Hugo's one-liners about Peggy McIntosh's article on white privilege cry out for a response, but his unctuous and wilted witticisms pale before those made by another self-appointed authority on The Negro Problem.



Really? I've read quite a bit of James Baldwin, quote him in my current signature and have referenced him previously in this thread. I am not familiar with the remarks you mentioned. Do you have a link to the exact quote?



Oh, so that's all Hispanic pride, culture and identity is about, Tim-Mello? Their lifelong desire is to "assimimulate" (sic) until they become honorary "white people" (in quotation marks I guess to differentiate from real white people) with names that end in vowels and the letter "Z?" Ah, where are the Hispanics on this distressingly monochromatic board?



Let me see if I understand this. All it takes to make it into the American "white" culture is to assimilate? Surrender any and all trace of your own culture, history and identity and "meld" into the American "white" culture? All black folks in America need do is throw off the chains of their blackness and become quotation marks "white people" like the Hispanics?

That may be the single most asinine assertion I have ever read advocated on this board.

You reference James Baldwin often Tim-Mello, but from the totally shallowness and ridiculous notions you advance it is impossible for me to conceive that you have ANY understanding of who he was. It's a smart move to quote Baldwin to add an air of authority to a inane notion, but it would be a smarter move to develop a clearer understanding of the character of the man.

People sometimes get "confused."

I remember the morning James Baldwin's death was announced on the Today Show. Willard Scott authoritatively announced that Baldwin was the author of God's Trombones.

This was a neat trick, since James Weldon Johnson published God's Trombones In 1927 when James Baldwin was only three.

I'm sure Willard had his heart in the right place, but apparently was confused about Baldwin, as are those who try to speak authoritatively without citing references.

nighttimer stated



Something tells me that if I knew what unctious meant I would be insulted. I am sorry, Peggy's one-liners deserved no more than a one-liner, for each of her's, in reply. With the notable exception of #25 and the lesser exception #14 they were pretty simple to debunk.

It was in an interview I read. I never said Baldwin advocated assimilation. His comment was based on the black mentality that some how they were "owed something". He was just making the comment that blacks needed to realize that they were the minority, i.e. don't expect much. It was a realization, an awakening of sorts. I'm guessing that's why he split for France.

I understand completely what he's saying. How many times are you in a situation where you are powerless and you expect to be heard? You have to understand your limitations to succeed.




No, I had white people in quotes because its a LAZY term used by lazy people, like liberal and conservative.....er, or HISPANIC. Seeing that the majority of HISPANICS refuse to call themselves that because they are either Cubans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Guatamalans, etc. etc. and refuse to be lumped together. Don't call a Puerto Rican a Mexican....they don't like that.

But what about all of the WHITE PEOPLE cultures that have been left behind? The Polish folks, the German folks, the French, the Italians, the Russians.....that's why I think "white people" is a word that should be used by racist groups because it's about as useful as "hispanic".

I take calls for a company and a fresh Polish immigrant was steaming because there was an option to speak Spanish. He said "I had to learn english, why can't they!". So, it's not just HISPANICS that want to become "WHITE PEOPLES", it's also WHITE PEOPLES that want to become WHITE PEOPLES. Just an FYI.



Monochromatic? Is this a term you and your multichromatic friends came up with? I guess you view the world through what color someone is rather than the character of the person. That's pretty sad.

Do you think it matters what color tone someone's skin is? As far as "Hispanics" go, if Charlie Sheen and Martin Sheen were posting on the board, would they be part of the monochromatic crowd? Just curious.



What culture is that? Ignorance and violence? Rap, ebonics and bling-bling? Do you think when immigrants (Africans as well as Asians or Europeans) come here they are thinking "screw the man"? No way, they are thinking "what do I have to do to fit in". Look at Barak Obama, you have to say "why does that guy stick out?". Because hes extremely articulate and he has no chip on his shoulder....prolly cause his dad was an immigrant.



I'm a newbie to the board, but I thought it was made pretty clear when I registered that there was a zero tolerance on insults.



I never said Baldwin advocated anything I suggested, I just quoted him. I'm sorry if you got the implication that I was speaking for the late James Baldwin.

There are black folks that are already doing what I suggest. There are elite groups of blacks that go to Harvard and have "coming out parties" for their daughters (ala "WHITE PEOPLE").

IMHO, the issue isn't race, it's poverty and lack of education. There are plenty of whites who are poor and uneducated. The only difference between them, IMHO, is that black "culture" is resistant to doing what it takes to help themselves.

What exactly gives you this impression? Are the 'white impoverished' doing a whole lot to help themselves?
There is a whole lot of talk about 'assismilation' into what I perceive here as integrating into 'white oriented' society. Thats old white culture talking. If we look around, if anyone is paying attention to youth and staying current, black culture has taken over american culture. They have taken ahold of everything that America stands for in the most materialistic sense and driven it to the top selling, creative youth culture since the Beatles and later - Rock. Its all Hip-Hop/rap now and Natives are involving themselves on the tail end of this success.

There is NO Longer an 'assimilation'. Black culture now defines itself as THE American youth culture: white , black, asian and hispanic, native have all signed up across the board. Assimilation as necessary by majority has been proved wrong by this very successful movement.

African-americans have taken ahold of america and defined it by their own standards and have brought almost all youth in tow. Therefore 'white majority' assimilation lost that battle. Our children somehow related to and grabbed ahold of the negro struggle, the hopelessness, the violence, the materialism, along with the open sexuality, the superficial, fast living, fast food monster that america had itself become and pushed it forward and made it their own, as youth tends to do, rebel or comply, and exagerate what they live.
Black culture IS american culture today, and its steaming ahead in all its glory.

