We recently discussed the case of Saida Grundy, an incoming assistant professor of sociology and African-American studies at Boston University who released a series of tweets denounced by many as racist and sexist, including calling white males the main problem on college campuses and admitting how she tries not to buy anything from white people. While many called for Grundy to be fired, some of us defended her racist and sexist comments as an exercise of free speech done outside of her teaching responsibilities. However at the time, I noted “a series of tweets denounced by many as racist and sexist. “White masculinity isn’t a problem for america’s colleges, white masculinity is THE problem for america’s colleges.” Now we have such a case and it does appear to confirm some of our concerns that the same standard is not applied to those with opposing views. Duke University professor Jerry Hough has reportedly been placed on leave after posting comments online that were also denounced as racist. While Grundy was allowed to apologize for “indelicate” comments about whites, Hough is facing calls for termination and has reportedly been put on leave. [UPDATE: there are some stories indicating that Hough may have been on academic leave rather than “put on” academic leave. It is not clear from various reports.]
Hough was commenting on a New York Times editorial titled “How Racism Doomed Baltimore” and included an observation that Asian Americans don’t riot because “they didn’t feel sorry for themselves, but worked doubly hard.” He also wrote that “every black has a strange new name that symbolizes their lack of desire for integration” compared to “every Asian student [who] has a very simple old American first name.” Just as with Grundy’s comments, it is not necessary to debate the merits of such comments. What is at issue is the right to voice such views outside of the classroom and off campus as a matter of free speech. As with Grundy, these views may also be part of Hough’s academic views as political science teacher. His bio states that “his current research centers on the establishment of the state, identity, markets, and democracy in the United States.”
He later defended his comments and said that “Martin Luther King was my hero” and insisting he is “strongly against the toleration of racial discrimination.”
Duke Vice President for Public Affairs and Government Affairs Michael Schoenfeld released a statement quickly that said that “The comments were noxious, offensive, and have no place in civil discourse.” Boston University was right to treat Grundy’s comments as an exercise of free speech. If Hough has been put on leave, Duke has positioned itself on the other side of the free speech divide and has decided that it will now impose disciplinary action for academics who espouse offensive or obnoxious views outside of the class room. The problem is a lack of a standard that explains where this line. It is not simply a question of what speech will be considered permissible outside of the classroom but how the school will limit principles of academic freedom and free expression under such a standard in both academic writings and classrooms. It is a dangerous and slippery slope. The greatest problem is that the uncertain standard creates a chilling effect on academics, particularly untenured academics in what views will be tolerated. In the academic world, such uncertainty can be devastating and strikes at the very heart of the academic mission.
Here are Hough’s full original comments:
“This editorial is what is wrong. The Democrats are an alliance of Westchester and Harlem, of Montgomery County and intercity Baltimore. Westchester and Montgomery get a Citigroup asset stimulus policy that triples the market. The blacks get a decline in wages after inflation.
But the blacks get symbolic recognition in an utterly incompetent mayor who handled this so badly from beginning to end that her resignation would be demanded if she were white. The blacks get awful editorials like this that tell them to feel sorry for themselves.
In 1965 the Asians were discriminated against as least as badly as blacks. That was reflected in the word “colored.” The racism against what even Eleanor Roosevelt called the yellow races was at least as bad.
So where are the editorials that say racism doomed the Asian-Americans. They didn’t feel sorry for themselves, but worked doubly hard.
I am a professor at Duke University. Every Asian student has a very simple old American first name that symbolizes their desire for integration. Virtually every black has a strange new name that symbolizes their lack of desire for integration. The amount of Asian-white dating is enormous and so surely will be the intermarriage. Black-white dating is almost non-existent because of the ostracism by blacks of anyone who dates a white.
It was appropriate that a Chinese design won the competition for the Martin Luther King state. King helped them overcome. The blacks followed Malcolm X.”
Po, so true, they are quick to cry racism against black people yet even a hint of anyone saying they are racist, they become outraged. Double standard for certain, so obvious, I think they hope no one will notice.
Here is another white man, Noam Chomsky, who says exactly what I am saying. What an evil racist!
I wonder who will shoot the messenger first! Paul?
” In an interview with GRITtv’s Laura Flanders, linguist and political analyst Noam Chomsky discussed how the events in Ferguson, Missouri and the protests that followed demonstrate just how little race relations in the United States have advanced since the end of the Civil War.
“This is a very racist society,” Chomsky said, “it’s pretty shocking. What’s happened to African-Americans in the last 30 years is similar to what [Douglas Blackmon in Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II] describes happening in the late 19th Century.”
