Asperger’s, so I apologize in advance if I overstep any bounds in what I’m about to say. Please feel free to correct me.
What I believe I have heard is that individuals who have Asperger’s often have issues with decoding and interpreting the emotions of other people.
I’m wondering if maybe some of your stress about how you will be seen and whether you will be accepted is related to this?
A lot of the frequent posters on this blog use satire, irony, sarcasm, impatient language, harsh tone, etc. I could see where a person who has Asperger’s might be anxious about those types of remarks.
Would you feel comfortable in reminding people that you have Asperger’s, at least until the regulars get to know you? That way they can remember to check their own neurotypical privilege and try their best to communicate with you in a straightforward, nonsarcastic manner.
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@ Uriel
Thanks for laying this out. It is more clear to me where you are coming from.
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@ Uriel
The way I think of it is that no one who grew up in the US can ever be completely free from racist thinking. It is like being a recovering alcoholic. You do the best you can.
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@ Uriel
“at least until the regulars get to know you”
I’m sorry for the above remark. I just looked at the start of the thread and realized you have been posting on abagond’s blog for much, much longer than I have.
This is the first time I’ve ever looked at the open thread. I’m not subscribed or signed up for those e-mail new comment alert thingies.
I apologize for assuming you were new here.
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@ abagond
“It is like being a recovering alcoholic.”
Exactly. I’ve actually heard it called being a recovering racist, or being a racist in recovery. (You probably have heard that already too.)
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@ Kiwi
Excellent topic!!! Thanks for the link.
From what I know, Blacks in New York in the 1970s wanted the same forgiving approach, but they did not have the money and the White voters of the state thought it was too expensive (or at least their representatives thought so), so Black heroin addiction was seen as a crime instead. Crack cocaine – the same thing. Black public health issues became “Black crime”, yet further proof of their criminal nature.
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@Abagond: Yep, and that criminalization of drugs doesn’t actually help to solve the problem. But it does help keep Blacks down and out of the way, which soothes racist Whites’ prejudicial attitudes.
@Abagond:
Yes, exactly. The culture is so suffused with racist thought, that everyone absorbs it. The best you can do is try to keep pushing it out, keep combating one’s own ignorance by paying more attention and engaging with what racially subordinated peoples say and keeping one’s views flexible and evolving. But you’ll always get reminders of “how to view things ‘racistly'” and that makes the battle a constant one.
@Uriel:
Yes, and I admit I struggle with exactly this kind of thought process myself, because I do not think it’s fair to say that people cannot be acceptable for things that are not all their own fault: e.g. being privileged is not the fault of that person — they didn’t choose it, so they should not have any moral culpability for that any more than they have moral culpability for anything else they didn’t choose. It implies they can never be truly good, because of things beyond their control. However when I think that, I also think about that I could be wrong in how I am interpreting things, that I might also be projecting my own biases or my own literalness onto what is being said (are they really saying you have no moral worth, or is it sensible to say that because we can never eliminate the thinking, that what really determines our moral worth is the sincerity of our effort toward achieving it in ourselves, even if the goal is never reached? After all, absolute moral perfection is not reachable by anyone anyways), and I also know that Black people or any other group are diverse in their views on just what constitutes social justice, and of the moral judgments that are involved in its production and it would not be right to, ahem, “privilege” any one group of views over another in this complex and multifaceted topic, much less as a privileged-group member who wouldn’t be right to dictate to underprivileged people what they should think and I tend therefore to be cautious when it comes to such things. Better to try and see where they each contain valuable insights and points of truth, that’s the only real way to do everyone justice, imo, and to never take anything personally, as hard as that might be when you feel included by association. I might offer insights or advice based on what I see, but I always allow them to be rejected or critiqued when it comes to talking with members of underprivileged groups because they have first-hand experience I don’t, and justice entails them to have freedom to think what they want and not to be controlled by everyone else, in other words, the same freedom the privileged groups enjoy. I do, however, tend to push harder on members of privileged groups and definitely very hard on fuming supremacist racists where there is clear hate in their rhetoric (slurs, affirmation of common supremacist tropes/dogmas, etc.).
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@ Uriel
I have a question; I hope you don’t mind my asking.
Do you have a public library near you?
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Wow, this is really outrageous!!!
http://www.wtsp.com/story/news/2015/12/22/florida-woman-dies-while-being-kicked-out-hospital/77772712/
http://news.yahoo.com/naacp-woman-dies-being-forcibly-removed-hospital-022119890.html
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@Solitaire
I do, what books do you recommend i should get?
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@ Uriel
Have you read Beverly Tatum’s book “Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria”? If not, that’s a great place to start.
Then read the other books that are by it on the shelf. Look at the bibliographies in those books and find some of the material cited there. (You don’t have to read all of it, of course. This is just a way to let one book launch you on to the next.)
Tatum’s book should be in the topic area of race relations. Another topic area to look for is the history of various racial and ethnic groups (Ron Takaki’s “A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America” is a good introduction, assuming you’re in the USA).
Have you done much reading and research in books yet, or have you been trying to do most of your self-education on blogs like this one?
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
Sharinalr has asked you a couple questions, and you continue to disrespect her by not even acknowledging them. If you don’t intend to answer (and I for one would be very interested in hearing those answers), then at least do her the courtesy of saying so.
You Yankees do have manners, correct?
“Both men of whom you speak were anti-slavery.”
Slavery has nothing to do with the fact that they committed treason most foul against their king and sovereign.
“Franklin especially so, in the later years of his life. Are you that much of a clown?”
How much of a clown am I? Enough of a clown to know the reason you said “especially in the later years of his life” is because before that, Franklin owned slaves.
I’ll grant you that he changed his ways and even wrote an anti-slavery tract or two. But Franklin still was more of a racist than Angelina and Sarah Grimke, Cassius Marcellus Clay, or Moncure Conway.
“Also, the American Revolution inaugurated a titanic wave of abolition laws in the Northern states”
http://www.ushistory.org/presidentshouse/history/slavery-gw-oney.htm
“The constitution of the Vermont Territory (1777) prohibited slavery, but rather than freeing the enslaved, it required slaveholders to remove them from the territory. The history of abolitionism should not be romanticized; while the majority of individuals acted out of moral rectitude, others acted out of self-interest.”
“Legal slavery ended in Pennsylvania in 1847, freeing the fewer than 100 enslaved who remained. Legal slavery ended in New Jersey in 1865, the same year that it ended in the Confederacy, freeing the fewer than 20 enslaved who remained.”
“As President, Washington’s only official action regarding slavery was signing the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act into law…. It became a federal crime to assist an escaped slave, punishable by severe fines.”
http://slavenorth.com/
“When the Northern states gave up the last remnants of legal slavery, in the generation after the Revolution, their motives were a mix of piety, morality, and ethics; fear of a growing black population; practical economics; and the fact that the Revolutionary War had broken the Northern slaveowners’ power and drained off much of the slave population. An exception was New Jersey, where the slave population actually increased during the war.”
“Northern prejudice, and the inability of those states to assimilate their former slaves, certainly discouraged efforts toward freeing the slaves in the South. Having inadvertently freed the slaves in the state, the Massachusetts legislature voted to bar interracial marriages and expel all blacks who were not citizens. Boston authorities took action against 240 of them in 1800, most natives of Rhode Island, New York, Philadelphia, and the West Indies. White Philadelphians were rioting against blacks from 1805, driving them from the Fourth of July celebrations on Independence Square. Within a decade, the burning of black churches in the city had begun.”
Surf around in that website for awhile and you’ll see how many of the northern states simply recategorized slaves as indentured servants or sold the majority of the slaves down the river right before the date the abolition law took effect.
“There are very few wars/periods of history where morality is entirely black and white, without shades of gray”
There are no wars/periods of history where morality is entirely black and white — FIFY
“There is no comparing the North and the South. It is the difference between Gandalf and Sauron.”
Run that gem by any Native American and then time how long they laugh in your face.
“By the way, Solitaire, you can add William Wilberforce to my list of heroes!”
The list I’m keeping of your heroes has POC in the title. So far there are no entries.
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@Solitaire, and to a lesser extent mike4ty4
A little belated, but here goes. Please excuse my tone, i’m genuinely trying not to be whiny or condescending. Also, Solitaire can you respond in direct terms this time?, i think your last response was a little abstract and flew over my head.
1. I don’t mind that you saw me as a newby, since you know more now. It’s cool.
2. Why do you consider acceptance or at least being seen as enough as an entitlement not a right? Do i deserve to have my arms broken until i cure amputation? How do poc (for instance) get hurt by seeing any white people (for instance)?
3. I know poc calling me out usually want me to get better, but many don’t forgive until it’s too late. Moreover, if i am not expected end racism, why am i expected to accept being hated by any poc, accept being only in my lesser culture and not taking influence no matter how respectfully, and accept not deserving to have aspirations afar from social justice like painting (note: i don’t like painting, it’s just an example; my point here is many think all whites must be like John Brown who’s life was eventually solely dedicated to anti-racism, nothing else) until racism ends.
4. I am here, among other places, because there are very few places where i can educate myself AND ask questions if i get stuck. I will admit i originally came here out of a form white entitement (demanding poc for answers- apologies- i won’t do it again); but seeing as there other white peoplehere who are better at social justice than me, there’re interesting things here not completely related to social justice, and far too many people act like tools about ableism and need to be corrected- i decided to stay.
5. The only real things people have done in anti-bigotry circles that are ableist are a) assume i can magically get over depression issues like not be accepted, b) link, instruct, or recommend things not said directly, yet expect me to grasp them with ease and c) use slurs like cr-zy, st-pid, and r-tard.
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Also,
6) Most sources don’t give me any answers because a) despite the fact i’m lead to them- they are vents or indirect speeches not meant for me, b) just source what i already know (racism exists, white privilige exists) and maybe then proceed to offer abstract half-solutions that make no sense, and c) are for-profit and thus don’t deserve my trust.
I can go to the library, but how’ll i know if it addresses how to contribute to ending racism without losing things that don’t hurt other people like autonomy and acceptance let alone allow following-up if i get stuck? If i am taught how to think, why must i give up self and become just a part of a horrible mass and not much else, unlike anybody oppressed who apparently are the only ones who can consider themselves enough without completing a lengthy goal according to the people i see good.
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And two final things (for now):
7) I know anti-racism work can’t be about me, specifically, let alone any other white people 24/7. I am not trying to derail somebody else’s convo, i’m trying to get mine started as i believe seeing me as enough will take way shorter. So i only ask other whites who i think are generally assured in anti-racism someway, to not hamper poc’s lives or anything.
0) Could you please respond to my points letter-by letter, if you could? That way i’d know what you are referring to when you respond to points i make. I’m marking this as ‘zero’ because it’s more a guide query than a point being made.
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@ Uriel
I will respond to your questions and will address them point-by-point. It may be a couple days before I can do so, as I will need to think about how to best answer some of the questions you asked and also because I’m horribly behind in wrapping Xmas gifts.
Just wanted you to know I read this and I’m not ignoring you. I’ll begin now to formulate a response in my head and will write it out and post it as soon as I can.
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Okay, thanks dude.
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@ Kiwi
“What sickens me most is how Blacks who do drugs are punished as criminals but Whites who do drugs are seen as victims in need of help, as if Blacks are not like that, too.”
In the 80″s Blacks smoked “crack” and whites smoked “free base”. Both were cocaine that got “cooked” so that it could be smoked. There was a crack epidemic but not a free base epidemic even though it was the same thing. The crack epidemic was tied solely to Blacks even though far more whites were free basing.
http://www.salon.com/2013/08/10/busting_the_crack_propaganda_myths_partner/
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Here’s some odd trivia about myself.
Today is my birthday and I’m 54. My grandfather was born in 1896 a hundred and nineteen years ago. How is this possible ? My grandmother was 20 when she got pregnant from my grandfather who was 39 at the time. This was in 1935 and back then well to do whites either got an abortion (from their family doctor) or their was a rush shot gun wedding. My grandparents were wed out of town and the date of my moms birth was changed to look like she was born AFTER they were married. My grandmother took the real date of my moms birth to her grave.
My grandfathers parents were children during the civil war and they came from a slaver family. That makes slavery less like ancient history and a little to close to home for comfort.
I was raised in a Christian fundamentalist home and was pretty much beaten everyday. In my mid twenties I was admitted into drug rehab and it was their that I learned that beating kids wasn’t normal and that it was child abuse. I also learned that child abuse is something that gets passed from generation to generation. So it ended with me.
So here’s something to think about. We know slavers beat their slaves and theirs no reason to believe that they wouldn’t beat their own kids as well. So the cycle of violence in my family could very well be traced back to when they bought their first human being.
Social conservatives love to talk about “returning to traditional values”. About some myth that our grandparents and earlier were some how more “wholesome” then families today.
Based upon what I know about my families “traditional values” I hope we never return to that kind of social dysfunction and violence.
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@ MJB
HAPPY BIRTHDAY – MERRY CHRISTMAS – HAPPY NEW YEAR
.
I am glad you’re here sharing: your personal experiences, knowledge, insights and ability to access and profile others with pinpoint accuracy!
I may not agree with everything you say, but I certainly always look forward to reading whatever you have to say!
IMO, “traditional values” is much like “conventional wisdom”.. when you’re done unwrapping the package, all that’s inside is a bunch of stinky B/S.
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@ Michael Jon Barker
Happy Birthday!!!
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
“You want to re-fight the Civil War”
Not really, although it sure seems you want to. My top interests are as follows:
1) Your answers to Sharinalr’s questions.
2) Your naming a POC whom you consider a personal hero.
“just the two of us?”
I welcome all comers.
“I’ve poked around on Slavenorth.com and I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts that it’s run by some Southerner trying to relativize the Confederacy.”
Tell you what, son. You poke around a little more and find me some actual proof and post it here. Why don’t you start on the section about your home state? That ought to be a good bracing read.
“In the end, that’s all that this is about: was the Confederacy good, or was it evil?”
Nope. I never once argued the Confederacy was good. Futhermore, I have no interest in arguing black/white either/or dichotomy.
And I do believe most of my points have been about the Union.
I was reading about Andersonville before you were born, child. Same with James McPherson.
I have a feeling you haven’t read past 1865. Try some research on Reconstruction and the Compromise of 1877, when the Republicans in the North betrayed the southern blacks for political gain.
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@ Uriel
I promise I’m not ignoring you. I’ve already started working on a rough draft of my reply.
You asked a lot of difficult questions that will take some work and thought.
Whereas I can refute LoM on my phone while sitting at a red light in traffic.
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@ Fan
I like your commentary as well. You mince no words and you make me laugh. You see clearly the world as it is.
I’m not sure about the pinpoint accuracy part particularly about myself.
I try to be as honest as I can because we are all surrounded by lies. When you get older, your back begins to hurt, you become more cynical and you’ll wake up on day with this epiphany that it doesn’t matter what other people think about you. The only thing that matters is the Truth and the people you care about. Everything else is just a distraction from the truth and an interference in how you care for your people.
A lot of my thinking is on the fringe for a WM so I might as well be an island. Its an open boarder community where ideas are welcome and peace is based on mutual respect.
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Oh, happy birthday michaeljonbarker! Also, happy holidays everyone!
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nah man it was the white rocks that was petrochemical reduced or the yellow ish was ether base you could get either if you knew the right people, the ether base was kind of a unicorn, etherbase did die out it’s too dangerous to make and everyone loves speed these days (yuck!)