While this thread probably had good intentions in considering that many black people live in poverty, everyone knows that many natives, blacks, women and other minorities live in poverty because of past or current 'white man' legislation, with continued discrimination, segregation and racism in the US, so the question of 'what to do about the 'negro problem' alone, in this day is plainly, racist.
African americans have not had much time and cannot be compared to other immigrants that arrived here with varied anonymity, nor had been enslaved , nor up to a mere 45 years ago been segregated to the point that they were.
If one takes a good look around, its not the downtrodden that you see, perhaps its what you choose to see. Its an empowered black race, who will make good, despite inequities and strife and social problems and lack of good educations, and are already.

What to do about poverty in America, what to do about out of wedlock births,
(Amlord, we can talk about this til the cows come home, because I have lots of ammo about how conservatives make this a dark corner to live in but...it) is another thread entirely and would seem more appropriate than to separate black people as problematic on the poverty scale here.
Who is not making good on the american dream? All things considered I think African Americans have done more than your average when it comes to getting up from extraordinarily detrimental circumstances and making something happen for themselves.
If we want to 'help' the afro-american, perhaps we can stop considering them 'a separate problem' and just provide for them the same benefits we (should) provide to everyone, a good education and decent living standards. ( and you know what? It makes me sick to even talk about someone as if they are not in the room, or are so different. I hate that perspective.)

Why dont I ever see a thread about what to do about 'white poverty' in america, because surely the white poor have fallen behind, in taking their 'rights' for being born in america for granted and done little to better themselves except blame others.

There's a difference between being entrenched in poverty and being rebellious about doing something about it. The "black culture" (another lazy term, but for lack of a better one I'll use it) is one that does all it can to separate itself from the norms. Is there a white impoverished culture? Do they make up new words and new clothes? Do they frown on the efforts that it takes to be successful in our country?



You're talking about the entertainment industry. I haven't walked into a boardroom lately and heard the CEO rapping. I haven't gone to an interview where they expected me to be donning Adidas and a bandana yet.



I think you exagerate just a tad. Again, you're talking about entertainment. Materialism is a problem in the "black culture", I agree. But that's America for you. There they have assimilated to a horrible degree.




Er, and white men as well? It's pretty convenient to blame "WHITE MEN" for people's problems simply because the population has always been majority "white" and predominantly male-dominated (check the rest of the world, it's not a new thing).

Why not just say the policies of our gov't? There have been blacks in power as well as other nationalities, aren't they to blame as well? Condie Rice? Collen Powell?

I'm a white male and I'm suffering at the policies of these BLACK PEOPLE!! And there have been plenty of white people that have suffered at the incompetence of our gov'ts actions.

I think you're being oversimplifying things a bit.



Have you checked the poverty rates per race? The proportion of people in prison per race? The unemployment rates as a percentage of race?

I never said there wasn't discrimination, I get discriminated at my job all the time as well where the majority of people I work with are black women. It's the nature of people. How you deal with it is the issue.




Because that would be a thread about "poverty", not "white poverty". I'm not sure where I see poor white folk blaming others for their problems, is that happening? I recently moved into a poverty-level income, and although I try to argue that our policies are going to cause more poverty in America, I don't necessarily blame others, as I accept my situation and realize that I'm not alone. There is no boogie man holding me down, there are just fewer opportunities because of our failed policies.

When Oprah went to Africa she donated a bunch of money to the poor blacks there. She said she didn't donate as much to American blacks because they had opportunity, which the Africans did not. If you constantly blame "the white man" you're doing yourself a disservice. You have opportunities. The prior post is one of the problems I see in black culture, i.e. blaming the white man. It's like my job, when someone messes up and I'm with a customer, I don't complain about the idiot employee who caused the mess, I just fix the problem.

I'm not sure where you get this impresion but, seeing as I am black I can tell you with near absolute certainly that it is plainly false.

As I've said before, the majority of black communities are totally (almost boringly) normal. Nearly nothing of great import (the music, dance, and accent may be a bit different) is done differently.

The need for assimilation is a serious (and dangerous) myth.

I would say everyone makes up a new word at some point in their lives The english language has been adding fad words for decades, is this a new thing?
It doesn't change the basic understanding of the language. As for new clothes, come on now I think we all now clothing is normally subject to fads as well (or are you still in bell-bottoms?)

Pure red-herring.

I'm guessing Alabama is a little different than Detroit. But that's why I say "black culture" is a poor term to use. I'm also guessing you have plenty of poor white folk in Alabama who live next to the poor black folks .






I think we all need to assimilate to some degree. It's not just a "black thing". I work mostly women all day, I have to adjust to that environment. Assimilation is not a myth, it's a reality for everyone.



C'mon. You can't tell me there's not an effort to distance themselves from "white culture". Most of the new language we see "bling-bling", "yo yo yo", "homey" etc. comes from where? Off the top of your head, name a new slang word that came from white culture. Not something like "metrosexual" which is just a technical term to define something not previously defined.

I hardly think "metrosexual" is a technical term, I always thought it was something of a joke.

A lot of slang grows from normal words that have been twisted a bit. Homey for instance (no one says that anymore, by-the-by) is short for for homeboy which obviously refers to neighborhood guys, hardly a cultural revolution there. Bling-bling is just as obvious, it's the sound effect for shiny things on TV, don't know who came up with it.

In many eighties movies one gets hit with some of the more famous "white" slang such as:
Gnarly (A actual word, but used in a completely different way)
Dude (Everyone adopted this one)
Geek
Nerd
Jock

We could go farther back, but I'm scared already.