Blackmon’s book describes what he calls the “Age of Neoslavery,” in which newly freed slaves found themselves entangled in a legal system built upon involuntary servitude — which included the selling of black men convicted of crimes like vagrancy and changing employers without receiving permission.
“The constitutional amendments that were supposed to free African-American slaves did something for about 10 years, then there was a North-South compact that granted the former the slave-owning states the right to do whatever they wanted,” he explained. “And what they did was criminalize black life, and that created a kind of slave force. It threw mostly black males into jail, where they became a perfect labor force, much better than slaves.”
“If you’re a slave owner, you have to pay for — you have to keep your ‘capital’ alive. But if the state does it for you, that’s terrific. No strikes, no disobedience, the perfect labor force. A lot of the American Industrial Revolution in the late 19th, early 20th Century was based on that. It pretty must lasted until World War II.”
“After that,” Chomsky said, “African-Americans had about two decades in which they had a shot of entering [American] society. A black worker could get a job in an auto plant, as the unions were still functioning, and he could buy a small house and send his kid to college. But by the 1970s and 1980s it’s going back to the criminalization of black life.”
“It’s called the drug war, and it’s a racist war. Ronald Reagan was an extreme racist — though he denied it — but the whole drug war is designed, from policing to eventual release from prison, to make it impossible for black men and, increasingly, women to be part of [American] society.”
“In fact,” he continued, “if you look at American history, the first slaves came over in 1619, and that’s half a millennium. There have only been three or four decades in which African-Americans have had a limited degree of freedom — not entirely, but at least some.”
“They have been re-criminalized and turned into a slave labor force — that’s prison labor,” Chomsky concluded. “This is American history. To break out of that is no small trick.”
http://www.rawstory.com/2014/12/noam-chomsky-reagan-was-an-extreme-racist-who-re-enslaved-african-americans/
po – you know that Chomsky is only a linguist and he is only a political commentator because he gets the HuffPuff to listen to him. His grasp of American history is weak.
Paul C. Schulte wrote: “… you know that Chomsky is only a linguist and he is only a political commentator because he gets the HuffPuff to listen to him. His grasp of American history is weak.”
More importantly, Noam Chomsky is an anarchist. Of course he supports every riot he sees. He sides with the Palestinians, Occupy Wall Street, and any group that would lead to the destruction of existing government. He believes ANY government is oppression of the people.
Po’s jubilant embrace of Noam Chomsky simply affirms my position about the dangerous aspects of black racism embraced by po.
Tim Wise, a white man, says it better than I ever could:
“White America’s Greatest Delusion: “They Do Not Know It and They Do Not Want to Know It”
It is the innocence which constitutes the crime.
By Tim Wise / AlterNet May 6, 2015
Though perhaps overused, there are few statements that so thoroughly burrow to the heart of the nation’s racial condition as the following, written fifty-three years ago by James Baldwin:
…this is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it…but it is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime
Indeed, and in the wake of the Baltimore uprising that began last week, they are words worth remembering.
It is bad enough that much of white America sees fit to lecture black people about the proper response to police brutality, economic devastation and perpetual marginality, having ourselves rarely been the targets of any of these. It is bad enough that we deign to instruct black people whose lives we have not lived, whose terrors we have not faced, and whose gauntlets we have not run, about violence; this, even as we enjoy the national bounty over which we currently claim possession solely as a result of violence. I beg to remind you, George Washington was not a practitioner of passive resistance. Neither the early colonists nor the nation’s founders fit within the Gandhian tradition. There were no sit-ins at King George’s palace, no horseback freedom rides to effect change. There were just guns, lots and lots of guns.
We are here because of blood, and mostly that of others; here because of our insatiable and rapacious desire to take by force the land and labor of those others. We are the last people on Earth with a right to ruminate upon the superior morality of peaceful protest. We have never believed in it and rarely practiced it. Rather, we have always taken what we desire, and when denied it we have turned to means utterly genocidal to make it so.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH David!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rather shocking, or not, that the source you quote for your stats on slavery is a source that has an obvious anti black bent! Again, your willingness so work so hard to take away from blacks the right to their claim is becoming more and more suspect.
Of all the legitimate sources about slavery, you had to “find” that one? Really?
The same source that has this under its editorial policy:
“Editorial Policy
Editor1Following the announcement by the Associated Press that they will no longer be referring to “illegal immigrants” as that, the staff at the New Observer wish to place it on record that they agree with this pronouncement.
In future, therefore, “illegal immigrants” will not be referred to as such at the New Observer, but rather a more accurate description will be used, namely “illegal invaders” and “Third World colonizers.”
In addition, to keep pace with this new editorial policy, the New Observer will no longer refer to homosexuals or lesbians as “gay”, but rather as homosexuals and lesbians.