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still smokin coke
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http://www.hipforums.com/forum/topic/236076-making-cocaine-hydrochloride/
i guess it depends on what brick but i think most of it was white from colombia et al. in bricks and cooking ether rocks would be ‘double distilling’ it after it was powder
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me personally? i’m talking about 92ish to 94 east coast
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
“First, you’ll have to remind me what Sharina’s questions are, as I seem to have forgotten.”
Sorry. Do your own homework. I’ll give you a hint: they’re in the thread we came here from.
“Finally, I think you have an agenda, Southern boy.”
That’s ma’am to you, thank you kindly. And what agenda would that be?
“In a few comments, you’ll be pulling out a Confederate flag, singing “Dixie,” and trying to find a slave to whip while justifying treason. Y’all almost always show y’all’s true colors in the end! (And no, I don’t hate all Southerners.”
I’m sure we’re all right pleased that you only hate and stereotype most of us.
“Atticus Finch, no matter what the fraud of a book “Go Set a Watchman” has to say.”
Bless your heart. You do realize Atticus Finch is a fictional character? And how can a novel be a fraud?
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“The one I then proceeded to describe in detail, about Confederate flag waving and slaveholding.”
So you think I own slaves? I’m not sure I’m following your line of thought here.
“I know enough about y’all to know that that’s your way of saying “F you.” ”
You don’t know enough, then. It has many different meanings.
If I said to one of my kin, “Bless your heart, you’ve done more than enough; run along to bed now,” am I telling them to go eff themselves?
Although in this case, it mean something more along the lines of “That sure is pitiful, to be so confused. I do feel sorry for you.”
“People have been using fictional characters as role models since time immemorial.”
So you have a white fictional character as a role model, but not one real POC?
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“Oh, and one of my high-school English teachers was a transplanted Southerner (with EXTREMELY liberal politics), and he may have been the best I ever had. Understood?”
Sure. You “didn’t really think of him as a Southerner.” He was “an honorary Northerner.” He “wasn’t like all the rest.”
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“And what’s wrong with Atticus Finch?”
What’s wrong with having a real historical POC as a role model or hero?
“You seem to have a hell-bent anti-Northern, anti-abolitionist agenda, so…”
And yet somehow I can name dozens of POC heroes of mine off the top of my head, while you…
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“No less an authority than that Southern English teacher told us about the fake Southern smile (which really means “God, I hate you”) and things like “Bless your heart.” ”
And that makes you an expert, does it?
What does Abagond call that? Native informant?
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Abagond,
Article of Interest
Americans Held Hostage in Iran Win Compensation 36 Years Later
Buried in the huge spending bill signed into law last Friday are provisions that would give each of the 53 hostages or their estates up to $4.4 million. Victims of other state-sponsored terrorist attacks such as the 1998 American Embassy bombings in East Africa would also be eligible for benefits under the law.
But this year, vindication came in a decision that forced the Paris-based bank BNP Paribas to pay a $9 billion penalty for violating sanctions against Iran, Sudan and Cuba. Some of that money was suddenly available for victims of state-sponsored terrorism. Congress was also motivated by many members’ anger over the Iran nuclear accord.
Some of the hostages were subject to physical and psychological torture during their long ordeal, and many regarded the thaw as frustrating and premature.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/25/us/politics/americans-held-hostage-in-iran-win-compensation-36-years-later.html?&moduleDetail=section-news-5&action=click&contentCollection=Middle%20East®ion=Footer&module=MoreInSection&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=article
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@Solitaire
I’m not ignoring you (as evidenced by my like) or being impatient or anything, i’m just gonna suggest you answer a few at a time (to speed things up) and to ask questions to me if you misunderstand something instead of “decode” or assume (for obvious reasons)- not that you plan on doing the latter.
Anyhow, in #2 i’m referring to the “If poc can’t, you shouldn’t either.” rule used in cultural appropriation and acceptance arguments, when i was saying the amputation analogy, just for reference.
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Does anyone or has anyone call(ed) Abagond “Julian”, his first name? It just strikes me as odd.
I mean, i normally use my first name in writing; probably because ‘Wastus’ by itself isn’t very catchy and i don’t prefer being called my full name.
No, my real name isn’t Uriel Wastus, i think of all the frequent commenters, only Michael Jon Barker has given his real name and maybe Mary Burrell.
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@ Ural
I give my real name because I have the privilege to do so. Many posters here have employer’s and are in positions that their true identity might cause them problems and I respect that.
Someday maybe some hater might try to dox me or if the political climate becomes more repressive in the U.S. I may become a target. I believe in standing up but know that someday it might not end well.
The things I say and belive in are important to me. To use my real name means I stand behind what is say.
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@michaeljonbarker
It’s Uriel, not Ural. I’m named after an archangel, not a river.
Kapeesh to the rest of what you said tho.
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Actually, abagond can you delete my last post as it was a bit ill-formatted (forgot to put my link in parantheses)?
For anyone who thinks Jews are all European white:
(http://reverseracism.tumblr.com/post/82592168758/hisusie-the-moderator-had-asked-if-i-wanted-to)
Also, note ‘Palestinian Jews’ don’t exist. You’re referring to the Old Yisshuv, Jews who returned to Palestine before Zionism in late Medieval times and are a mix of Ashkenazim, Mizrahim, and Sefardim anyway. You also might mean the Samaritans, who are Bney Israel (Israelites) not Bney Yehuda (Jews).
The answer people who are even remotely hesitant about condemning Zionism are trying to figure out is what to do with the Jews, as we already know the Palestinians have right of return. Few Jews outside of Israel want a genocide or a settler state. We want a nationstate that isn’t tied to one particular subset of us, or nationstates if the gap is too wide.
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Sorry Uriel for getting your name wrong. It might have been auto spell.
Uriel is the archangel for the North. Uriel represents the element Earth and it’s color is green.
Tradition has the four archangels representing the four elements and they face outwards away from the Earth to shield the Earth from evil. Their is a whole hierarchy of angelic beings under their command. It’s part of the theological geocentrisim of the dark ages.
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It’s cool if it’s autospell or plain forgetfulness. Uriel isn’t canon in a sizable amount of churches anyway. I was only Christian for two years, and even then it was a shallow Methodist church i went to exclusively because my friends did to. I behaved ill there and so my parents refused to let me go to the synagog when i was a youth and i am just now going to a synagog in order to get a good, uncolonial culture.
I chose the name ‘Uriel’ because i liked the sound of it and it’s the least known archangel of the 4, with very few people in the world being named ‘Uriel’ as opposed to Raphael, Gabriel, or Michael. Until five seconds ago when i read your post, i knew very little about them (i don’t give the archangels or other spiritual beings gender, it’s wholly unnecessary).
The Dark Ages is relative, and even within Europe it wasn’t all a step backward (such as in Spain). The Arab Muslim world flourished during this time, just to name one society.
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@ Uriel
Ok, here we go. Thank you for your patience. I’ll see how much I can answer now, and we can go from there.
“Also, Solitaire can you respond in direct terms this time?, i think your last response was a little abstract and flew over my head.”
I’m going to try. It will help me if you give me more specific feedback on which parts you find too abstract. That way I can try to rephrase it in a more concrete way.
I’m still trying to figure out how best to express myself in a way that will be conducive to our discussion. I’m afraid of making things too simplistic because I don’t want to insult your intelligence. It may take some trial and error before I get it right.
1. Thank you.
2. This is a difficult question to answer, and I may have more to write on it later wihen I think about it more fully. I don’t think that POC get hurt just by seeing white people. What hurts is that some white people do things to make POC feel bad. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the term “micro-aggressions”? If not, we can discuss what that is.
But basically when POC go about their day, when they encounter white people, there is always a chance that the white person will do or say something racist that will make them feel bad. Most POC can’t get through a single day without at least one bad experience with a white person. This is very hard on them emotionally. They feel unaccepted.
So we start with the fact that POC do not feel accepted by white people, and it is because of the actions of many white people that POC feel this way. I wish that POC received acceptance from all white people as a right, but they do not. This is a simple reality: POC are not accepted by many white people, and they are made aware of their unacceptance by white people every single day.
If POC have to live with this reality, I don’t see why I should receive different treatment from POC as they receive from most white people. I don’t see why I should consider myself to have a right to be instantly accepted by them. White people as a whole do not extend that right to POC. Until white people begin to accept POC as a right, I don’t think it is fair that I expect POC to accept me as my right.
Now, it may seem emotional or illogical for POC to not approach each new white person they meet as an individual who has a clean slate. Actually, though, what POC are doing is something that is described in probability theory, if you’re familiar with that. They are calculating percentages and probability to determine the best tactic to take. It is similar to game theory.
Before I write this next part, I want to say that I only have a very basic understanding of probability and game theory. My math skills are very bad, which has kept me from understanding it in-depth. So if you’re familiar with these theories, please excuse any misuse of terminology, miscalculations of percentages, etc.
Let’s look first at an example that doesn’t have to do with race. I’m going to use some terms here that I hope you won’t find objectionable, although you can tell me if you do. (Personally, I proudly identify as a geek.)
So here’s the example: When I was in high school, I was picked on a lot. There were a number of different groups in my high school: the drama geeks, the science nerds, the pretty popular people, the sports jocks, etc.
Out of those groups, the sports jocks were the ones who most picked on me. Not all of them did, but most of them did. The drama geeks and the science nerds were far less likely to pick on me, although a few of them did.
Let’s say that in the set of students who were jocks, 85% of them picked on me and 5% did not. The remaining 10% would be nice to me if the two of us were alone, but if other jocks were around, they would pick on me with the others.
That means out of the set called jocks, 95% always or sometimes picked on me, whereas only 5% never picked on me.
When meeting a jock for the first time, I would calculate the probability as being 95% that this individual person would pick on me sometime in the future. I would calculate the probability as only 5% that this particular jock would never pick on me.
This would lead me to conclude that it wasn’t safe to trust this jock until they proved to me they were in the 5% that would never pick on me. If I were to immediately trust this new jock, I might trust them with a secret. But because they hadn’t yet proven themselves, because I didn’t know for certain that they were in the 5% subset who would never pick on me, then there was a 95%chance that they would later use that secret against me and tell it to the other jocks and taunt me about it.
Therefore it was a much, much safer strategy for me not to trust any jock at first meeting, and maybe not for a long time afterwards. If an individual jock wanted my trust, they had to prove that they were in the 5%. That was my strategy for playing the game of “how best to avoid having my trust betrayed and my secrets exposed and taunted by jocks.”
Something very similar is happening when POC don’t fully accept a white person.
There are no exact numbers quantifying how many white people are racist, but let’s use some as a thought exercise.
Establish that white people are a set. Within this set, there are subsets.
The first subset is 10% who are virulent racists.
The next subset is 85% who are unthinking racists. Within this large subset there are many, many subsets; there is gradation all the way from people who have a lot of subconscious unexamined racism to people who only have some.
The last subset is 5% of white people who are true allies and anti-racists.
Therefore, 95% of all white people belong to subsets that consist of racists, although there is variation as to the degree and severity of the racism.
When a POC meets a white person, it is logical for them to deduce that the probable chance the white person belongs to the 5% is statistically very low.
It makes logical sense for the POC to assume that the white person they have just met is in the 95% until that white person proves otherwise.
It is the best strategy in how to play the game of “how best to avoid having my trust betrayed by white people.”
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@Solitaire
I know poc don’t dislike white people by default, i was referring to being trusted eventually (tho not at first) and not being antagonized. I’m not above racism and neither is anyone, so i understand mistrust up to a point. Again, excuse my tone, i understood your point
Yet the following are believed consistently among sj circles:
1. If you are privileged and somebody oppressed treats you like garbage purely for being privileged, you have no right to hate or regret the fact. You must accept it as it could be worse and/ or oppressed people are entitled to be gits until they replicate actions that cause oppression in the first place.
[Why can’t sj at least let me loathe or condescend individual poc who do hate me or denigrate me? What burden is it to let me hate those who view me as worthless or worthful exclusively as a tool or a shining angel, provided i don’t antagonize them or stereotype poc? Can’t i foremost focus on my personal problems instead of throwing my life to somebody else?]
2. Being liked by unforgivable privileged trashcans and their current apologists almost exclusively qualifies as acceptance. It is fee-fees to demand more than them to see you as enough.
[Why do i have to be content with the scumbuckets who do like me, but are actually bad? Do they want me to be pathetic or an object?]
3. Collective responsibility should happen because collective rewards do.
[So i should break my arm not just because others are amputees but because an award winning doctor is among my sort? Just don’t even bother with me if i’m at best going to be an object.]
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*i understood your point about why mistrust is important.
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@ Uriel
3. You wrote: “I know poc calling me out usually want me to get better, but many don’t forgive until it’s too late.”
I’m not sure what you mean by “too late.” Too late for what?
“Moreover, if i am not expected end racism, why am i expected to accept being hated by any poc, accept being only in my lesser culture and not taking influence no matter how respectfully, and accept not deserving to have aspirations afar from social justice like painting”
Again, I’m not sure why you think these things are true. Maybe it would help if you could share a couple experiences you’ve had as examples. Have there been POC who told you that you don’t deserve to have any other aspirations than social justice? Have they told you it isn’t ok to also want to paint or do other things as well?
Even POC who are very much involved in anti-racism do other things, too. They paint or play musical instruments or write poetry or fly kites or practice martial arts or volunteer at animal shelters or play video games. If there are in fact people who have made you feel like you can only devote your life entirely to anti-racism or otherwise you are a bad person, I would say those are not people you should listen to. Those people are wrong.
4. I’m not sure whether you were looking for a response or just explaining your motives and thoughts. My feeling about what you wrote is that I agree with what you said. This is a good place to educate yourself, ask questions of others, and discuss a wide variety of issues.
5. These are all valid points. I have done (c) before, even on this site for the short time I have been posting here, and I feel bad about that. But I’m trying to do better, and I’m grateful that you have pointed out how this language isn’t acceptable.
I am also still struggling with (b), since I don’t seem to have a clear sense yet on how to distinguish between direct and indirect speech. I do understand that you may not be able to grasp things easily if they aren’t written directly. I don’t have a problem with that. It’s just difficult for me to figure out exactly how to modify my usual writing style, and I would appreciate it if you give me feedback when something I write isn’t direct or clear.
6. The reason I suggested you go to the library is that, at least in my experience, books are less likely to be vents and more likely to be useful than many internet sources. A lot of blogs that deal with anti-racism aren’t written for white people. Abagond even has a post saying that he doesn’t write this blog for white people (although he doesn’t mind if we read it).
But there are many, many books on racism and race issues that are written for white people. Those books are written specifically to help white people understand not just that racism exists but how white privilege and racism affects POC, what white people can do to help change the status quo, etc.
I’m not sure, though, how many of these books use indirect speech. I think there must be some that will be pretty straightforward and clear.
If you start reading something, whether it is a book or an article or a source on the internet, and it seems to just be someone venting or it is written in a very abstract way, you don’t have to finish it. It’s ok to say, “This isn’t helping” and put it down and start on the next book on the shelf, until you find one that is really good and answers a lot of your questions.
The reason I suggested the library is that I find books to be more helpful in some ways than the internet. There is a lot more information available in books, and as I said earlier, it’s easier to find books on racism that are geared to white readers. But there are also benefits to the internet, like being able to ask questions and have discussions. I think both approaches are good, especially when used in combination.