Point is, is has little to do with race. Kids make up words, it's what they do, not a threat to the nation.

turnea,

Is it your stance that blacks have fully assimilated in the US? Are you saying that there are no down sides to black urban culture?

Is there no difference between being black in America and being white?

Just curious, since you have offered rebuttals, but no stance on the issues of:

1) What the heck is going on? (in regards to progress)

2) What do you personally feel must be done on and individual as well as social level to address the situation of Afro-Americans in our society?

3) Do you feel like we are moving forward or backwards over the last four years?

My stance is that it is in the black community's court now. We, as a society, have done what we can to remove institutional and governmental discrimination. It is impossible to completely remove individual freedom of association, of course. The black community must reject some of the behaviors that they have tacitly condoned over the years (drug abuse, out-of-wedlock births) and whip their youth into shape.

Just curious how this is only something the "black community" must act on? In my community there are black people and I feel they have a right as much as I do to be considered a part of my community and that their plights deserve as much attention from me or any other's in the community.

Also just so some of you around here know or understand some of us Americans do not have any issues or problems with "out-of-wedlock births" and I know this is a religious value or moral far more than it is a racial one. All a "wedlock" is is a piece of paper and it really has no representational insight to that particular child's home life or parental involvement..you can have a daddy even if the govt does not say you do and there are many reasons younger mothers choose to have their baby's "out-of-wedlock" and often it is done for the government's sake. You can't get medicare unless you are dirt dirt poor and the easiest way to prove that is to take daddy out of the paperwork.

I am white...I live in the suburbs..I have contact with people of all races. I have had a baby out of wedlock and it didn't condemn me to a life of poverty. I have all my life felt the need to remove or disassociate myself with many of the values of mainstream American society. A lot of what appears to be valued in this country is not something I wish or wish for my children to value and yet nobody is telling me I need to remove myself from my society and deal with my "cultural problems" alone.

There have been a lot of stereotypical nonsense being thrown around in this debate. I just don't understand why in this country we allow so much complexity for white Americans..they can be liberal, conservative, democratic, republican, rich, poor, divorced, married, teenage mothers, drug addicts and use different slang and dialects from one another and yet when it comes to black America it is all just black. Why do we fully accept the fact white Americans say pop, soda and soft drink and have a complexity in their language and dialects... yet if black Americans say bling bling it somehow signals their desire to remove or distance their culture or even a rebellious act towards other cultures. Why do blacks have to assimilate when whites don't? I thought we all...everyone..the world over..seeks to define, recognize and celebrate our differences.

I agree with turnea assimilation is a myth and it will never happen and I see no reason it needs to.

This thread is about the future prospects of black Americans.

Anecdotal evidence is just that: anecdotal. It is not very strong when discussing problems that are related to large groups of people. When you look at the numbers, a larger percentage of blacks live in poverty in America. A large portion of blacks have babies out of wedlock. There are cultural reasonings behind these facts and they are not simply stereotypes.

My oldest child was born out of wedlock. Of course there are exceptions to the rule. But never married women with children are 60% likely to live in poverty. If she is also black, the number approaches 70%. Those are facts, not stereotypes.

Of course there are successful black people, just as there are unsuccessful white people. This thread is about the future prospects of black Americans. Have we made progress and where do we go from here.

Of course blacks are equally worthy as whites. That however, does not solve the real life issues of why blacks continue to lag behind other ethnic groups and other minorities.

One of the many problems with assimilation is that we aren’t talking about a large minority group, placing them a larger pot with the majority, shaking it up and coming up with a homogenized results. Instead, we are dealing with, on a national scale, hundreds of thousands of individuals.

Another problem is the assumption on the part of some, that any failure to create some sort of unity must be laid at the door of blacks.

Fort Worth ISD, for example is made up as follows:

Anglo=54%
Black=23%
Hispanic=21%
Asian=1%
Other=1%

http://www.window.state.tx.us/tspr/fortworth/appendb2.htm

Individual schools are another matter. For example, O. D. Wyatt high school’s ethnic composition is:

79.1% Black
14.7 Hispanic
5.1% Anglo or white

Fifty years after Brown vs. Board it doesn’t seem like much “assimilation” is taking place at O. D. Wyatt. Given other predominately black schools in the district, it seems that we have segregation within an “integrated” system.

Then there’s the matter of “white flight” With the first wave of school desegregation, many white moved to the suburbs.

Here’s a link to one suburban school district “Carroll ISD” in the Metroplex. From pictures on Carroll’s webpage, I don’t see much assimilation taking place.

http://www.southlakecarroll.edu/schools.htm

The Future?

I would suggest that the emphasis on vouchers, charter schools and the like is yet another attempt to thwart the very things Brown vs. Board was meant to correct.

BTW: Tim-Mello



I worked as a special education teacher for twenty-five years. Most of my colleagues were women, yet I never sacrificed my identity in an effort to fit in. In fact, unless it were specificlly part of the job, I tried hard not to do things I didn't want to do, simply because I didn't want to do them. Here’s an example: Whenever one of the women got married or pregnant, someone would throw a shower for them, usually after school. Although some of the males did attend, I went home instead. If I liked the person, I would buy a present and have my assistant deliver it, but I never attended one single shower. This issue came up my first year. Our principal had decided everyone on the staff would attend a shower. One of the other male teachers, one who was tenured, took the matter to our union. A complaint was filed an an assistant superintendent informed the principal that he could not make attendance at a shower mandatory. I didn't file the complaint, but I gladly benefited from it.

This is why I really get quessy using blanket generalizations. I hate when someone calls me a "liberal", because my political opinions are diverse based on the actual topic. I don't like to be referred to as a "white male", mostly because it's a negatively loaded term.