“I can go to the library, but how’ll i know if it addresses how to contribute to ending racism without losing things that don’t hurt other people like autonomy and acceptance let alone allow following-up if i get stuck?”
Well, this is where I would suggest using both the library and the internet in combination. If you get stuck on something in a book, come here and ask about it. You can say, “Hey, I’m reading this book and the author says such-and-such, but that doesn’t make sense to me because of such-and-such. What do you all think?”
“If i am taught how to think, why must i give up self and become just a part of a horrible mass and not much else, unlike anybody oppressed who apparently are the only ones who can consider themselves enough without completing a lengthy goal according to the people i see good.”
Uriel, who has made you feel this way? I don’t understand where this is coming from. Maybe now you are writing above my head; that’s very possible. So I’m going to try not to decode but ask you to explain more thoroughly and directly.
It is confusing to me because I have never felt that in order to be involved in anti-racism, I must give up my sense of self and become part of a horrible mass, that I must consider myself to be bad, that I must be ashamed of who I am. No one has made me feel that way.
Here is an example. I haven’t been posting here long, but from the beginning I have made no attempts to hide that I am white. No one has told me I should be ashamed of that. No one has told me I can’t post because I’m white. No one has told me I’m bad because I’m white.
Furthermore, I have also said several times that I identifiy as a Southerner. Now, that should be the worst of the worst, right? But only one person so far has tried to say that because I am a white Southerner, I am evil and bad–Lord of Mirkwood.
If being an anti-racist means white people have to give up self, then why hasn’t anyone else told me I’m a horrible person because I’m a white Southerner? Why didn’t Abagond ban me right away for being a racist slave-owning redn-ck cr-cker?
Do you see the point I’m trying to make? If what you are saying is true, I shouldn’t even be allowed to post on this blog. Therefore I posit that it isn’t true, at least not among ALL of the POC anti-racists.
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@ Uriel
Sorry, I was typing the second half of my post and didn’t see your reply to the first part until after I finished.
“I know poc don’t dislike white people by default, i was referring to being trusted eventually (tho not at first) and not being antagonized. I’m not above racism and neither is anyone, so i understand mistrust up to a point. Again, excuse my tone, i understood your point”
Sorry. You said that a lot of what I wrote was too abstract, and I didn’t know which parts.
But I would say that even being trusted eventually is not something anyone has a right to. That has to be decided by the person who is giving the trust. If someone said to you, “Uriel, you’ve known me for a long time, you should trust me by now, it isn’t fair that you don’t trust me,” they would basically be demanding your trust and telling you what to do and how to feel. It is your decision on how far to trust someone else. No one else can decide that for you.
If a POC doesn’t trust you, or they trust you some but not fully, that isn’t something you can change except by continuing to act in good faith towards them and hoping eventually to earn their trust.
And if you never fully earn their trust, so what? It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It may mean instead that this particular person has been hurt so much by other white people in the past that they’ve decided never to fully trust a white person ever again. They can do that. And if that bothers you, don’t hang out with that person. Hang out with other POC who accept you more.
“Yet the following are believed consistently among sj circles:”
Ok, I read the following and I completely disagree. I don’t think any of these things you listed are consistently believed among sj circles. There may be some people who act this way, and there may even be some circles that are entirely composed of people act this way. But in my experience, there aren’t very many.
I wrote about this a lot in my previous post (the second half of the first reply) and I can’t think of anything more yet to say here. If someone specifically has made you feel this way, perhaps you could share that exact occurence so I can better understand.
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@ King: I did read about that poor woman in Florida who was kicked out of the hospital and she died. I hope her family sues that hospital.
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TW: r-pe, a-use, m-rder
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@abagond
I’m not getting notifications for people mentioning or tagging (at-signing or hashtagging) my name, do you know how to fix this or anything? Thanks in advance and i also appreciate your patience for my semi-venting on the conquest post. I say semi-venting because i did expect an answer when i was furiously writing it, but now i don’t mind either way.
@Solitaire
Thanks for your help, unfortunately i’m quite busy atm, so it’ll take a few to generate my response. I believe you when you say i’m never entitled to poc full trust and it doesn’t make me a bad person (i’m worried mostly about people who probably or likely think i should never avoid hatred of this sort, which i’ll talk about later with my sources).
Also, when i say “by the time it’s too late” in regards to apologizing, i mean my reputation has already been tarnished and i probably won’t be liked by any sj circle ever again. I understand individual people hating me for my past actions here and elsewhere or wanting me to repent, but not them barring me from other people. I’ve yet to do anything permanent on purpose, so i shouldn’t be treated like a danger either.
I consider only permanent things done on purpose to be unforgivable by outside parties, like first-degree murder, almost all rapes, and deliberate abuse. Everything is either entirely forgivable by outside parties (and maybe inside parties) or a gray area.
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Also, am i the youngest one here? I’m like 18, and maybe Pumpkin is my age judging by how she talks, but i’m unsure and apologies to her if it’s not the case. I’m just curious. Also, i tend to avoid much sj stuff with people mostly younger than or exactly at my age because many young sjers are either hostily self-righteous or lazily uneven towards the whole deal.
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TW: r-pe
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I say almost all rapes (and abusive assault cases in general), because 0.22% of the time a rapist will be repentant, stay away from elevated societal status like celebrity, and leave the victim alone for the rest of their life, and the victim will forgive. Even then, the rapist still should be looked down on in some capacity. Also, if any one of those four conditions are not met, the only way to be forgivable to any extent after raping is to have it be forced of you or without your knowledge (somehow, but i doubt it).
If anyone thinks i’m being a tool, lemme know why because i am unsure about these rules i’ve set up, and i really am not trying to come off like rape should always be forgiven or should be expected or something heinous like that.
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@ Uriel
I will be looking forward to reading your longer response when you have time to write it.
“Also, when i say “by the time it’s too late” in regards to apologizing, i mean my reputation has already been tarnished and i probably won’t be liked by any sj circle ever again.”
I think perhaps you are underestimating the willingness of many people to forgive, even within sj circles.
Also, if your reputation became tarnished in one sj circle and you felt like you no longer were welcome there, I don’t know how that would keep you out of all sj circles everywhere. If you felt unwelcome at one internet site for social justice, then you could just move on to a different site with a new username. No one will know or care what happened at the first social justice site.
“I consider only permanent things done on purpose to be unforgivable by outside parties, like first-degree murder, almost all rapes, and deliberate abuse. Everything is either entirely forgivable by outside parties (and maybe inside parties) or a gray area.”
I understand your point. But please remember that some people may have a different personal belief about what is forgivable or unforgivable. Some people believe even first-degree murderers can be forgiven. You can only decide for yourself what should and shouldn’t be forgiven by outside parties. Other people may feel differently.
What I am trying to say is, granting forgiveness is another thing that cannot be required of another person. It can not be demanded or forced.
For example, if I said something to offend you, and then I was sorry and asked for your forgiveness, that doesn’t mean you have to forgive me. I can’t make you forgive me. I can ask you to, but it is up to you alone to decide whether what I did should be forgiven. Or you might not be ready to forgive me at the time I ask for forgiveness, but maybe a month later you decide that you can now forgive me.
If someone doesn’t forgive you for something you did, then there will no longer be a friendship between you and that person. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be friends with anybody else, just because one person no longer wants to be your friend. You might even have other friends who think the first person is wrong for not forgiving you.
One mistake does not equal total disaster. One person refusing to forgive you doesn’t mean that everyone else will now hate you forever.
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@Solitaire
0. I understand people may be more accepting now, my experience with anti-forgiveness is older, but more people seem to be embracing it.
Here’s some things i found on the internet (rough memories, no links because my comment will go to moderation), that explain my perspective:
“Shout to all the girls who don’t give second chances…” (Tumblr, unknown)
“White people are the George Zimmermans of the world and always will be…” (Tumblr, themindislimitless)
“There are no good White people.” essay (Tumblr, theteej)
“Dylan Roof And Why All White Hands Are Bloody.” (blackgirldangerous)
“[The SAE pathetics] deserve to live infamy.” (End Colonial Mentality)
“It’s just fee-fees to want a poc-respected culture or a positive identity.” (some Tumblr post regarding Homestucks and Ferguson)
“Racism, colonialism, and some other bigotries would’ve never happened had a non-Nordic society gotten all the luck.” (many places, including Darkmatter s**trichcollegekidssay on Tumblr, and this blog)
“England and France would be nothing without poc inventions, those culturals are morally awful without the technological forte to back it up.”
“BUT NOT ALL WHITE PEOPLE ARE LIKE THAT” essay (Tumblr, stfu***holes)
and finally
“White anti-racist is an oxymoron until you give up your white privilege.” (Kil Ja Kim essay).
1. I keep hearing about passive bigotry (ever heard of it, it’s when one doesn’t do enough work to end racism), which is why i mentioned being an anti-racist exclusively. I also here “intent and effort never matter, effect do” as if i can change anything but the two in future times.
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2. I don’t fully get the concept of cultural appropriation. Is it a burden for POC that White people want to be more than their current pathetic cultures? Even if such cultures aren’t evil, why can’t i take influence provided i don’t steal status (Iggy Azalea), hoard credit (Justin Timberlake), mock people (“Indian” costumes), or butcher serious customs (Plastic Shamans)? Culture can’t stay in stasis or exist purely of original thought or experience.
I keep hearing “[POC group] get harassed for doing this thing, WHY SHOULDN’T YOU?”, as if i am some supreme controller of racism. This is where i think the ‘broken arm/ amputees’ argument would be useful.
Cultural consent/ copyright also makes no sense, because i can’t magically take a poll to see if everyone is okay with something. Likewise, why is the term stealing used?, artifacts don’t dry up from POC usage because Whites used them.
Moreover, i need something that’s MINE and GOOD, yet not of anyone else’s- as they have things not mine but THEIRS and GOOD. If i don’t have such, then poc are uniquely good in sj eyes and i am lesser and pathetic. Why should i be unable to hoard what makes me a person?
3. Most poc want race to stay, because it has brought a great deal of people together. Understandable, but what race will I be? Even ridding the earth of White-looking people won’t redeem me, among others. I need to be enough, why is it such a pain for poc to give me dignity?
By dignity i don’t mean trust/ care/ acceptance, i mean genuine autonomy and positive identity and equal moral standing. Most sjers see this as a luxury, just read theroguefeminist’s posts on poc hating white people or trans people hating cis people.
Why can’t sjers who doom me to be nothing but worthless or evil be seen as bad by the other sjers?
4. Whenever i (obviously) dissociate from comments about systems of oppression (that aren’t about individuals per se), i’m always called out as if dissociating myself from things i didn’t do means dissociating from things i did do (“Stop being angry about the George Zimmerman verdict, all White people are to blame.”). I am (among others) uniquely to blame in situations of bigotry for my potential to do evil and get away with it(read that teej post) and my lack of suffering overall?
Anywho, thanks for answering, listening, and your patience. I was down as i wrote this, so excuse the tone.
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Oh, btw, Solitaire- my first comment is in moderation. It contains some sources of why i think cynically towards sj (but some have cursewords in them, so they’re in moderation), #1 (a question about passive bigotry), and general acknowledgement of your last statement.
Feel free to respond to the others first.
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@ Uriel
0. Thank you for sharing some of your sources. Now I see what types of things you have been reading and where you have gotten a lot of your ideas about SJers.
You probably already know this, but I will say it to make sure: People who are involved in social justice do not all believe the same exact things. They may agree on some points, but they may disagree on other points or on which tactics to use to end oppression and injustice.
A lot of what you’ve been reading is written by young angry people. Theroguefeminist is older than you by a few years, but to me she is very, very young. She is angry and upset and venting.
Do you know about the concept of writing to a specific audience? These people on Tumblr aren’t writing to you. They aren’t writing concrete, straightforward explanations of racism and other social justice issues in a way that someone with Asperger’s can easily understand. They are yelling and screaming and venting.
Now, I don’t want you to think I’m passing a value judgment on yelling and screaming and venting. That can be very useful for certain people at certain times. But it isn’t useful for you at this time.
Remember I said earlier that if a book isn’t helping you, put it down and find a different book? Put Tumblr down. Just stop reading those angry websites for awhile.
1. No one will ever do enough work to end racism all by himself or herself. It is impossible. And no one can do that type of work all the time and never do anything else.
Passive bigotry is when someone hardly does anything. That is when they don’t try to understand how POC or other minority groups feel. That is when they see racist things happening (like someone being discriminated against at their workplace) and they do nothing to help.
You are already being active in trying to learn about these issues and question your own mindset and your own thinking. That is where all white people have to start. You are only at the beginning, but you already are past being a passive bigot. You are starting to try to learn how to be an anti-racist.
2. Cultural appropriation is a difficult topic. There are shades of gray. A lot of American culture is already a combination of many different traditions.
What bothered me most about everything you wrote here is that you think your own culture is pathetic and evil. You don’t have to give up your own culture in order to support POC. You just have to stop privileging your culture, which is something a lot of white Americans do without realizing it. I think you already understand this concept to a degree. You know that the cultures of POC are valuable and important. But I think you’ve swung too far the other way. You now seem to think your own culture isn’t good and valuable and important. Am I understanding this correctly?
The term “stealing” is used because historically there have been many times that POC created something and then white people imitated what POC created and made a lot of money off of it. Elvis Presley is one of the top examples. He is credited with inventing rock and roll, and he made a lot of money. But he was imitating African American music.
Another example are the white people who take sacred ceremonies from the Native American cultures, like the sweat lodge or the Sun Dance, and they charge a lot of money to teach these ceremonies to other white people. These white people are stealing in a way, because they are taking ceremonies that do not belong to them and making money off them. A lot of times, they don’t even teach the ceremonies correctly. Think about how poor many Native Americans are. Now think about the fact that a true Native American healer does not charge people when they hold a healing in a sweat lodge. The healer does not set any price on that, but the white person who steals the ceremony asks for hundreds of dollars.
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3. and 4. I think with both these questions we are back to the same things I said up above. If the websites and Tumblrs you are reading make you feel this way, stop reading them. Not all people who work on the anti-racist cause believe this. There is absolutely no reason for you to give up your culture or to feel like you are less than nothing. It isn’t required to feel that way.
I don’t know if you read any of my posts where I talked about my spouse. He is a POC who has been professionally employed in the field of social justice for many years. He thinks that making white people feel guilty about being white is not helpful. It is not effective. When white people feel guilty, they get defensive and upset. But when they don’t feel guilty, they can approach social justice work in a positive manner. They can be excited to be part of a movement for change. They can become strong and effective allies.
He feels the same way about making men feel guilty about being male, or making able people feel guilty about being able, or making straight people feel guilty about being straight. He doesn’t think it has any value. He thinks it sets back the cause.
The people you have been reading would disagree with him. That is their right. Not everyone in social justice agrees with each other.
But those people you are reading are mostly young people spouting off on the internet. My spouse has been training majority people to be effective allies for minority people for longer than you’ve been alive, Uriel. He has many former white students who graduated from college a long time ago and have been in the workforce for a long time. Most of those former students have remained allies to POC. They support diversity in their workplace. They hire POC to work for their companies. They support POC colleagues who say they have been discriminated against at work. This is the type of thing a white ally does.
If someone is frozen with guilt, they cannot be an effective ally. Being white gives you privilege and power that you didn’t ask for. But you can use that privilege and power to be a voice for POC when other white people aren’t understanding the issues. You can be the bridge.
I hope you won’t mind if I give you a little homework. I want you to look up the term “intersectionality” if you aren’t already familiar with it.
I also have a question for you that I hope you won’t mind my asking. Do you hang out at any internet forums for people with Aspergers?
And as always, if anything I wrote here was unclear, please tell me. Let me know specifically and I will try to rewrite it in a better way or to answer any questions you may have.
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@ Uriel
Here is one more piece of “homework” for you to read:
https://aspergersandmeblog.wordpress.com/2013/01/14/autism-and-race/
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@Solitaire
1. I read the homework, and i am aware of intersectionality.The article, while not completely bad, just said stuff i already knew in a kind (support autistic POC) of condescending tone. Altho, i will say White minorites (White gays, disabled, transfolk, etc.) tend to overshadow, alienate, and antagonize POC in their respective minority regardless of how much the minority status has damaged them.
2. I don’t think sjers or anyone else for that matter wants me to be content/ not feel bad for pure compassion or respect, but rather because i can’t be used if i refuse to do anything. I’m not as cynical as to think everyone wishes to use me first, see me as enough second, but i am unsure of the amount of people who do.
You said many people believe different things regardless of a few staples that unite the whole operation. I agree, but i wish it was also atleast a near-staple to see me as enough and that i have a culture that’s enough (which brings me to my next point).
Also, if some POC know they’ve had a disproportionately negative or positive experience with White people (compared to POC standards)- why do they act like they are an objective source of White behavior and society?
3. I’m unsure what to think of my culture. Have you read Abagond’s or any other non-brainwashed POC’s opinions on European cultures or Nationalism? I want to like my culture (whatever it is), but i have a hard time finding anything i have that others don’t. If it is shared with everyone, it is not mine. I understand it when POC genuinely abhor stuff pressed upon them or at least not claim ownership of originally European things, but not that they can exclude me forever from their things while wanting to doom me to a purely negative unique identity.
I also want to take influence from other cultures in things i do, but everyone wants my culture to stay in stasis (read my convo with Swank on the cultural appropriation post) because “You have enough already.” and that broken arm/ amputation argument.
In additon White cultures and associations (before 1490, i understand hatred of White cultures after then) seem to never be important or influential to anyone but other White people, and even then only the brainwashed White people. POC cultures around the world have excelled in at least one thing technologically, scientifically, artistically, or morally. No White cultures anywhere have even been the jacks-of-all-trades, according to too many sjers.
4. I probably mentioned this in other threads but not to you- but hey; i try to avoid (anyone i think are) POC sycophants for White people (and oppressed sycophants for privileged people) or at least avoid discussing sj stuff with them because not only do i know i have little power to change their pov and it’s not exactly helpful to surround oneself in what is far from the truth, but also because i personally would rather be with people who saw me as a full human- not a god or something.
5. If being White, while forgivable and even understandable, is a bad conditon, and race must stay, what race will I be? If Europeans just reverted back to ethnicities after racism everyone would know they were White before so a stigma would be attached. Moreover, how’d i (or other White people) be absoluted from a bad legacy if racism ended after my time and i failed to be impacting despite my best efforts?
6. I know most sj Tumblrites and sjer independent bloggers see privileged people as lesser. They still get tons of influence and support instead of being ignored, and those who ignore them still think i can’t hate anyone for hating me purely on the basis of my birth, because it is somehow contradictory to support anti-bigotry and not tolerate being hated for arbitrary nonsense. Read stuff against “fake allies”, like the things by Kat Blaque (who i personally respect in other points).
I don’t know what to think about most of the worrisome opinions i’ve presented and i am coming to you for your opinion on them, not because i believe them or that (usually) many do. Any mistakes, confusion, or rudeness, lemme know. Thanks for reading.
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@ Uriel
“1. I read the homework, and i am aware of intersectionality.The article, while not completely bad, just said stuff i already knew in a kind (support autistic POC) of condescending tone.”
Sorry about that. The reason I pointed you to intersectionality is that I have found many people who keep this in mind are less judgmental of others and less likely to try to compete in the Oppression Olympics.
“Altho, i will say White minorites (White gays, disabled, transfolk, etc.) tend to overshadow, alienate, and antagonize POC in their respective minority regardless of how much the minority status has damaged them.”
I agree, and I see this as a place where white members of non-racial minorities can really be valuable as allies to the POC in those groups.
2. “You said many people believe different things regardless of a few staples that unite the whole operation. I agree, but i wish it was also atleast a near-staple to see me as enough and that i have a culture that’s enough”
Unfortunately it isn’t a near staple, although again I do think that the people who stress intersectionality are more likely to not pass judgment. But this is also where we seem to keep hitting the stumbling block that POC are seen by most white people as not enough and their culture(s) as not enough. They have to deal with this all the time, so they aren’t going to be very sympathetic to a white person getting upset when they turn the tables. And I know this gets us back to your analogy about the amputations. I guess the way I think about this is, when POC tell me that my culture is horrible, that’s my chance to experience what it’s like for them all the time. It helps me to understand what it’s like to always have other people denigrating one’s culture. However, it doesn’t mean that I internalize everything they say and go away feeling guilty and hating myself.
I think the key thing is, no one else can give you a core sense of who you are and what is valuable about yourself or your culture. That is something you must create for yourself from within.
You need to feel okay about yourself without any outside validation. That may involve deciding what parts of your culture are okay and what parts aren’t. There’s a lot to be ashamed of about white culture and white history, especially since the 1400s. But there’s also some things that are good, and you can hold onto those things. No one people and/or culture is 100% evil and no one people and/or culture is 100% good.
“Also, if some POC know they’ve had a disproportionately negative or positive experience with White people (compared to POC standards)- why do they act like they are an objective source of White behavior and society?”
Well, we could turn that around and ask the same thing of white people. Why do so many white people act like they are an objective source of POC behavior and society?
I hope this doesn’t come off as condescending, but the first thing that came to my mind in answer is, “That’s what neurotypical people do. We are irrational about a lot of stuff, and we often have difficulty seeing how we are being irrational even when someone else is trying to point it out to us.”
The second thing that came to my mind in answer is, I don’t really have an answer. I don’t know why some people act that way, and I can’t change that they do. What I can do is to listen carefully to what they say and think about it for a long time and see if any of it begins to make sense to me. I may find that some of what they had to say does have a lot of truth to it.
3. I think that I might be able to understand this better with some concrete examples. What are some of the things that your culture has in common with other cultures and therefore don’t feel distinct? What are some of the things you would like to borrow from other cultures, and in what ways (i.e., do you just want to consume those things, like listen to the music, or do you want to create your own things that incorporate those cultural influences)?
“In additon White cultures and associations (before 1490, i understand hatred of White cultures after then) seem to never be important or influential to anyone but other White people, and even then only the brainwashed White people. POC cultures around the world have excelled in at least one thing technologically, scientifically, artistically, or morally. No White cultures anywhere have even been the jacks-of-all-trades, according to too many sjers.”
You know, I think what you’ve been experiencing here is pushback. White people have been making themselves out to be the most important and influential for a long time, and now there is pushback from POC to acknowledge their contributions and accomplishments. There is nothing wrong with that pushback; it is helping to correct a long-standing imbalance and creating a better picture of world history. But that doesn’t mean that POC don’t believe white people have never been important. Have you read the article Abagond wrote on Alan Turing, for instance?
“5. If being White, while forgivable and even understandable, is a bad conditon, and race must stay, what race will I be? If Europeans just reverted back to ethnicities after racism everyone would know they were White before so a stigma would be attached. Moreover, how’d i (or other White people) be absoluted from a bad legacy if racism ended after my time and i failed to be impacting despite my best efforts?”
This is another place where I simply disagree with the underlying premise. I don’t think being white is a bad condition in and of itself. No one chooses to be born white. It is what each individual person does with being white, with their white privilege, that matters. So again I don’t fully understand why you are so bothered by this question. There’s no need to damn yourself, and there’s no need to seek absolution from POC.
Do you think this way about able people or neurotypical people? Is being able a bad condition, something that should be eradicated? Or is it their mindset that needs to be changed? Do they simply need to be better educated about disability issues, more aware of the prejudice people with disabilities face, and more willing to act as allies when appropriate?
“6. I know most sj Tumblrites and sjer independent bloggers see privileged people as lesser. They still get tons of influence and support instead of being ignored, and those who ignore them still think i can’t hate anyone for hating me purely on the basis of my birth, because it is somehow contradictory to support anti-bigotry and not tolerate being hated for arbitrary nonsense.”
But do they really hate you as an individual? I don’t think that’s likely. And I also think a lot of the writings aren’t supposed to be read as talking about everyone.
“Read stuff against “fake allies”, like the things by Kat Blaque (who i personally respect in other points).”
I watched the video and I agree with everything she said. I’m actually confused about where there was anything about hating someone just for how they were born. She was calling out specific types of “allies” who are superficial and not really comprehending the cause. She did say that there were true allies. And I think the key thing she said was, “We have to start holding our allies accountable — and if there’s one thing that I’ve learned from the discourse around my previous video, it’s that real allies will expect that. . . . Hold your allies accountable; if they really care, they won’t mind.”
Also, in the comments she said: “My approach is always first and foremost accepting that these people WILL make mistakes because of their ignorance. I ultimately think that’s something we should all keep in mind. People make mistakes and I think some space should be made for that. HOWEVER, it’s important to watch how they respond to these conversations and how they respond to criticism when they’ve stepped out of line. Someone who’s genuinely engaged enough in their activism will realize that a person you’re supporting criticizing how you perpetuate hurtful things around them is just part of the game. It comes with the territory and listening is required when you’re an ally. Some people cannot take their egos out of these things and to me that’s the problem. If you really care you’re going to step back and do the right thing.”
So she’s saying that majority people can in fact be allies, and even they will sometimes make mistakes, and how they respond to criticism of those mistakes is key in determining that they’re a true ally.
I hope some of this helps. I will look forward to reading your response.
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@Solitaire
1. I agree about not being a tool when called out. But then again people usually act like tools as a) reflexive gut reaction that while changeable, isn’t exactly and b) because they are never forgiven for anything in sj circles.
Those only calling for accountability, strike me as the kind of people that hold grudges and would rather doom me than see me as human with any flaws at all.
I know intent and effort don’t fix everything, but they’re all i can control. It is just heartless to only care about the effect. That is asking me to be superhuman for one’s own pride. Most people don’t think i can fix everything in my lifetime or expect me to, but few sjers will tote forgiveness as a condition. I’m underestimating it because i’ve rarely seen it happen.
I have NO empathy for those who hate me for things not ultimately my fault, beyond the fact they shouldn’t be oppressed and that they don’t deserve to have things like prions happen to them.
Kat Blaque (among others) did say allies will make mistakes, but she never said anyone anywhere will forgive them. I understand individual hatred, but not exclusion for mistakes.
2. Please don’t use buzzwords or repeat words with relatively plain definitions (pushback, discomfort) unless you’re signalling a different meaning than what is normally used; in which case please explain because as of this moment i am profoundly unaware of what you’re referring to with the pushback argument and “lean into discomfort”. My sources of info for words and phrases are Wiktionary and Urban Dictionary, and when none of them describe certain sj stuff, i’m at a blank.
Protagonize upcoming here is a word i probably didn’t coin that means “to outwardly support”, the antonym of “antagonize”.
3. Part of why i am frustrated with privileged people being hated is because, i, as an autistic person, don’t hate allistics. I don’t even protagonize the people or ideas that do. Neither does any other autistic i know, and they don’t consider it hurt feelings to be doomed to be evil for things beyond one’s control. We also don’t (usually, we’re not perfect) follow the broken arm fallacy.
Moreover, while my experience personally with allistics has been comparatively good by autistic oppressions standards, other people i know and knew have has rough times with such- but at least when it came to the point of eternal mistrust they knew it was not something on every allistic’s part.
The few autistics i’ve met that are sycophants, or total anti-allistics have either incredible flaws of their own or are seen as extreme by other autistics. When i actually exerience ableism, my first priority is making sure they don’t act that way again or at least get punished for it. I won’t ever antagonize somebody or protagonize antagonizers for things beyond their control. I am sick of being seriously told to suck it up when it comes to doom.
4. I know Whites shouldn’t arbiter POC things or knowledge of POC. My problem is when the other way around is treated as an antidote to White supremacy. Indeed, it is a taste of what POC experience all the time, but nobody deserves to experience it for even a second. Furthermore, what would be the point of showing me how it feels? I can never fully know, so why can’t they leave me alone instead,? What could i possibly learn from the broken arm fallacy?
I’m not so much worried about my culture sharing things with other ones, but rather that it’s considered inferior in some way to all POC cultures. I know most sjers don’t believe in POC supremacy, but they do tend to believe all White cultures are pathetic and should be looked down on. “Whites are not uniquely evil or bad.” is dismissed not because many know that, but because they believe it is incorrect.
In addition, i need to be unique and close them out from some things that aren’t beneficial or trivial if they wanna close me out from some things that are. By take influence, i meant using incorporating influences from things that inspire me, and now that you mention it, using but not mocking other cultures’ things.
5. I know being White in of itself is bad. My logic is this:
sj: White people deserve [all prejudiced actions] because they benefit from privilege. Benefitting from privilege means supporting racism because of the possibility of violence and other cruelty.
sj: White means benefitting from privilege.
sj: We should keep race, in spite of its history.
sj: White people cannot escape being White.
sj: White privilege is beyond one’s control.
Putting them all together, i get my stance on Whiteness. I need outside validation because only being enough to oneself is egotism or at least leads to it.
Again, if i caused confusion, acted cruel, or stated factual errors, lemme know. Thanks again for reading.
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Happy New Year to all of you, your families and friends. I wish you peace and justice.
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Happy New Year everyone. The New Year starts on a sad note RIP Natalie Cole.
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Happy New Year, all! On the note of tragic deaths, R.I.P. Lemmy.
@Solitaire, are you still around? Where are you?
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@ Uriel
I wasn’t online yesterday. Just catching up now. I’ll reply soon.
Best wishes in the new year to you and everyone else!
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huh? @ : o O ) >
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@ Uriel
1. “people usually act like tools as a) reflexive gut reaction that while changeable, isn’t exactly”
It is very possible to learn to control that reflexive gut reaction. That’s part of what “leaning into the discomfort” means. Criticism causes discomfort, and most people want to react immediately to defend themselves and/or their group. “Leaning into the discomfort” means that when you are discussing social justice issues and you are part of the majority group, you resist that reflexive gut reaction. You let yourself feel uncomfortable. You sit with the discomfort and you feel it and you think about it.
Or it can also mean that if you have that reflexive gut reaction and later after you think everything over, you realize that’s exactly what happened, then you go tell the person you were having the conversation with. You say, “Hey, I was thinking about what you said the other day, and you were right about x, y, and z, and I was being overly defensive.” That can be an uncomfortable thing to admit to someone else.
“Leaning into the discomfort” means you accept the fact that discussions about race or other social justice matters are going to be difficult and uncomfortable, especially those discussions in which you are part of the majority. You accept that there will be discomfort. You control the reflexive gut reaction.
“and b) because they are never forgiven for anything in sj circles.”
Again, I don’t believe this to be true. I don’t know how to convince you of that fact. If you believe it is true, and you feel you can’t take part in social justice circles without being expressly forgiven and absolved, then it may simply be something you can’t and shouldn’t actively participate in.