There was this "black" family in California that were all gung-ho for affirmative action and black rights, etc. And they sent their DNA to some clinic that evaluates where your origins are from. It turns out they were really Indian, not African decent.

To ask what are the future prospects of black Americans is really unanswerable, especially when you already have determined that all black people are not the same.

My suggestion is for those that aren't making it to emulate those that are. That goes for blacks as well as whites. And if you are black and you find yourself trying to buck the system, try a new approach and don't be so anti-establishment.

Just to throw some more numbers into this debate. The great liberal-conservative divide seems to be the year 1964 and the beginning of those dreaded tax and spend programs of the Great Society. (No need to compare the costs of the so-called war on poverty to the more literal but not formally declared war in Vietnam here)

Many statistics in this thread refer to the disintegration of the black family beginning in the 1960s and point to that as the great contributing factor to the rise in poverty.

Well let's take a look and see how black America has suffered along with this so-called breakdown in black family values.
Poverty graph

There was tremendous downward movement during the war on poverty and there has downward movement during the peak years of the 1990s tech boom. The trend looks very similar to white America but with a higher starting point and probably better overall progress than the national average.

Poverty numbers from the early 1970s have been fairly stagnant across the board.

In the meantime for the larger black community during these years per capita black income has risen tremendously, moving from $6000 to $15000 in forty years.
Historical Income Tables - People

This is compared to the white income of the period that rose from around $11K to $24K. The relative growth of this supposed failing culture is rising faster than white culture.

Turnea has been asserting that blacks in America are largely assimilated into mainstream society. I would argue that there is more evidence of overlap than difference between the average white american and the average black american.

There is not much of a separatist movement in this country. The nation of Islam is no more the majority in black America than the Mormon community is the majority in white America.

What looks to me to be the problem is that poverty has persisted since the collapse of the war on poverty. I would argue that there are vast differences in America between the lifestyles of those living in poverty and those living 2X the poverty rate and more. Is that a cultural difference? Is it so simple to say that the behaviors of those dealing with poverty are the cause of poverty? Could it not also be that living in poverty will lead to different behaviors, statistically?

I am not a wholesale fan of the War on Poverty, but it was a good-spirited movement whose proponents had a beautiful vision of our country and had the best interests of all Americans in mind. I don't think it was the beginning of all that is wrong in poor America.

I also think that our household statistics have been skewed by welfare/aid/assistance programs that place a strong amount of favoritism on payments to the deserving poor, the elderly, women, and children.

The way this works in my experience is that a single mother is eligible for a variety of programs from WIC, to health insurance, to a significant Earned Income Credit at tax time, to section 8 housing aid, to other income supplements. Even when they are in a stable relationship with a man who might be interested in marrying them, many or most times that marriage or cohabitation would come at the expense of much of that aid. So instead many of these households remain female headed because of this. If there were a way to maintain a strong portion of those benefits and allow the presence of an adult male in the household. Just a little musing on that.

So I think if America wants to address the issue of black poverty effectively, it should address the issue of poverty directly with a colorblind eye. If this could be done in a way to encourage as much as possible fulltime work and two income households then perhaps we could avoid some of the negative impacts of the welfare system in the AFDC era.

I tried to avoid this topic, but I just couldn't keep quiet anymore. In this topic several people keep referring to the "Black Culture" that is holding people back, responsible for their poverty and their inability to rise above it, etc.

This is not "Black Culture". "Black Culture" is Jazz, among many other things. What people keep calling "Black Culture" is not African, or African-American at all, it is Urban. I find it hard to believe that anyone who says this is a problem of "Black Culture" could have possibly ever lived in a moderate or low income area in any City.

I have. What you see there, in many people of all manors of race, sex, and sexual persuasion is a "culture" of failure rooted in a sense of hopelessness and a dislike of success that I believe is rooted in envy. Kids in Urban schools look down on kids who are academically successful. The race of the successful child, or the race of the kids that dislike their success is irrelevant as it runs the gambit. Rap, Gang Violence, Provocative Clothes, Street Slang, etc., have NOTHING to do with race and EVERYTHING to do with the environment you're raised in, Not to mention your parents and other adult influences ability or inability in regard to raising and teaching you (not that there is anything wrong with Rap or slang with a few exceptions).

I have lived in these neighborhoods. I have lived in some where garbage was everywhere, no one thought they could succeed or tried, and where crime was rampant and no one cared.

I have live in neighborhoods that were in the same poor school districts, the same poor housing, with the same mix of people making up the block. Yet, that block was always clean, if anyone was dumb enough to try to commit a crime there the neighbors who come out against them in force and the children generally did better in school.

The difference between the two type of neighborhoods in the Urban core have nothing to do with race, money, etc. It has everything to do with HOPE. Something, in the second neighborhood caused the people their to regain hope that they could have something better. Perhaps one neighbor got fed up and chased off a drug dealer and lived, perhaps a local cop who actually cared finally convinced the neighbors that he/she did care, who knows. Whatever it was, hope slowly returned.

I watched a neighborhood in Kansas City Mo., which once had a dozen crack house within it's 18 blocks and where you could buy a 3 floor Victorian, 10 minutes from downtown, for 20,000.00 or less find hope.

One man, coincidentally a Gay Man, moved in. He tried to get involved with the local neighborhood group and after a year or so got fed up because all the group did was whine and complain but never act. He formed his own neighborhood association. Over the next year people started to get involved. Black People, White People, Hispanic People, Native-American People, Straight People, Gay People, BI People, Dirt Poor people, Working Poor People, Lower Middle Class People, even one Wealthy lady, Catholics, Atheists, Protestants, and a Shaman.