“Those only calling for accountability, strike me as the kind of people that hold grudges and would rather doom me than see me as human with any flaws at all.”
Once again, I disagree. Accountability helps you to grow as an ally. It helps you to pinpoint areas where you still hold biased thoughts or are still seeing things through a majority view. The people who call for accountability want you to grow and change. If you don’t grow and change, yes, then they probably will wash their hands of you. However, they aren’t hoping for that result.
“I know intent and effort don’t fix everything, but they’re all i can control. It is just heartless to only care about the effect.”
What you do has an effect on the people around you. No one expects you to fix everything and change the world. They do expect you to learn and pay attention to the effect you have on others.
“I have NO empathy for those who hate me for things not ultimately my fault”
And that appears to be a big part of the problem.
“Kat Blaque (among others) did say allies will make mistakes, but she never said anyone anywhere will forgive them. I understand individual hatred, but not exclusion for mistakes.”
She said: “My approach is always first and foremost accepting that these people WILL make mistakes because of their ignorance. I ultimately think that’s something we should all keep in mind. People make mistakes and I think some space should be made for that.” This statement implies forgiveness for those mistakes.
2. “Please don’t use buzzwords or repeat words with relatively plain definitions (pushback, discomfort) unless you’re signalling a different meaning than what is normally used in which case please explain because as of this moment i am profoundly unaware of what you’re referring to with the pushback argument and “lean into discomfort”. My sources of info for words and phrases are Wiktionary and Urban Dictionary, and when none of them describe certain sj stuff, i’m at a blank.”
I have no way of knowing what words and terms you are or are not familiar with unless you tell me. I gave you a long explanation of “lean into the discomfort” the first time I mentioned it, and you never told me you didn’t understand it until now. You seemed to be miffed about already knowing “intersectionality” even though I said look it up if you *aren’t already familiar* with it.
The way in which I’m using “pushback” is similar to the official definition of “resistance or opposition in response to a policy or regulation especially by those affected.” The difference is, instead of being in response to a policy or regulation, this pushback is in response to the white-centered framework that history and social problems have been presented in for a long time.
3. “Part of why i am frustrated with privileged people being hated is because, i, as an autistic person, don’t hate allistics. I don’t even protagonize the people or ideas that do. Neither does any other autistic i know, and they don’t consider it hurt feelings to be doomed to be evil for things beyond one’s control. We also don’t (usually, we’re not perfect) follow the broken arm fallacy.”
Unfortunately, you can’t control how other people think or how they feel. I can see why it is frustrating, but it isn’t possible to say to someone, “I don’t think this way, therefore you shouldn’t either.” You might be able to persuade someone to change how they think or feel, but that takes much more work than just saying, “I don’t, therefore you shouldn’t.”
This is the reason I asked earlier if you hang out on any autistic/Asperger’s forums. I thought you might have an easier time discussing these types of issues there, with any POC who may frequent those forums. At any rate, it would be an interesting aspect to add to what you’ve already been reading.
The point I was trying to make about asking you how you felt about allistic people is to draw a comparison, because I don’t think your opinion of minority people hating all white people reflects reality. I think most feel pretty much the way you do about allistic people. The difference probably is the amount of emotional and abstract and nuanced language they use, the heated arguments they get into, etc. I guess this is where you’re getting this idea that they believe all white people are doomed forever. But just like what you said about allistic people, when it comes down to what POC really want, most want white people to learn how not to act racist and not to act that way ever again.
For instance, I read the “There Are No ‘Good White People’” by Teej. I agreed with every word he said. And although I can’t know for sure, I get the feeling that if we sat down and talked to him, he would say that he didn’t mean that he hates all white people or that all white people are doomed just because they were born white.
That essay didn’t come from a place of hate. It came from a place of pain. It was written in very abstract, almost poetic language. There was a lot that was implied rather than directly stated.
It mainly referenced the racist mass murder at the Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, SC, and the terrible fact that the white shooter didn’t just simply walk into the church and immediately open fire, as most of us imagined when the news first broke. No, he asked if he could join their Bible study group that evening. He sat with them and prayed with them. He later was reported as saying they were nice to him. But he killed them anyway.
The point Teej was trying to make—and this was very much implied but not directly stated—is that many white people don’t trust black people, especially strangers, especially young males. If the tables had been turned and it was a young black male stranger who had walked into a white church and asked to join their Bible study group, he probably would have not been received well because white people tend to be suspicious of young black men they don’t know.
Instead, it was a young white male stranger who walked into a black church, and they graciously welcomed him. That is what Teej means by the grace that black people extend to white people every day. And the reason he kept saying “there are no good white people” is to stress that black people continue to trust white people even when it is to their detriment, even when black people have more than enough reason to assume all white people are out to do them harm until proven otherwise.
It is poetic, abstract language, using exaggeration to get across a point. It doesn’t mean that he truly believes all white people everywhere are evil and doomed.
4. “Indeed, it is a taste of what POC experience all the time, but nobody deserves to experience it for even a second. Furthermore, what would be the point of showing me how it feels? I can never fully know, so why can’t they leave me alone instead,? What could i possibly learn from the broken arm fallacy?”
All I can tell you is this is a common technique used by allistic people with each other, to help us empathize and sympathize with each other. We can and do learn a lot from it. There are even a number of workshop exercises designed to put majority people into simulated situations like those experienced by minority people so they can experience a taste of what it is like. For many people this is eye-opening, even transformative. Quite possibly it isn’t an effective technique for autistic people.
“In addition, i need to be unique and close them out from some things that aren’t beneficial or trivial if they wanna close me out from some things that are. By take influence, i meant using incorporating influences from things that inspire me, and now that you mention it, using but not mocking other cultures’ things.”
I’m still not really following you here. I could use some concrete examples. You mentioned painting before. Is that an area in which you would like to incorporate influences from other cultures?
5. “Benefitting from privilege means supporting racism because of the possibility of violence and other cruelty.”
Again, I disagree. People benefit from white privilege whether or not they support racism. They can become aware of the ways in which they benefit and do whatever they can to level the playing field. People with white privilege can speak up when they see other people being marginalized and ignored because they aren’t white. People with white privilege can support social justice and minority issues. Having white privilege does not in and of itself mean you support racism—it all depends on you and how you approach, conceptualize, and use your unearned privilege.
“I need outside validation because only being enough to oneself is egotism or at least leads to it.”
Then I’m at a loss for what to tell you. It isn’t fair to POC to keep asking them to validate you as a white person. I’ve been trying to give you validation that you can be enough even though you’re white, but it doesn’t seem to be the type of validation you need.
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abagond, will you do a post on the passing of Dr. Frances Cress Welsing?
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@ Sondis
I will be doing a Dr. Frances Cress Welsing post.
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@Solitaire
1. “You let yourself feel uncomfortable. You sit with the discomfort and you feel it and you think about it.”
Whenever i feel discomfortable i try to step out and analyze why, then rectify the foolishness if it was wrong or confront the source when i can if it’s right. Actively seeking out being discomfortable is what i thought you meant, as that sort of thing will just lead me in a nihilistic spiral.
One goal i have is to slate and discover the ultimate answer of human morality.
“and b) because they are never forgiven for anything in sj circles.”
“Again, I don’t believe this to be true. I don’t know how to convince you of that fact.”
I’ll take your word. I’ll report specific examples when i happen across them hereon. I know i’m not entitled to forgiveness by the individual people i wronged, just to be left alone and maybe have other people, after punishment and repentance.
“Once again, I disagree.”
The operative word in that sentence was “only”, as in most of the anti-forgiveness crowd i’ve seen is pro-accountability. I gotta held responsible for my actions (even albeit at a fixable extent), tho.
“And that appears to be a big part of the problem.”
I don’t mean anyone deserves oppression or certain things like prions or to be doomed to a certain state forever. I can hate somebody but not wish utter cruelty upon them and understand they have entitlements like socialization and health.
“This statement implies forgiveness for those mistakes.”
I would’ve never caught that had you not told me, but i’ll discuss indirect language and venting, along with my language issues below.
2. Admittedly, this request was a mistake and i apologize for demanding it. I will just ask term-by-term if i don’t know what a term is. I also wasn’t as offended as you think i was by much, i know i can come off that way in writing, but i assure you it’s just terseness rather than anger or anything beyond confusion.
3. “But just like what you said about allistic people, when it comes down to what POC really want, most want white people to learn how not to act racist and not to act that way ever again”.
I believe you. Again, i’ll report examples when i see them.
“For instance, I read the “There Are No ‘Good White People’” by Teej. I agreed with every word he said. And although I can’t know for sure, I get the feeling that if we sat down and talked to him, he would say that he didn’t mean that he hates all white people or that all white people are doomed just because they were born white.”
I literally just learned that fact due to social miscommunication, yet people keep leading me to vents, poetry, abstractions, and other indirect speech as a guide. If it’s not ment for me to learn but rather for them to vent, why do i need to see it? Should i tell anyone i can’t completely get subtext like that?
This brings me to another tangent: other sj privileged people who think i deserve to be looked down on by them regardless of my efforts. Why do other privileged people get to act impatient and judgemental? They don’t feel the pain, so why can’t they be decent (until i genuinely be a tool, that is). No, i don’t think you’re among them.
4. “I’m still not really following you here. I could use some concrete examples. You mentioned painting before. Is that an area in which you would like to incorporate influences from other cultures?”
You did read my comments in the cultural appropriation post on the blog, right? I wasn’t in the best of behaviors then, but i stand by (at least 80% of) my points there. It’ll help you understand my take on the issue.
I was trying to say i want cultures to mix and take influences from each other, provided even without giving back more than the standard social justice work if it isn’t mockery (“I’m a pocahottie!”), status grabbing (“I’m a REAL shaman.”), or refusal to acknowledge sources/ privilege. If i can’t take influence from them even without my 3 circumstances, then neither should they unless they absolutely have to. It’s unfair for me to be demonized by having no positive unique ethnic identity (a main argument against cultural exchange is “we lose our distinction”, another is the broken arm fallacy, and another is you need permission- like anyone who gives me permission is ever accepted). Cultural consent also makes no sense, am i supposed to take a poll out of everyone, and even if 90% is fine, the other 10% is still enough for sj at large to hate me for wanting my culture to not be in stasis, which is a huge reason why white people attempt to go thru other cultures besides the obvious self-expression entitlement.
5. “Having white privilege does not in and of itself mean you support racism—it all depends on you and how you approach, conceptualize, and use your unearned privilege.”
I don’t agree with the ideology, either. It’s just something i keep coming across.
“I’m at a loss for what to tell you. It isn’t fair to POC to keep asking them to validate you as a white person. I’ve been trying to give you validation that you can be enough even though you’re white, but it doesn’t seem to be the type of validation you need.”
I meant if i’m only respected (as in seen as a human) by myself and few others, when there are far more good people i’ve met who don’t like me, then i’m bad and tolerated only by the strongest of the good. Why can’t it be a flaw to antagonize or demonize me for things out of my control?
This last one sounded fishy, and i apologize for it. My goal was to rephrase my thought process that abagond once quoted.
Thanks for reading, and have great day. Apologies if i acted rudeish.
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@ Uriel
1. “Whenever i feel discomfortable i try to step out and analyze why, then rectify the foolishness if it was wrong or confront the source when i can if it’s right.”
That’s a good strategy. Sometimes, though, it isn’t exactly foolishness but just the discomfort of stretching your mind and emotions to take in a viewpoint that is alien to your own experiences as a white person.
“Actively seeking out being discomfortable is what i thought you meant, as that sort of thing will just lead me in a nihilistic spiral.”
No, you don’t have to seek it out, and I definitely think you should avoid things that you know will lead to a nihilistic spiral.
“One goal i have is to slate and discover the ultimate answer of human morality.”
That’s a huge goal.
“I’ll report specific examples when i happen across them hereon. I know i’m not entitled to forgiveness by the individual people i wronged, just to be left alone and maybe have other people, after punishment and repentance.”
Ok. I think you already know this, but I want to clarify that when I say that I disagree, I don’t mean it hasn’t ever happened to you. I just disagree that it is true of all people involved in social justice, all POC, etc.
I will try my best to parse out any specific examples you happen on. May I also suggest that you keep an eye out for examples to the contrary, because I think it’s possible you’re not actively looking for instances where there has been forgiveness, etc.
“I don’t mean anyone deserves oppression or certain things like prions or to be doomed to a certain state forever. I can hate somebody but not wish utter cruelty upon them and understand they have entitlements like socialization and health.”
I understand that, and I’m sorry for being brusque. What I meant was more in reference to not having empathy for them, not understanding where they are coming from. To some degree it sounds like you want forgiveness yet are unwilling to forgive. (Feel free to correct me if I’m misunderstanding you on this.)
2. “Admittedly, this request was a mistake and i apologize for demanding it. I will just ask term-by-term if i don’t know what a term is. I also wasn’t as offended as you think i was by much, i know i can come off that way in writing, but i assure you it’s just terseness rather than anger or anything beyond confusion.”
It’s ok. I think I may have come across as more frustrated in my last post than I actually felt, and I apologize for that as well. My tone wasn’t the best.
3. “I literally just learned that fact due to social miscommunication, yet people keep leading me to vents, poetry, abstractions, and other indirect speech as a guide. If it’s not ment for me to learn but rather for them to vent, why do i need to see it? Should i tell anyone i can’t completely get subtext like that?”
Yeah, I honestly think you should tell them. And you may have to tell people more than once for it to fully get through to them what type of subtext you don’t get. You may run into some people who don’t understand or who are jerks about it, but overall I think most people will appreciate the knowledge so they can direct you to better types of sources.
It sucks to always be telling people, but otherwise allistics are going to assume you are allistic, too. They/we really shouldn’t, and maybe someday we will get there as a society. Right now, though, I think it might help a great deal if you explain this to people.
“This brings me to another tangent: other sj privileged people who think i deserve to be looked down on by them regardless of my efforts. Why do other privileged people get to act impatient and judgemental? They don’t feel the pain, so why can’t they be decent (until i genuinely be a tool, that is). No, i don’t think you’re among them.”
I know we’ve been talking about privilege and how you have it as a white person. But with the question above, I think this is where your own minority/underrepresented/marginalized status comes into play. I think those other sj privileged people are allistics who are either assuming you are too, or who have no clue how to act appropriately with someone who is autistic.
I’m going to be really honest here: I read back in some of the threads from this summer, and I fully understand why so many people thought you were a troll. The questions you were asking and the way in which you were phrasing them sounded very much like the types of things asked and said by white racist trolls. It helped me immensely to know that you were in fact autistic and were asking these things in all sincerity. I could see where people were answering you the way they would respond to a typical white racist and how those answers were not at all helpful to you as someone who was actually autistic.
So this is an area where intersectionality comes into play. You have white privilege, but you also have something that makes you very different from many other white people.
4. “You did read my comments in the cultural appropriation post on the blog, right? I wasn’t in the best of behaviors then, but i stand by (at least 80% of) my points there. It’ll help you understand my take on the issue.”
I’ve read them more than once 😦
“I was trying to say i want cultures to mix and take influences from each other, provided even without giving back more than the standard social justice work if it isn’t mockery (“I’m a pocahottie!”), status grabbing (“I’m a REAL shaman.”), or refusal to acknowledge sources/ privilege.”
This is something that many sj/POC people would agree with. As long as it’s done carefully and respectfully, cultural mixing can be creative and enjoyable. The problem is, not everyone agrees.