The results? First, they went after the Crack Houses. It took awhile but once they figured out the politics of it, they got them all out. It took 2 years.

Then they went after the streets. They had parties to clean the trash, in just a year we went from dodging needles, used condoms and empty crack vials to never seeing any of them and being left with just the junk inconsiderate drivers toss out windows.

Then they convinced the local catholic grade school to drop religion from their school day curriculum to better serve the diverse neighborhood and they started to get heavily involved in the school board meetings and PTA meetings for the public schools. From what I hear, Kansas City Public Schools are really improving over the past few years. Many credit this to the new superintendent and the greater parental involvement the in your average urban school district.

They pooled together and helped each other rehab their houses, I knew electric, he knew plumbing, she knows tuck-pointing, etc. The neighbors were each turning their homes around a little at a time.

They got together and raised funds and planted trees along the streets.

They got together and helped paint, and repair the outsides of houses of the elderly who could not do it.

They started calling in complaints to the codes department on the properties Absentee landlords allowed to deteriorate.

They were able to make the neighborhood an official historic district.

They worked tirelessly to completely rehab a beautiful Property of one neighbor who then volunteered it for BBQs and events to attract real estate agents to show them how far the neighborhood had come and where it was headed.

The result, Old Hyde Park, Kansas City, MO. is a fabulous place to live, with a diverse culture. But, you better bring your checkbook because those 20,000.00 houses now cost 150,000.00 or more just 10 years later.

The point here is that hope came back. With it, came the willingness of people to work to succeed at something. The kids, obviously with some exceptions, generally did better in school. That 18 block neighborhood had I believe 80 or so kids in school when I was there. I remember when I visited 2 years ago how my old friends raved about have that had "almost 3 dozen kids" in honor classes, and not one kid had dropped out of school in 2 years.

They told me about all the fundraisers they were doing to raise money to help kids goto college and raved about the leaps and bounds of improvement had been made in the city schools since I moved to Saint Louis.

In the Urban Core. Race is irrelevant. You succeed or Fail based on your level of Hope, Support from family and neighbors, and the Tools and Resources available to you. It is terrible that more Urban kids can't benefit from the Renaissance that is happening in small neighborhoods in many metropolitan areas across America.

The "Culture" that is the problem, is the Urban "Culture" of failure, and a lack of hope. Thinking this is a "Black thing" is a mistake. You can't possibly fix a problem if you can't properly identify it.

As for "Assimilation". The only Assimilation in Old Hyde Park, is that your either get involved and work with the neighbors or you don't. But anyone who drives through there can't help but notice the wide differences in cultural identities that can be seen in the ways people outwardly express their heritage (as well as other types of identity) in the displays and decorations of their homes and the way they celebrate the various holidays.

Lack of hope is the problem Not the color of people's skin. You will find countless White Homeless men, Hookers, Thieves and Drug Dealers in the Urban Core. Most grew up there, and the commonality between them usually is a lack of hope that they could have something better that they were raised with.

The only thing that makes this a "Black Thing" is that fact that more black people live in these kinds of neighborhoods and the media loves to do stories on the plight of "Black America" rather then the reality of the plight of "Urban America".


Edited to Add:

There is one disadvantage that non-white people have to deal with that white people do not. That is the fact that due to skin color, they are easily identifiable to those white people who are bigoted against them, regardless of how well they "assimulate". That puts them at a distinct disadvantage when life forces them to deal with those with racist mindsets. Will the fact that a man is well dressed, well spoken, well educated and well experienced really matter to the person doing the hiring if the man in question is black and the human resources person is a member of the KKK?

What a great American story. This is a perfect example of what progress is possible when people forget about "race" and those ancient histories and work together as a team toward a common goal. This is an example of what America is all about. it's not about forgetting your "identity", it's about putting in perspective what really matters. And "race aint it".

It's amusing to sit back and analyze this question because it's a bit condescending. It's like saying "what can we do to help the poor black community".

At this point my state is under seige. We just lost 500 jobs from a local bank. GM has declared they will lay off ANOTHER 8,000 workers. The city of Detroit is in the process of laying off 250 workers and slashing salaries. This is all in the past week. And you already can barely find a job that pays $20K/year....with a college degree and experience.

At this point, I'm asking "what is the future of America?". Sorry, I can't condescend to say what the future of black America is, when I'm in the cross hairs with the rest of them.

Well you have a union.

Seriously, I am not unionized and I do have to go along to get along. Not only do I work with mostly women, I work with mostly black women. In order to do my job, I do what I need to do to get by. I've been assaulted by one woman and tried to escalate the issue to a female manager who blew it off. The situation only got worse by me doing something about it.

I MUST adjust my habits and actions to acclimate to the job. Because sadly, I need this pathetic job.

It's not condescension at work here it is history. Like it or not most blacks in America, due to a shared legacy of oppression feel that they are part of a larger African-American culture which itself forms a part of America as a whole. After so many years of beingly forcibly excluded what do you expect?

Black Americans do have a relatively unique history and share unique problems . It is not condescending to recognize this fact.

There are only two points I want to address regarding your numerous postings in this thread Tim-Mello.  The first regards the late novelist and essayist James Baldwin.



An interview you read. No idea of when or where or what about? A interview you read qualifies you to "quote" Baldwin as being supportive of your notion that blacks must assimilate into the white culture?

I might be able to buy into that notion had you read a Baldwin novel such as Go Tell It On the Mountain, Another Country or Blues For Mister Charlie. Or if you had read any of Baldwin's collection of essays such as The Fire Next Time, The Price of the Ticket, Nobody Knows My Name or even A Rap On Race with Margaret Mead.

IF you had, I might not be so disdainful of your regressive and reactionary ideas on race in general and black people in particular. Perhaps I could find your views on race tolerable, if not agreeable. However, you have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that you regard blacks as second-class citizens who should be begging for a few crumbs of equality from the table of white people---or more specifically, the table of white men.

I might be able to accept your embracing of Baldwin if you knew that James Baldwin was a very dark-skinned, not particularly handsome, fiercely proud and openly gay man who liked to say things like this:

In any case, white people, who had robbed black people of their liberty and who profited by this theft every hour that they lived, had no moral ground on which to stand.

or

To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.

or...

Education is indoctrination if you're white - subjugation if you're black.

and finally...

White people cannot, in the generality, be taken as models of how to live. Rather, the white man is himself in sore need of new standards, which will release him from his confusion and place him once again in fruitful communion with the depths of his own being.

Reading that Tim-Mello, can you possibly begin to fathom why I find it so difficult, so ridiculous, so totally inconceivable that such a man could EVER suggest:

I have learned to have very little respect for what white people say about being black. A few, a Hobbes there or a Artemise or Eeyore there, seem to think a bit more critically, possess a bit more self-awareness or speak at bit more forthrightly. Oh, it's not as though they all haven't at one time or another disagreed with me or chided me for being arrogant, accusatory or impatient. They're right. Their candor is appreciated because I know it comes from people whose eyes and minds are open and not just their mouths.

Assimilation is not only something I ridicule, but resist. The original intent of intergration was never assimilation. I'll repeat that: The original intent of intergration was NEVER assimilation. The purpose of Brown v. Board of Education was not predicated upon the assumption that little black kids would learn only if they sat next to little white kids. It was predicated on the fact that separate is not equal and never will be. You cannot allocate $1000 dollars for a white child and $100 for a black child and say both are receiving an "equal" education.

Equality is not a gift white men hold in their back pockets like candy they can dispense to unruly children once they begin to behave. Nor is it a very high priority for me to "join the establishment" if doing so means neutering my identity, my history and my legacy. I honor my differences instead of subordinating them. To the point that it lessens my chances of moving into the suburbs and playing golf with the "dominant white majority," I care not at all.

As a African-America man I am a culturally diverse representation of both my present state in America and my prior history in Africa. I will not embrace one and discard the other any more than I would my father over my mother. Being who I am instead of whom others say I should be is being faithful to my own's soul. For me to strive for some imaginary degree of "honorary whiteness" would be as ludicrous as expecting a dog to purr like a cat or a elephant to fly like a bird.

I don't know what your definition of success is Tim-Mello. But I'm certain that it looks nothing like what mine is.

Here's the second point I want to address Tim-Mello.



That's good advice. But apply it to yourself Tim-Mello and apply it to yourself first.

Recognize that what you don't know about black people or race or deceased gay essayists could fill the Grand Canyon. Understand, just because you work with black people means you know black people. Realize that being born with white skin doesn't make you an authority on anybody else who isn't.

I'm sorry you feel that you're being persecuted, oppressed or treated badly because you happen to be the minority where you work. Here's some advice. Quit. Find another "pathetic job." There's always work out there for a hard-working Joe who is willing to put his nose to the grindstone. Don't blame your lousy employment situation on anyone but yourself if you aren't willing to do what's necessary to improve it.

The writer, novelist and playwright, Pearl Cleage, wrote in her 1993 book of essays, Deals With the Devil (and other reasons to riot) a guide to Basic Training when engaging in discussions of sexism with men or race with whites. At the time when I first read what Ms. Cleage wrote, I thought it was an unbelievably arrogant and egotistical statement.

In discussions of race between black people and white people, the conscious black person is always right, is always the ultimate authority on questions having to do with race and racism; must always be regarded as the "injured party," or the oppressed. The reason for this is obvious. It is in the best interest of white people to keep black people oppressed. They cannot possibly be expected to be objective about questions of race and should therefore adopt a listening rather than a speaking posture.

I used to think that you had to have some pretty big stones to write something that "in your face." However upon reading through this thread where so many posters feel so casually disposed to pour derision upon black people for not meeting up to their standards, I find myself in agreement with the words of Artemise when she wrote It makes me sick to even talk about someone as if they are not in the room, or are so different.

If you read back thru my posts, you'll see that I didn't claim Baldwin agreed with any of my assertions, I simply noted that he made a comment that I thought was relevant.

And I did read Go Tell It on the Mountain, BTW.



Can you share ideas without personal attacks? Again, I thought that was a policy for this board.


As for the rest of your post, you seem to know very little about me yet accuse me of not knowing "black people", but apparently YOU do know everything, even all the white people who all golf in the suburbs.

I never claimed to know anyone, heck I don't know other "white people". After posting those quotes from Baldwin, I guess I made a bad decision, because his generalizations about people are what I despise the most and prolly why I find this thread so condescending.

When I say assimilate, I mean take into consideration your environment, adapt, do what it takes to become successful. But I've already been over this a bunch of times.

But apparently you just want someone to attack. And there in lies the importance of the Baldwin quote. I don't have to care....because I am in the majority.

...and there lies the problem, something nighttimer quote in red tried to get across.

You should not approach this situation anchored to the concept of self-interest, if you truly believe in "One America" you should care whether or not you are in the majority.

If you don't, then this whole discussion goes precisely nowhere. It is impossible to get a meaningful contribution from the apathetic.

Where is the thought in that statement?

The topic asked what should be done for blacks to succeed...

You respond "do what it takes to succeed"...

For a moment, consider the specifics, I think it is there that the assimilation myth falls to pieces.

I have, in previous posts, pointed out that every example you presented of the foreign "black culture" you reference is not foreign nor even a particularly important difference.