I apologize ahead of time if this is mistaken, but one of the things I have heard is common for autistic people is a desire to have set rules to follow, immutable guidelines. But since not everyone agrees on what exactly equals cultural appropriation, it is impossible to say: “Yes, there is a consensus among all POC that X equals cultural appropriation and Y does not.” I get the feeling that may be one of the stumbling blocks you’re having here.
5. “I don’t agree with the ideology, either. It’s just something i keep coming across.”
Ok, that makes sense. Again, there aren’t any immutable rules. You may just have to decide when you come across that ideology to file it away as “I disagree, but I’m not going to argue with them about it.”
“I meant if i’m only respected (as in seen as a human) by myself and few others, when there are far more good people i’ve met who don’t like me, then i’m bad and tolerated only by the strongest of the good. Why can’t it be a flaw to antagonize or demonize me for things out of my control?”
It *is* a flaw. Again, this may be where you’re running into misunderstanding or even prejudice on the part of allistics.
“Thanks for reading, and have great day. Apologies if i acted rudeish.”
You’re fine. Hope your day is going great, too!
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@ Abagond: Do you plan to do a post on the Oregon militia. In my opinion they are domestic terrorist.
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@ Uriel
“when there are far more good people i’ve met who don’t like me, then i’m bad and tolerated only by the strongest of the good.”
Another way to conceptualize this is:
“When there are far more good people I’ve met who don’t like me, then I’m being misunderstood by most good people who are allistic and tolerated only by those who have a better awareness of what it is like to be autistic.”
I’m not 100% sure this is what’s happening in all cases. But if people you deem good don’t like you, it doesn’t necessarily follow that you are bad. I can see how you drew that conclusion. It is a logical progression of thought, but it may be faulty in that it ignores other possible factors.
If people you deem as good don’t like you, perhaps you were mistaken in deeming them as good.
If people you deem as good don’t like you, maybe they don’t realize they’re basing that dislike on their (probably unconscious) bias towards allistics.
If people you deem as good don’t like you, perhaps they’re reacting to the miscommunication that often arises between allistics and autistics — the misreading of cues, the use of abstract and inferential language, etc.
There are a number of potential reasons for this dislike besides your being a bad person, so therefore it doesn’t necessarily follow that you are a bad person.
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@ Mary Burrell
Yes, I will be doing a post on Oregon.
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@ Mary
My post on the Oregon stand-off:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2016/01/05/oregon-stand-off/
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@ Uriel
Have you read The Company novels by Kage Baker? It’s science fiction involving time travel and immortality, and about halfway through the series, pirates become a major theme.
Some of her non-Company short fiction is about historical pirates.
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@Solitaire
Not really, i’m not very interested in reading non-comic fiction for longer than a dime novel.
I might check the short stories out one day. You a fan of theirs?
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@ Uriel
Very much so, but unfortunately she died of cancer a couple years ago. Her sister has been finishing some of the uncompleted manuscripts, but eventually there will be no more new material to look forward to 😦
Do you have any favorite authors? (whether fiction or non-fiction)
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Song suggestion: J’me tire, by Maitre Gims. He’s a French Congolese rapper/singer who’s topped the Euro charts quite a few times now.
(https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F_rEHfLgdcY)
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I am from Montana, white, and have many Native friends. I find your choice of articles and quotes racist. Instead of trying to change events that happened over 100 years ago, maybe a better course of action would be to educate and enlighten your readers, instead of trying to drag them into a race baiting war.
It makes me sick, that you are exploiting your ancestors to benefit yourself financially, and to paint yourself as a victim. This does not help Natives with their current economic situation, nor does it do anything to establish a plan moving forward. I believe we should study our past, remember it, and use it as an educational tool of what not to do. You also fail to mention, that in Montana, anyone with at least 1/4 Native bloodline, would have the opportunity to receive a free college education at any school they can academically get into, opportunities to purchase homes and or land with out a high interest bearing loans, lifetime free health insurance, and many other programs that are only available to Natives. I think this is a great thing for Montana Native people, however the percentage who take advantage of these programs remains too low. Instead of trying to play the race card every chance you have, take that time to talk with your community, encourage them to get higher education, and start teaching tolerance and compassion, instead of hate and contempt. Just my opinion, but someone had to say it.
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@ stan
Get your facts straight:
“Native American students who attend any state school in Montana will qualify for a fee waiver if they are Montana residents, at least 1/4 Indian blood quantum, and have financial need. The fee waiver includes tuition and a $30 administrative fee, but not approximately $235 in other fees.”
That’s not free. Beyond the $235 fees, it also doesn’t cover the cost of dormitory housing and food plan, books, computers, lab materials, etc. That’s not a free ride.
When are you white folks in Montana going to give back the Black Hills? It’s been over 35 years since the Supreme Court ruled that the land was stolen, not ceded.
What are you white folks in Montana doing about the epidemic proportions of rape and murder of Native women by white men?
What are you white folks in Montana doing to support Native sovereignty?
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Wow
“PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Blunt-spoken Republican Gov. Paul LePage said out-of-state drug dealers are impregnating “young white” girls, and his remarks were quickly denounced by critics on Thursday as racial fearmongering.
LePage, talking about Maine’s heroin epidemic, described out-of-state drug dealers as “guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty” and said “half the time they impregnate a young white girl before they leave.”
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/b1ca1b7b359f4434b7644ff92b96e4d8/maine-governor-drug-dealers-impregnate-young-white-girls
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Hopefully one of the white girls ‘Shifty’ impregnates is his daughter. This is a joke article, right?
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^LOL!! “Shifty” lol!
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@Solitaire
I don’t have any particular favorite authors or books. I’m sorry to hear about Kage Baker and i hope she rests well.
—
Also, i know there are many, many jerkfaces that would tell me to shrug off my Asperger’s and Depression or simply just don’t understand it; however, i’m afraid of overstating the effect they have on me (as even i don’t know the full extent), and becoming a putz who uses them as a “get out of toolness free” card.
Moreover, i am trying to find an autism-oriented or autism-aware sj group that isn’t negelectful of non-ability issues and isn’t condescending/ hostile. I joined WrongPlanet, but i have doubts because AutismSpeaks has contributed money whilst there isn’t a forum either for POC or racial justice.
Do you or anyone else know of any places that would be fitting? I’m sick of being told “educate yourself” when almost all the education is indirect speech, venting, monetized, hostile, unresponding (i can’t ask questions to a book, zine, or article), inaccurate, or tucked away- even if it’s by normal privileged people (the penultimate one i understand coming from normal privileged people, i’m using normal to normalize allyship).
Don’t worry, tho, i’m not as distressed as i seem but this issue does frequently hamper things.
Also, yes i’m willing to forgive people who repent and apologize that didn’t deliberately do permanent things to me.
I do have rules to follow morally, and while they aren’t perfect, i do think they can be perfect in my lifetime even if i’m not perfect about them myself. Heck, i think there should be a slate of laws everyone follow not to be bigots or tools but i’m largely confused and frustrated at some points (the ones i’ve mentioned).
On cultural appropriation and “what good culture do i have” issues, the problem with most cultural discussions is that far to many people believe in collective responsibility as if superorganisms exist.
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wow chi-raq is half in scannable meter
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@Solitaire
I’m mad today, not at you or anyone really (except hypothetical sludgenozzles), only ideas. I need to vent to further articulate some issues. Excuse the whiny tone.
To others, please don’t respond if you’re gonna mock me. Please and thanks in advance.
—
The next person who writes in my search for acceptance by almost all NOT EVIL people as fee-fees, or sees my search for enough NON-EVIL associations as fee-fees should get wronged (no, not in a permanent way). These problems at worst take five seconds to solve, how can they take more? Without acceptance from enough good people and enough good associations, i, myself, am an evil and therefore lesser. I’m tired of finding answers myself, i have tried for 11 years (albeit imperfectly for an incredible lot of it) to find an ethnicity that wasn’t colonial or evil and i got nowhere. I have no story to tell and i deserve to be obscured or reviled by good people and the future beings of the earth.
There is zero harm in giving me an equally good identity or not dooming me to vilehood unless i give up myself. Yet it’s still done and if it’s not discouraged or ignored, why do so many support it when it happens and slash those who disdain it? There’s no burden not have a tool to use, as i’m pretty sure even the best white people are seen as pure tools.
That’s why no matter how much work one does, you’ll still be a pathetic oppressor who deserves the utleast decency and if that’s not true, i’m at least to decide between autonomy and acceptance. White people aren’t necessary for POC, it’s the other way around. [Unventing: I truthfully think white people aren’t necessary but not necessarily a bad addition.] Anger is always toted before the compassion that justified it, replaced with selfish pride instead. Y’ever read Everyday Feminism, any masterposts, Tumblr, or any sj list with these issues?
There’s not a competent place where i can go afik/atm (as i said in my last post) to find answers, help, or even resources to find the other two, because in part the world was built for allistics, but in more parts of the pettiness of other normal white people and a faulty sense of collective punishment coming from the millstone known as collectivism. We’re social beings, yes, but not swarms. I have to come here, because you seem to be the only person i didn’t know beforehand in sj who didn’t agree with dooming me and didn’t get fed up with me easily, and therefore a huge help (no creepy, and not that i don’t like you as a person or that i’ll prod information from you like you live to do that). I understand POC getting fed up, but not other white people unless i did something universally or personally wrong.
“Just make friends and community in sj.” said the jerk with both already, who’d be accepted like hotcakes with good people, and is only hated by incidental fiends and the scum of the earth. I hate when people say this.
Judging ONLY the effect of any misdeed with no intent or effort mitigation shows a sign of selfishness not simply valor. Not forgiving is just the same but with timelength added as a factor, altho i will agree the anti-forgiveness crowd is a vocal minority.
tldr; Next person who tells me to just be happy with the fact of being looked down on by most good people should have a bad time or a worse time if their time is already bad. I need no compassion atm for those lacking it for me atm. Not that i want them to suffer oppression or maimery or abuse.
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@ Uriel
I just saw your last two posts. I’m really tired right now and heading for bed. I’ll try tomorrow to answer in length and with some considered thoughts.
I do want to ask you something, and I hope you won’t be offended by it, because I say it out of concern and mean it well. But if it does offend you, please of course do tell me so, as I’m still learning what is and isn’t ok to say.
This is the question: Do you think maybe these feelings — or at least some of them — might be part of a depressive spiral?
I have wondered this for awhile but have not known exactly how to ask. I don’t mean to devalue your concerns, either. You ask a lot of good questions about social justice and so forth. But when you state that other people see you as bad, evil, not a human, etc., that makes me think about depression.
I know that you are basing this on experiences you’ve had with other people. I get that some people have said or done things to make you feel that they didn’t like you. But I wonder if you might not have a feedback loop or spiral centering on that issue, because you really seem to be beating up on yourself.
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@ Uriel
One other quick thought — it’s not true that most other people are easily accepted or make friends easily or aren’t hated. My own brother hates me so much he hasn’t spoken to me for ~20 years. There is no single person alive who is universally like by everyone they meet, who hasn’t made enemies even inadvertently. We all have faults, we all make mistakes. Sometimes neither party is in the wrong; they just have personalities that clash and find it difficult to stand each other.
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I have been told i am in a depressive spiral with these two things, but it’s always shrugged off as fee-fees to people i’ve met. Including other white people. I wouldn’t be surprized if this the work of my depression, but what am i supposed to tell people? I have white guilt? Have you read Hari Kondabolu’s rant on it, which sums up what nearly everyone in sj thinks (“Shut up! It could be worse!”), ignoring the fact it can be solved in a matter of seconds as opposed to a century.
Most therapists aren’t in tune with sj, so it’s pretty tricky to find one that is. Moreover, it’s less my personal experiences of interaction, more my personal experience of viewing. I’m not very social or active in sj communities, let alone any that are hostile in the way i have described. What am i supposed tell people about my misunderstanding, besides “say what you mean”?
I know i can be hated by other good people and still be good myself. Problem is, i think most good people at least respect each other if they don’t get along. Misunderstandings and pure personality clashes can’t be that common, can they?
I’m also really sad to hear your brother hates you. I hope it works out at some point.
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@Solitaire
One problem i have is this: If my heritage primarily contains truly awful genociders and savages like the Western Europeans, what do i do for pride in anything i actually have that others don’t? Moreover, why can’t i be absolved of patheticness- i did nothing but be born. Why is it fee-fees to want an UP TO PAR community and sense of identity and pride, akin to the ones POC have? This thought comes from reading posts on this blog (among other WordPress sj places) and responses to them.
I understand ethnicities cross racial boundries (compare the light-skinned Seth Rogen to the dark-skinned Ilana Glazer [Ashkenazi Jewish] or Billy Zane with Jason Mantzoukas [Greek] or Steve Buscemi with Anthony Fantano [Sicilian]).
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*I understand ethnicities cross racial boundries… so i can understand some POC being a part of whatever community i have, just not all.
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@ Uriel
“I don’t have any particular favorite authors or books.”
That’s okay. You don’t have to.
“Also, i know there are many, many jerkfaces that would tell me to shrug off my Asperger’s and Depression or simply just don’t understand it; however, i’m afraid of overstating the effect they have on me (as even i don’t know the full extent), and becoming a putz who uses them as a “get out of toolness free” card.”
Overall, it’s a good thing not to overstate the effect, especially in matters concerning social justice. Some white people who are minorities/underrepresented/marginalized in other aspects (like LGBTQ, for example) will use their minority status as an excuse not to confront their own biases. They will say, “I already understand all about oppression because I’m a lesbian (or whatever)” when in actuality they don’t comprehend the different ways oppression is experienced by various groups. It’s good that you are avoiding using your own minority status in this way.
But at the same time, it isn’t a good thing to completely dismiss the possibility that some people who are being jerks to you are doing so because they don’t understand what it’s like to have Asperger’s and/or depression. I think it’s important for you to keep that in mind because of your tendency to think those people don’t like you because you’re bad. That is a self-defeating mindset and one that isn’t necessarily true.
I used a lot of examples in that earlier comment suggesting that those people might not like you for reasons having to do with miscommunication or bias against autistics, but the truth is there are many other possible reasons as well. Sometimes you may just have the misfortune of meeting someone when they’re having a bad day and hate the world. Sometimes you may even be mistaken that they hate you. Even allistics do that; we don’t always read each other correctly. I can think of a number of times when I thought someone disliked me and it turned out not to be true. I also have had the experience of not liking a person much when I first met them, but later on as I got to know them better, we became really good friends.
“Moreover, i am trying to find an autism-oriented or autism-aware sj group that isn’t negelectful of non-ability issues and isn’t condescending/ hostile. I joined WrongPlanet, but i have doubts because AutismSpeaks has contributed money whilst there isn’t a forum either for POC or racial justice.”
You may have to explain to me the part about AutismSpeaks, because I don’t know what that refers to or why it would make you doubtful.
You’re right that WrongPlanet doesn’t have a forum for POC or racial justice. One way you could approach it is this: Start contributing to some of the general discussion threads on WrongPlanet to let people get to know you. I know you are wanting very much to leap right in and talk about racial justice, but at first I would suggest contributing to lighter topics. After you feel more comfortable there, post something in the general section asking if there are any POC people with autism on the board and if they would like to discuss the intersection of autism and race. Again, don’t start off with all your questions at first. Try to make that post a safe space for any POC who respond to talk about their experiences. Do a lot of listening and ask questions that show you’re interested in their experiences and issues. Ask if anyone else thinks it would be good to have a specific forum for race and ethnicity, the way there is one for women and another for LGBTQ. Even if you can’t get the moderators to set up a specific forum, there are still other places on Wrong Planet for general discussion where you could post about racial justice and see if you can get a conversation going.
“Do you or anyone else know of any places that would be fitting?”
I wish I did. Unfortunately, I know very little about autism and what places are on the internet. From what I have seen, there isn’t a place that specifically talks about autism and race. Maybe you can find some people on Wrong Planet who would be interested in creating such a place.
You might also check out the community on Reddit (www.reddit.com/r/aspergers; http://www.reddit.com/r/autism). I don’t know much about these two forums, only that they exist and that people with autism post there. Would be worth a look, at least.
“I’m sick of being told “educate yourself” when almost all the education is indirect speech, venting, monetized, hostile, unresponding (i can’t ask questions to a book, zine, or article), inaccurate, or tucked away”
I’m starting to better understand how this is an issue for you. The “educate yourself” mantra has become big in part because of trolls who just want to mess with POC or other minorities. Those trolls aren’t really interested in learning, so people who engage with them often end up feeling like they wasted a lot of time trying to educate someone who just wanted to troll. They don’t realize the difficulties you have with things like indirect speech.
About unresponsive books, though—while you’re reading a book, if you come across something you want to ask about, couldn’t you just come here and ask the question? Or is it not the same as being able to ask the author directly? I’m not quite sure I understand the problem fully and am looking to get a better idea of what you mean.
“Also, yes i’m willing to forgive people who repent and apologize that didn’t deliberately do permanent things to me.”
That’s good. But am I understanding correctly that a lot of people you’re venting about here, you are only reading what they’ve written online and aren’t actually engaged in a conversation with them? So there’s no possibility of repentance and apologizing? If that is in fact the case, I guess what I meant was more that you seem to have some trouble just saying, “Well, I don’t agree with that person” and letting it go. Or saying, “Well, I don’t agree with them, but I can understand why they feel that way, based on what I know of their experiences as a POC that they have shared on their website.” Instead, you seem to be saying, “This person hates me because I’m white which isn’t fair and I can’t handle that.” If I am mistaken about that, please tell me because it’s very possible that I’m not quite understanding what you’re trying to say.
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@ Uriel
“The next person who writes in my search for acceptance by almost all NOT EVIL people as fee-fees, or sees my search for enough NON-EVIL associations as fee-fees should get wronged (no, not in a permanent way). These problems at worst take five seconds to solve, how can they take more?”
I’m not following you here. What problems only take five seconds to solve?
“Without acceptance from enough good people and enough good associations, i, myself, am an evil and therefore lesser.”
I say again, your “If X, then Y” doesn’t necessarily prove true.
“i have tried for 11 years (albeit imperfectly for an incredible lot of it) to find an ethnicity that wasn’t colonial or evil and i got nowhere. I have no story to tell and i deserve to be obscured or reviled by good people and the future beings of the earth.”
Does an ethnicity have to possess a perfect history or background or otherwise it is evil? What do you find specifically wrong about your own ethnicities?
“There is zero harm in giving me an equally good identity or not dooming me to vilehood unless i give up myself. Yet it’s still done and if it’s not discouraged or ignored, why do so many support it when it happens and slash those who disdain it? There’s no burden not have a tool to use, as i’m pretty sure even the best white people are seen as pure tools.
“That’s why no matter how much work one does, you’ll still be a pathetic oppressor who deserves the utleast decency and if that’s not true, i’m at least to decide between autonomy and acceptance. White people aren’t necessary for POC, it’s the other way around. [Unventing: I truthfully think white people aren’t necessary but not necessarily a bad addition.] Anger is always toted before the compassion that justified it, replaced with selfish pride instead. Y’ever read Everyday Feminism, any masterposts, Tumblr, or any sj list with these issues?”
If it’s okay with you, Uriel, I’m just going to treat the above as a vent. I feel like we’ve already talked over these issues a great deal, and right now I have nothing new to add.
“I have to come here, because you seem to be the only person i didn’t know beforehand in sj who didn’t agree with dooming me and didn’t get fed up with me easily, and therefore a huge help (no creepy, and not that i don’t like you as a person or that i’ll prod information from you like you live to do that). I understand POC getting fed up, but not other white people unless i did something universally or personally wrong.”
I’m going to be very honest. If I hadn’t known from the beginning that you were autistic, I would have assumed you were allistic, and I would have been really hard on you because as I said upthread, the types of things you were saying sounded very much like the things said by racist trolls.
You may need to work on how you present these issues to avoid sounding like a troll and/or say upfront to people that you are autisitc and therefore communicate differently than allistics.
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@ Uriel
“I have been told i am in a depressive spiral with these two things, but it’s always shrugged off as fee-fees to people i’ve met. Including other white people. I wouldn’t be surprized if this the work of my depression, but what am i supposed to tell people? I have white guilt?”
In my opinion, the thing to do is worry less about what to tell people and more about how to stop the spiral. I know that stopping the spiral is a difficult thing to do. I’m not trying to say it is easy or that you can stop it all at once. I just believe it is far more important to address the spiral than what any fool around you may think about the spiral. It is in your own best interests to identify the spiral and take steps to eliminate it.
“Most therapists aren’t in tune with sj, so it’s pretty tricky to find one that is.”
That’s true, but you may be able to find one. It might be even more important to find a therapist who has experience working with autistic people, because of the different ways your mind processes stuff. Some types of therapy will be more useful to you than others due to that.
“Moreover, it’s less my personal experiences of interaction, more my personal experience of viewing. I’m not very social or active in sj communities, let alone any that are hostile in the way i have described.”
Yeah, this is part of why it seems like a depressive spiral to me. You’ve been reading things online about social justice that have gotten you upset and blaming yourself and feeling no good. Then you keep reading more of this same type of writing. It’s like your depression is feeding on it.
I don’t know if your depression works this way, but with some people, they feel bad and depressed and down for no apparent reason (although there most likely is a neurochemical reason), so their mind has to find something to go along with those feelings. So they think about things that make them unhappy, and that makes the depression worse, and it just sets up a nasty feedback loop that can be very hard to break.
“What am i supposed tell people about my misunderstanding, besides “say what you mean”? “
Maybe something like: “I have Asperger’s, which means I understand things best if they are stated clearly, directly, and plainly. I prefer blunt speech to indirect or allusive speech. I may misunderstand speech that relies on the reader or listener to catch implied meanings.” Is that fairly accurate?
“I know i can be hated by other good people and still be good myself. Problem is, i think most good people at least respect each other if they don’t get along. Misunderstandings and pure personality clashes can’t be that common, can they?”
Yes, I think they are way too common, to be honest. Historically there have been a lot of “good” people who couldn’t stand each other or who became enemies over areas where they disagreed. W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington both worked at the same time for the betterment of African Americans, but they took two very different approaches, and they each felt the other was dead wrong. The women’s suffrage movement fractured right after the Civil War because of arguments about whether women should be included in the 14th and 15th amendments. People in the women’s suffrage movement and the abolitionist movement who had worked together for decades and been good colleagues and friends got so angry that they broke into different organizations, stopped speaking to each other, and published nasty diatribes about each other. That generation had to mostly die out before the suffrage movement was able to reunite. If you read in-depth histories of any of the social justice movements, you will find all sorts of personality conflicts, power struggles, cultural miscommunications, etc.
“I’m also really sad to hear your brother hates you. I hope it works out at some point.”
Thank you.
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@ Uriel
“One problem i have is this: If my heritage primarily contains truly awful genociders and savages like the Western Europeans, what do i do for pride in anything i actually have that others don’t?”
Do you remember upthread when I talked about identifying as a Southerner? My heritage has a lot of horrible stuff in it. My own family has a lot of horrible stuff in it. I know for a fact that some of my ancestors owned slaves. I know for a fact that some of my ancestors fought against Native Americans and killed them or forcibly relocated them. I don’t like that my ancestors did those things.
That doesn’t mean, though, that I can’t still enjoy some good things about Southern culture. I can be proud of one of my Southern ancestors who was an abolitionist in the antebellum South, which was a d@mn dangerous place to be one. I can enjoy Southern cooking. I can like the way we use language, how we still hold onto interesting old words and phrases and sayings that have fallen out of mainstream American speech. I can like old-time folk music from the South. I can like fiddle music. I can like singing ballads that have survived almost intact in oral tradition since being brought over from England in the colonial days.
It is possible to take pride in, or be interested in, or enjoy certain aspects of your heritage without being proud of the bad parts. I accept the bad parts. I know we did bad stuff. I know my ancestors in the North did bad stuff, too. I don’t try to say we didn’t. I don’t try to justify it. I try to do better.
“Moreover, why can’t i be absolved of patheticness- i did nothing but be born. Why is it fee-fees to want an UP TO PAR community and sense of identity and pride, akin to the ones POC have? This thought comes from reading posts on this blog (among other WordPress sj places) and responses to them.”
You have to determine that you are going to have that sense of identity and pride instead of depending on whether others think you should have it or not. As far as the community, I think white people are going to have to work to get it up to par. We need to improve and work on ourselves and our communities. Maybe that could be part of your identity, someone who is working to make your own community better—which doesn’t necessarily imply your community is wholly evil, just that it has specific places for improvement.
____________
I want to let you know that I will be travelling this week in areas with limited internet service. I may not be able to continue this conversation at length until a week or more from now. Feel free to go ahead and respond. Just please be aware that I may not be able to reply immediately or may be limited to very short replies until I get home again.
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Haha!!!! I know Abagond doesn’t remember this one, so I’LL put it up!!
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy7yQ6YwrXI)
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Where is Mary Burrell?
If anybody can appreciate this surely it will be her! Lol!!
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWkTxAU6Uek)
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Ok just one more video – this time a modern one.
Just in case you think they don’t make good music anymore!
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np_dW7yzhM8)
OK that,s it. Sorry Abagond!
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@King: That for the Soul Train video and I love the latter video with V. Bozeman i love the sensual images of black love.
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@King: *Thanks* For the fun Soul Train video
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Haha! Oh there you are Mary! I KNEW you’d like them 🙂
I was just doing some musical web surfing lat night! (obviously)
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And yes, that Timothy Bloom video duet with V. Bozeman is INSANE sexy!!!
I can’t believe I hadn’t run across it before now! Did you know they are a couple?
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@King: No I didn’t know they were a couple but that would explain the great chemistry and how comfortable they were in front of the camera doing something so intimate.
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@King: Not many women can pull that bald look off.
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@ Mary
That’s true, but OMG! Sooo sexy!!! I remember one morning I was driving through downtown LA on my way to work, and I saw this Black woman with really short hair, gray serge business suit, medium-blue blouse, simple black heels. I almost crashed my car. She looked so fine that I circled the block (even though I was late) in hopes of just seeing her again.
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@King: I thing it’s wonderful that you appreciate the beautiful of a dark skinned natural haired women.
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*beauty*^^^^^^
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Dang! King i think it’s wonderful that you appreciate the beauty of dark skinned natural hair women.
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@ Mary
Seriously, to me it’s a wonder if anyone can’t! And I’m not talking about some kind of “fetish” either. I mean, I can also appreciate women with a whole LOT of hair too.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjOIQnCbDU0)
Its just that close-cut look seems really elegant to me.
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Will you do a post about Ben Carson?
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@Solitaire
I read what you posted, and i think i’ll respond after you’re back into a place with internet, if that’s okay. Just lemme know when it’s good to respond, as i wanna get (relatively) quick answers so i remember *why* i post things, if that’s alright? Thanks in advance.
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@ Uriel
Okay, I will do that.
I have been able to make some short posts from my phone occasionally, when I’ve been within reach of a tower, but for our conversation I have needed to be on my computer to do long posts with that much cutting and pasting.
I will let you know when I’m able to resume so you can respond then.
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Folks, I’m sitting here eating a delicious hamburger. Discuss.
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http://atlantablackstar.com/2016/01/14/enslaved-africans-of-george-washington-depicted-as-happy-and-joyful-in-new-childrens-book/
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@ Abagond’s: A post on the water crisis in Flint Michigan is in order this is horrible people’s health are at stake. In Detroit they were shutting off people’s water, these are poor people. In Flint it’s lead poisoning. The access to clean water. This is something that could be controlled. Children and babies are being affected because of these bureaucratic imbeciles.
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@Jabri Jones: I thought academics were supposed to check for inaccuracies. Depicting slaves as happy this makes me sick. That’s just ludicrous it’s like saying Sally Hemmings was happy being the sex object of Thomas Jefferson. It’s so disgusting. This story I read was written by two women of color. Someone named Ramin Ganeshram. The author is mixed Trini/Iranian and the illustrator is a black woman. Shaking my damn head.
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Remembering MLK this week rest in peace and power.
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With yesterday’s landslide election in Taiwan, we probably need a post on Taiwan to help explain to people what that means to everyone.
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Mary Burrell: I think that pretty soon, black history will cease to exist, and will fade from memory entirely.
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@ Mary
Yes to Flint.
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@Jabari Jones: They pulled that stupid book after all the backlash.
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Mary Burrell: Very glad to hear of that.
Abagond: Do you think that what is going on in Flint amounts to genocide?
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@Solitaire, are you back yet? I’m not impatient or anything, just curious when you’ll be around.
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@Abagond
If it’s helpful for your Flint piece… it has some numbers (with references) to go with the headlines.
Click to access KetteringUniversityWaterUpdateParentsandAlumni.pdf
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The crisis in Flint to me seems like a genocide of a community of black people. On my newsfeed I saw the water, it was a horrible gold/brown color. Not fit for human consumption. The sorry governor makes an anemic apology, he needs to be fired. Detroit residents were getting their water shut off because they couldn’t pay. These are poor people. Poor people are punished just because they are poor. This is frightening.
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@Mary Burrell
I wholeheartedly agree. The whole situation is a tragedy that began with greedy opportunists trying to leverage a complex series of events for political and economic gain and the citizenry were only pawns in their game. Had the people been deemed worthy of consideration, things likely would have proceeded MUCH differently and perhaps even been successful to the point of benefiting an entire region. After all, Flint has everything going for it… regional infrastructure, rural lands for expansion, an airport, rail, seriously, the list goes on and on. BUT, in today’s connected society, you simply cannot steamroller over a bunch of poor people and expect to get away with it. Hopefully that’s at least one lesson that can be taken away from this.
Flint is around 60/40 Black/White and the surrounding areas are also poor and predominantly White. Flint is definitely “more Black” than a lot of the state and this governor’s administration does appear to have a pattern of taking over predominantly Black cities. I’m pretty convinced he’s racist as H*ll and feels strongly that Black people are inferior. However, I think the Flint water deal might actually have been less about genocide and more about economically reinvigorating a “Whiter” alternative to Detroit. You see, all of the lilly-White northern suburbs of Detroit could geographically be southern suburbs of Flint and an economically vibrant Flint would stand to benefit WAY more White people than Black people.
Don’t fall victim to those images. That’s just rusty water shown for dramatic effect. If you live in the city, then I can see why you’d be unfamiliar with it. On rural water systems you get used to seeing it whenever pressure drops due to fire hydrants being used or whatever. The process of switching from Detroit’s system to their own surely caused significant fluctuations in pressure that would release rust. That would have been temporary and truly not the worst of their problems. The real poison, the lead, was invisible, likely predictable, likely preventable and likely covered up.