Understand, black Americans as a community are ever so slightly different from other Americans. We hold dear, however, these slight differences. For a people who have been historically "encouraged" (read forced) to be ashamed of these differences, I think the resiliency required to glory in them is a particularly admirable aspect of black culture. None of these differences should affect their chances for success. If we want to find the cause of higher poverty rates among black we must look elsewhere.

Henry Louis Gates, distinguished scholar and chair of Harvard's African and African American Studies Department.




And from McWhorter's artice title "what's Holding Blacks Back?" at www.city-journal.org/html/11_1_whats_holding_blacks.html




Since us white boys can't comment on race issues I left some quotes from a couple black people. I am sure they will be derided as Uncle Toms.

You're confused. These aren't personal attacks. This is debate. You put your ideas on this board and they're open to interpretation. My interpretation is that you speak quite freely about people you know almost nothing about. If you don't want your ideas subject to critique and criticism, you don't have to share them.



What Baldwin quote? You haven't supplied a single quote by James Baldwin.

We could argue about what "majority" you are part of, but the "majority" at one time or other supported slavery and apartheid, denying women the right to vote, the burning of witches, Adolf Hitler and the Vietnam War. Being part of the majority doesn't make you right. It makes you part of the herd. Invention, creativity, and free-thinking comes from the individual. Never from the majority.

Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one

-- Henry David Thoreau

I am sure (as I would guess are you Hugo), that this will not be the case.

They are not traitors to their race. They are simply barking up the wrong tree, good to know that they are at least barking though.

Here comes the anecdotal evidence again. As a black person who enjoys learning for learning's sake I have never, ever in my memory been referred to as "acting white" over that issue. In fact in my youth (and to this day) I receive frequent compliments about it.
To suggest that most blacks don't value education can be construed as insulting (though I know it wasn't intended as such)

I don't doubt that it does happen, but it's frequency seems highly overrated to me. I've seen as much anti-intellectualism among whites as among blacks.

Turnea:


Please, I'm just an ignorant white boy...explain this stat.From my prior post.

Heh. Don't worry I'm an equal-opportunity know-it-all

Don't know it I can do this one just yet though...

I would like to know where it's from and how it was collected (I never noticed a parent's income section on my SAT)... but would point out that anti-intellectualism isn't the only thing to consider.

Quality of schooling, non-financial facets of the home situation, etc. are all possible factors.

Nice try to bury your head in the sand. The chances of the average black child whose parents make over 70K having a lower quality of schooling than the average white kid whose parents make less than 6K are pretty much nil. Now if non-financial facets of the home situation is the factor we are still speaking of black culture.

A flip one-liner connected to a quote from an opinion piece that is not supported by any source reference. I guess I'll just have to take your word for it Hugo that it is accurate and that you really aren't trying to enflame this thread.

How are we to debate such a statistic. Go to the urban legend cites and see if it appears there?

Therefore, by your own logic, the mentality that is current shared by the "majority" of people you label "black" in this country could be completely and totally wrong while the minority view, held by people like Thomas Sowell, Larry Elders, Clarance Thomas and others you accuse of "curring favor" could be exactly right??

As you said, the herd mentality is often wrong. Correct?

All you had to do was look at the previous post. Where the source was given. It is, once again, from John McWhorter's "What's Holding Blacks Back?"


A bit more from the same article:



Let me quote, for the third time this passage, once again from McWhorter's "What's Holding Blacks Back?"



Sorry if I am debating mostly by cut and paste. Only way I see to get around the only minorities can speak of racial issues rule. Of course, white proponents of victimology are granted honorary black status.

Let me take a moment to thank nighttimer for introducing me to the writings of John McWhorter.

I cannot believe that a man such as yourself would place any credence in this statement. The black person is always right. Always? A blanket statement of this magnitude is sure to be flawed. It is and you know it is.


I generally agree with this statement, although there are exceptions.



Oh really? Is this country run in the name of profit, or in the name of white supremacy? Maybe it's run for the profit of white supremists?

As an individual business owner, my policy would always be to hire the best candidate regardless of race. Why? Because they can make me the most money. Where is the sense in hiring a less able applicant, simply because his skin looks like mine? Of course, there are racists out there, but I hope that profit is a bigger motivator.

The thing is, a black person is also not objective about race issues. They have at least as much of a bias as a white person. Being a member of a race that has traditionally been a victim of racism does not give one more moral clout. On the other hand, it does not give one less, either. Similarly, being a white person does not remove the possibility that one has something meaningful to bring to the discussion. It also does not give one any more of a possibility that one's ideas are valuable, either.

Anyone who continues to espouse that only black people need to voice their opinion regarding race issues is doing themselves a disservice. One's race has absolutely nothing to do with the merit of one's opinions or the value in having them heard by others. Continuing to say so does not help race relations, it simply perpetuates the "us versus them" struggle in America.

When people throw around such broad brushed statement as the "white culture" and who blame the current occupants of our multi-cultural multi-racial multi-political multi-everything society for the sins of people hundreds of years ago, the answer is clear is day. Thus doing so are "racists". They should be labeled as such independent of the color of their skin or the texture of their hair.

If they are not mindful of the current reality in our country and want to cling to the past in order to rationalize some real social problems that people within our country face, they are part of the problem, not the solution.

Racists of all stripe should be scorned. Including those who are part of an "establishment" and those who claim "victimhood" status.

Perhaps you misunderstand, but I checked McWhorter's column and his editorial was full of opinions but you are offering that statistic about $70k income and $6k income as fact when there is no source given for that information. If it isn't based on a valid statistical source then I can't debate it.

McWhorter also addresses the burning of black churches in that column and alleges that the burning of churches issue was invented because other churches burned down during the same time. I don't place a lot of stock in his opinion because I researched that issue and found that many black churches were intentionally burned at that time by people whose primary reason was racism. So it did happen and I found no evidence that a string of churches with predominantly white congregations were destroyed because they of the racial component of the congregation.

When I see a statement that offers as fact that Middle Class black students perform worse than white students from an impoverished underclass, I want to see the study not the editorial that introduces it. That was the reason of my previous post. Maybe I missed where McWhorter provided a link or a reference to the study that identified that statistic?

2) What do you personally feel must be done on and individual as well as social level to adress the situation of Afro-Americans in our society?

Firstly, At some point, in the not-too-distant future, we need to stop classifying ourselves and each other using race. I'm not saying that racism doesn't exist, nor that every wrong of the past 400 years has been righted. What I am saying is that race identification for purposes such as hiring, education, census, etc., are going to really hurt us in the next 50 or 100 years. Think Brazil, where everyone non-European is some shade of coffee, with different levels of milk added. Race amalgamation will eventually cause us to deal with this.

Example 1 - If race is important, then how do we stop cheating? What is "black" or african-american? How can you define it? One drop of "black" blood? 50%? Who verifies? Do we adopt a system like apartheid South Africa, whereby we measure the width of the nose and the skin color? Could getting a deep sun-tan rob you of a scholarship just like a poppyseed bagel would make you fail a drug test?

Example 2 - If the answer to #1 is "by color," then why wouldn't we scale preferences and benefits to those who are darker. Dark-skinned "blacks" get the most, and light-skinned "blacks" get the least. This only seems fair, if it's all about color.

Example 3 - If the whole preference system is to right historical wrongs, why are recent African immigrants taking scholarships away from deserving "African Americans" at big-name schools? Harvard estimates that "as many as two-thirds" of affirmative-action recipients are West Indian and African immigrants or their children... PDF file of 6/24/04 NY Times article here

Lastly, a very serious proposal that I read about recently somewhere... Privatize Social Security!!!

A huge problem for the black community in America is that they have no wealth. While income continues to increase, blacks lag whites in terms of net worth. Average net worth is something like $20,000 for blacks vs. whites at over $100,000 ** Increased home ownership will continue to improve this, but privatizing Social Security would do a lot more. Allow people to take their own earnings and invest them, building up a nest egg that they can will down to their children.

Black life expectancy = 68.5, while the age to start receiving full SS benefits is scaling up to 67. If I were black, I'd be a little suspect of a system that takes TWELVE PERCENT OF MY PAY FOR MY WHOLE LIFE and pays me back an average of what, maybe $25,000 total (1.5 years times $16 grand or so). That is a scam.

**(source - it's a column but I'm sure it's out there somewhere in a table).

edited to add that the whole church-burning epidemic was a PR effort to help Bill Clinton secure re-election and had been substantially de-bunked throughout 1996. Eeyore, there were definitely some "copy cat" church burnings that were indeed racist, but it was been argued that those were not commonplace until after the media deluge and frenzy about alleged black church burnings.

I repeated Ms. Cleage's words, not because I embrace them, but because in a thread full of inflammatory rhetoric, that was one of the most inflammatory examples at hand that I could select. I reject broad and sweeping generalizations no matter who makes them. Always right? C'mon, Amlord! You know my posting style well enough to know that I'm a cynic by nature and a skeptic by practice. When anyone uses words like that I'm from Missouri.

I don't believe a dialogue on race is helped when it becomes a monologue or an lecture. Most people tend to tune out when they're being screamed at. However, I did mean what I wrote that I'm very skeptical of what most white people and specifically white men have to say about black people. My experience is---and has been born out by the tenor of this thread---that white males feel inclined to focus upon black people only as dysfunctional, pathological and as a permanent problem.

White males often take a very paternalistic and Alpha male position of talking down to blacks as if they were not their intellectual equals. As Artemise so aptly observed, this discussion about blacks as if they weren't even in the room is belittling and demeaning.

White people don't like to be accused of crimes they've never committed. Black people don't like to be treated like infants whose manners haven't developed enough to sit at the grown folks table.

Most intelligent people rejects overt racism such as advanced by a black-hating Ku Klux Klan or a white-hating Black Muslims. It's the subtle and more refined forms of prejudice, bias and yes, racism, that still keeps the problem of race as a unresolved issue. Both whites and blacks have work to do erase racism and I'm certain even Pearl Cleage would agree with that statement.



Oh yes, to be sure lordhelmet. I'm not retracting my previously statement.
It is quite possible that John McWhorter, Larry Elder, Thomas Sowell, Albert Murray, Shelby Steele, Glen Loury, Alan Keyes, Star Parker, and many other black intellectuals, politicians and academics could be right.

I just don't think they are.

I ask again, what is your definition of "white"? What is your definition of "black".

What catagory would you put a person of "mixed" heritage in?

Don't you think it's time to move forward beyond these labels?

So I should take abuse and care for the poor black people like they're little defenseless babies? Maybe I should tithe for the black people?

That's the joke of it all, nighttimer thinks I have to care....I don't. It's HE that has to care, not me. Sorry, I'm immune to guilt trips.



I said ADAPT and ASSIMILATE. Now you're just intentionally being droll.

Look at nighttimer, if he's typical of the people that are having problems as we are addressing, can you not see why he/she would have problems in the world? He/she expects people to care, and that's LAUGHABLE. Baldwin figured it out, but I don't know if he understood it.

Majority, as in "the majority has said AYE".

I guess I should have said "I'm not the one with the problem".

I'm not sure how Thoreau figures into this conversation.