SIDE NOTE: Do some Googling on fracking operations as they relate to the new pipeline. Not trying to start a conspiracy theory here… just seems like there’s too many coincidences to ignore that it was one more influencer in the decisions.
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@Mirkwood: And the System is racist–not classist. The water crisis only made national news when White people started getting sick.
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Another snowmaggedon?
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@ Uriel
I’m back now. Sorry for the delay and thank you for your patience.
I will be happy to read your response to my last long post(s) whenever you have time to write it 🙂
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@Opend Minded Observer: Thanks for giving me some clarity about this crisis.
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Forgot to write:
*I am desparately clinging to the last vestiges of my Jewish culture to not be American. This is more out of personal preference than anything, tho. I also which Jews would be considered more than a religion and Hebew to be spoken by non-Zionists. Yiddish is Middle German, which was forced upon Jews anyway. In addition, i wish that states were abolished and replaced with cities and regions which can have overlapping cities in them. And maybe gradually remove settlers from settler states if possible.
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If anything bothers or confuses you, just explain or ask, btw.
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Snowmaggedon, all you folks that live on the east coast stay warm and be safe.
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Solitaire, are you there? I promise you i’m not trying to be rude with my comments.
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@ Uriel
I’m only seeing your one short addendum post about Jewish heritage, not the longer post.
Is it showing up on your computer? Or maybe it got hung up in moderation?
BTW, I’m not always quick at responding, but it will never be because I find something you say offensive or rude, just because I’m busy or not feeling well or need time to think about how to respond or simply because I’m a horrible procrastinator. If I think any comments are rude, I will tell you so instead of being silent and letting you wonder what happened.
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My comment is indeed in moderation apparently, just wait a bit i guess.
I think it’s because i put my email address in the thing, but i didn’t put my personal info in the email account. I also asked for yours (to do an email convo as to not clog the open thread and the blog in general), but i assume you didn’t put personal info yours either.
Anywho, i understand you’ll be busy, as i can be as well.
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@ Uriel
Abagond has something in the comment policy about asking him directly if a comment hasn’t shown up in over 24 hours. I think because sometimes they just get lost in cyberspace, although I hope that hasn’t happened to yours. But maybe let him know so he can check if it’s caught in moderation or a spam filter or just never appeared.
Abagond, if you’re reading this, please do not give out the e-mail address I’ve been using to post here. I would want to give Uriel a different one because that particular e-mail address is too closely linked to my real-life identity. I also would prefer to give Uriel the alternate e-mail address without posting it online, if there’s a way we can do that. Thanks!
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Cop found guilty of attempted murder:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/james-forcillo-verdict-1.3414974
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@ Uriel
I deleted your comment for having an email address.
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@ Abagond
Why? It’s not a personal email, it’s a decoy where i do private sj emails. None of my personal info is on there.
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Anyway, Solitaire, i’ll rephrase my post by tomorrow.
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@ Uriel
I’m sorry that you have to rewrite everything. 😦
In the meantime, I remembered an interesting essay on privilege and intersectionality that I read a few years ago. I went back and looked at it again, and I think it is written in a straightforward manner. The last section about the multiple facets of privilege is especially interesting to me.
The author is the science fiction writer An Owomoyela.
http://magistrate.dreamwidth.org/9177.html
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Well, here it goes, question/ answer post take two:
1. AutismSpeaks is basically a for-profit group of allistics speaking over autistics. They are pro-cure in ALL cases and usually are anti-vaccination.
2. If i never met somebody yet they still infuriate me by saying something(s) frustrating and wrong, i won’t blame them for it until they actively antagonize anyone. And i even then i WILL forgive if i can.
3. I honestly would rather know what the author means, but usually whatever is meant by the author can be overridden by popular opinion. Look up the actual meaning of Fahrenheit 451 and see why Bradbury had to leave a college visit. Anyway, the actual meaning of that novel is silly (“TV BAD, BOOKS GOOD”), but my point is that whatever’s meant doesn’t matter.
Moreover, two other reasons i hate the “educate yourself” slogan is because a) the sayer wants me to basically find what they already know when they can easily just tell me, or b) they want me to find what they already know, however they can’t tell me, but they don’t know why they believe in the idea they way they do- implying they probably are blindly following rather than using any reasoning or experience.
4. I recently got an sj-attuned therapist, but i’ve only seen her once so i’m not sure about much else. I think it’ll turn out alright. Anyway, i’ll still come to you to get as much of a broad scope of thoughts as i can.
5. The problems that take five seconds to solve are:
5a- Stop seeing me as lesser and leave me alone if you don’t wanna be around me. Why do i have to love it or at least tolerate it when an oppressed person antagonizes them? Why do so many believe one can’t hate an oppressed person hating or looking down on oneself because of respective privilege when
5b- Let all white cultures and associations be on par with all POC cultures and associations. In other words, why must my culture and everything else i genuinely own be a unique inferiority for the world to be right? What burden is there for POC to see what i have as good and my own? Everything i have is either stolen or bad.
Working to get it up to par and having an ideology revolving around POC is just awful. I am entitled to have non-evil things according to social justice that i don’t necessarily share with ALL POC, just the ones in my ethnicity/ culture/ whatever. Much of the opinions of those outside social justice don’t count because they are largely bad people (murderers, abusers, thieves, etc.) or apologists of such.
I already like myself, i need others to as well. Nobody is an island, and i need better archipelagos in my continent that actual malignant/ malevolent people like Charles Manson, Dylan Roof, and Donald Sterling.
5c- Lemme take influence from cultures outside my own. It makes no sense i should not do something because POC cannot and they originated it when i don’t harass them for it. I’m sick of this being a “gray area”, just stop pulling collective accountability and the idea that culture = immutable markers of a people. Nobody wants POC to not use their own culture. I am not cleaning up after “my people’s” own mess, because it’s beyond my control to stop beyond doing an amount of work. I am not some supergenius that can create culture, out of thin air nor do cultures/ meanings suddenly evaporate when cloned, nor does experience magically generate an artifact of a particular sort.
I also cannot take a poll to see what POC think, especially when the only acceptable answer is “Just invent your own stuff and live in island far away from POC!”. Like it’s that easy and i totally want the profit not the usage from other artifacts. I get behind genuine mockery, tho.
Vitriol aside, why do i have to follow Kat Blaque’s (who i don’t mind otherwise) definition of appropriation? Please don’t take the rest as a vent tho, i have no other way to explain this.
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Here’s a link to a convo i had with a guy who believes what i’ve been raving about. I’m Siyel and i haven’t posted any personal info there. I think he’s not angry at me or anything let alone a bad person at all, but the fact he would’ve dragged me (i.e. shame me publicly so i am doomed to be racist forever or atleast for five years straight at a time) is kind of telling.
I split this post because i put a link here and to induce brevity. Abagond, if this post is in moderation, please just delete this paragraph and the one before it and the link.
(https://www.reddit.com/r/socialjustice101/comments/42e5w2/cultural_appropriation_dreadlocks_wtf/)
Also, read the conquest post or the AngloAmerica posts on this blog to see what i meant (in the post itself and the comments) to find out what i mean when i say my culture is uniquely lesser.
See also Israel and how white Jews are apparently fabricating their connection to Judaism and Palestine, their history of anti-Semitism, and their belief that the Nakba exists. Why does nobody have an answer to the Jewish question beyond dismissive half-answers? Why would anyone chime in about the Palestine crisis if they didn’t give a half about the causes of and predecessors of Zionism?
I don’t think in sj most hate whites, white Jews, or privileged people at all, as much as look down on them and refuse to not antagonize or not support antagonization.
6. I’m sick of it being “huht widdo fee-fee white tears” to want even complain about anything. I know my frivolous complaints are such, and otherwise it’s because i think they’ll take five seconds to solve. I get i and white people in general can be to much to put up with, but why must i be antagonized instead of ignored and left alone if that’s the case?
I don’t think people want my self esteem because they actually care but again, because they have less use for a down and out worker.
I do believe my and all cultures have proportional amounts of good and bad. Just wish most others in sj believed so too.
Thanks in advance and apologies as usual if i’ve messed up.
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can you do a post on that coon tommy sotomayer?
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@Libre Penseur: Abagond did a post on him.
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@ Libre Penseur
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2013/07/03/tommy-sotomayor/
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@ Uriel
Hey, wanted to let you know I saw your posts to me. It may take me a couple days to read the sources you mentioned or linked to and then think through my response. I’ll try to post my reply before the end of the week. Thanks!
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Is Trump going to win the Republican nomination? Does he have enough support to be president?
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@ Solitaire
Update:
(https://www.reddit.com/r/socialjustice101/comments/42vbmb/is_people_of_color_supremacy_a_real_substantive/)
There’s another link besides the other one i think you should read. If you have to answer any questions before the others, please make it the reddit one.
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The hilarity of rapper B.o.B and his foolishness about the earth being flat is so crazy and attempting to debate astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson just has me in stitches. And when black Twitter joins in it’s even more hilarious. I love black twitter by the way. Since B.o.B hasn’t had a hit in several years he is doing this schitick to stay relevant I guess because after his song about Airplanes everybody sort of forgot about him. Dude just needs to go to the library and read a remedial science book and just shut the hell up. Why must the most ignorant celebrities speak about things they know nothing about?
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@ Solitaire
A few more things:
If i come off repetitive in my response or forget to elaborate in anything lemme know, okay? I usually write as soon as i get the ideas for my response and/or am frustrated enough at whatever inspired my confusion- in other words, i generally write out of inspiration and stress rather than clarity (so i make these posts for addenda). We also can’t edit our posts on WordPress, so that’s a bummer. Finally, while i want to indulge my father’s culture (Ashkenazi Judaism), i have also decided i want to rewind my mother’s cultures in order to find something of un-Americanness or find something up to par with POC or “ethnic” white cultures. Denying that half of me would be denying my mother and most of my life.
A little belated but, here goes:
I don’t think sj people hate you because you’re a white Southerner, and even if they did they wouldn’t show it out of fear of harassment or general apathy. I think they think white Southern culture (and any other white culture) is an albatross (golf term, meaning three below par) and simply a bad existence. I don’t know what they think of white Southerners, if they have opinions on them as a whole, but it’s probably somewhere between resentment and condescension- based on my experience in sj movements and sj people that didn’t know me beforehand. I could be wrong, but my personal philosophy regarding impressions of people is to (politely) expect the worse so to not be disappointed and repent if i’m wrong about any judgements.
Cultural diffusion shouldn’t be careful and treaded lightly because respect should be so simple and obvious as to be second nature.
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And by up to par with POC, i mean why are they relative angels compared to me? There’s zero wrong with their communities that isn’t ten times worse in white communities, according to most of sj. I have to work to be a human and they’re born almighty according to anyone not a monster or monster apologist, why? Never was any POC hurt by thinking “White cultures are equal to ours even they should improve somethings.”. Nobody was harmed or killed by merely seeing anything belonging to white people and white people in general as enough even if they avoid them.
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Also:
*privilege whenever? Oh no, i hate somebody who hates me, is it that unfeasible to hate an individual and not wish them the absolute worst. Moreover, why can’t hating me bad as well, even it’s far less so. Every POC that hates white people (and gay person that hates straight people, intersex person that hates dyadics, etc.) get medals from sj. Plus, it’s never bias to look down on me or worse, it’s justice because privileged=oppressor=bad (worthy of hatred). Even other privileged people are allowed to hate me and belittle me. It has to be more than outright bigotry for my autism, and likely general prejudice and refuse to leave me alone on their part.
Long story short: Why are zealots always right about treating me like dirt?
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@ Uriel
“I usually write as soon as i get the ideas for my response and/or am frustrated enough at whatever inspired my confusion- in other words, i generally write out of inspiration and stress rather than clarity”
There is nothing wrong with that. I do that type of writing sometimes, too. But with my responses to yours, I’ve been writing more slowly in part because I’ve been trying to think things out carefully and in part because I’m still trying to adjust my writing style to be more concrete. I usually read over everything several times and make edits and revisions to improve clarity. I know that I still haven’t fully gotten the hang of the type of communication that isn’t allistic-centric.
So it is fine that you write quickly out of inspiration. All I am saying is that it just dawned on me that this is one reason for the lag time between your posts and my responses, because I’m writing the opposite way. The times when I have written back to you immediately, what I wrote turned out to be far too abstract and unclear.
Also, some unexpected things have come up in real life that will keep me rather busy for the next four or five days. Nothing bad, just unanticipated and unavoidable. So I may not be able to finish my replies and post them until after the weekend. I know you prefer a quicker response, so I do apologize for the delay. I also wanted you to know so that you wouldn’t think I was mad or anything.
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@ Solitaire
Read your thing. I’ll see you around Groundhog Day, hope it turns out alright. Thanks in advance for the responses you give. Nothing wrong with quality over alacrity.
Also:
I’ll mention the users on reddit i’m trying to deal with are Blank_username and therockingbed. Nothing against them personally, they are just being hostile, condescending, and confusing in a place explicitly for newcomers.
I’m sick of people preferring poetry to clarity in writing educational stuff. Or venting and expecting me to learn all the subtleties of it. Or expecting me to blindly follow.
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
Far be it for me to tell you how to teach your class, especially when you apparently have an understanding with the administration.
But if the course is supposed to cover roughly 1850 to 1899, personally I have trouble understanding why you’re focusing on maybe 10 to 20% of that time period, thus shortchanging Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, the Plains Indian Wars, etc., etc.
This is a serious question: If you are able to hold back your own opinions in your classroom when the students are debating, why do you bring up the Civil War here constantly? I realize it’s one of your favorite topics, but you don’t seem to be able or willing to restrain yourself here the way you do in your classroom.
And I agree with your student about Missouri. There was fighting not just between Kansas and Missouri but between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in Missouri. In some respects, Missourians had already been fighting the Civil War in their own state for years before the rest of the nation joined in. After the South seceded, for quite some time Missouri had two different state governments, one pro and one anti, one recognized by the Confederacy and one by the Union.
Missouri was a very complex situation, and it is greatly over-simplifying things to call it a pro-slavery state. It could have broken in two the way Virginia and West Virginia did, but the geographical division of pro and anti elements was not as pronounced. While there was something of a north/south division, it tended to be divided more depending on origin (early post-Revolutionary settlers from the South versus later immigrants from Germany), which meant many areas had almost an even mix of the two factions.
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
Also, in reference to something you said over on the original thread, it honestly doesn’t bother me that you have Union sympathies per se. What I do see as a problem is you have a very romanticized conceptualization of the Union and the North. The reality was a h*ll of a lot grittier and complicated.
Apparently you have a lot of stake in the idea that the North was morally perfect. I find that kind of dichotomous thinking to be just as fallacious as its opposite, the old historical theory of the Lost Cause.
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
So you’re basically covering 1860 to 1867, give or take a couple years?
You do realize how long the Reconstruction era was?
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
“Also, I don’t completely hold back my opinions in class. I pose the discussion questions and express my stance at the end. However, to the extent that I do suppress anything, perhaps even subconsciously the Internet is a way to vent.”
Out of all the places on the internet you could go to vent, including sites specifically dedicated to history — quite possibly even specifically to the history of the Civil War — why do you vent here, on a blog mostly focused on current issues?
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
“I also think the Civil War is extremely relevant when discussing many of the current issues brought up on this blog.”
I have yet to see a single person agree with that statement. Instead, you are considered to be a derailer if not an outright troll.
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