If there are any other “politically correct” perversions of the English language that we have not thought of here, readers can be assured that no matter what, we will continue to call things as they are, rather than what the anti-European extremist genocidists would wish them to be.”
Paul C …you’re right that few held slaves in the south in the 18th & 19th century. That said, please read the article I cited & linked above to Po. It is even handed and takes no one side. Southern share-croppers did not enable the expansion of the USA, however, unilaterally, they were beholden to the wealthier plantation owners who did so initially, in the south particularly. That said, don’t let Po bait you into a one perspective oppositional viewpoint…let that be his meme with me, the uber racist.
Aridog wrote: “.. please read the article I cited & linked above to Po. It is even handed and takes no one side.”
I don’t know if you realize, but that article is a paid subscription site for those who are not educators or students. Maybe you can share some highlights.
I certainly agree with the notion that slavery helped build America, but to argue that there would be no USA without slavery is a bit far fetched. The USA might look a little different, but we would have found our way without slavery. Also, slaves helped themselves in their labors too. They did not only enrich their masters. They also provided for their own livelihood and their families through their labor. Many times when slaves were offered freedom, they chose not to take it.
Po said …
… you are speaking from both sides of your mouth. You have taken sides and it is quite obvious to all sides.
I give up. You are looking through a one way mirror. You refuse to listen. Okay I am a white racist and plainly so by my actions. I wandered the world demeaning everyone else not white. Even those who fought along side of me once upon a time in war. I divorced my first wife because I got tired of having a “Gook” around all the time, and I avoid my daughter for the same reason. I spend most of my time avoiding or degrading those I live amongst and everyone knows that. Okay now that I am absolutely identified as a racist of the first order, what’s next? What would you have me do? What would have any of us do?
//sarc
PS #1: Your insistence on America where you seem to insist it was wholly built upon slavery is posed at length by Eric Williams in Capitalism & Slavery in 1944, and analyzed admirably, with viewpoints from all sides, by The Gillder Lehrman Institute of American History. I suggest you read it and note that it supports some of what you assert, and details the concepts that I don’t contest a bit. It also notes discrepancies in the record by Williams as well. It is not a one theme drill, as issues of great magnitude seldom fit a single theme. It happens to also be one of the first articles brought up by Google when the subject is queried. BTW…I do’t think you can cite where I said anywhere that slavery wasn’t an integral part of the initial founding of the USA. 2015 is not, however, 1815 or 1776…I worry more about now and the future than what drove the war my family fought in for both economic and abolitionist reasons.
PS #2: You’ve slightly illuminated what you mean by “redress”, so how about expanding that theory with concrete proposals, not just platitudes, on how to accomplish it? Fairness in hiring? I’ve done that and can prove it. Fair recognition of superior performance by my peers and seniors in the military? Done that too. What do you want of me? Exact details please, as I presume you’ve researched and thought about it and must have some ideas. I know I have since 1962. Do you favor my long time and favorite Congressman John Conyers Jr’s reparation ideas or some other outreach? You pose vast ideas, though sparse, with what sounds like half-vast consideration of the world of today. You might add just how you think immigrants and refugees like those I live among perceive us on the whole, white or black. They do have another viewpoint I assure you.
I’m telling you, Reagan cut a check to the Japanese Americans interred by the liberal icon, FDR, cleaning up his racist mess. The black victim crowd are waiting for their check to be cut. it’s not very complicated. Most black people just live their lives and refuse to be victims. They don’t dwell on the past. The grievance crowd is loud and angry.
Aridog
1, May 22, 2015 at 11:50 am
davidm2575 … I’ll await the explanation of “redress” , but not holding my breath. I look poorly with blue lips 😀 I suspect it is a term that fits a narrative, not a reality, of what we all can really do. If “redress” is the be all and end all, what follows that?
——————————————————
Ari
Either you are speaking from both sides of your mouth unawarily, or you are doing it…consciously.
Either way, you are speaking from both sides of your mouth. You have taken sides and it is quite obvious to all sides.
Whatever you claim about yourself to me is consistently belied by your own comments to others. 🙂
Perhaps you are not the upright, open minded chap you think you are?
Perhaps both of us, you and me, are consistently misunderstanding you?!
David
The simple fact you say that there is no national crime committed against black people expresses better than anything the gulf of your disconnect.
This country was built on the labor of slaves, and the fact you don’t see that reflects the depth of either your ignorance or your denial.
Let me repeat that:
There is no USA without the free labor of slaves.
And when it was all said and one, they were left to fend for themselves WHILE the system that built around their enslavement, making them less than human, is still in effect and quite potent. Your inability to see that reflects how much it has ingrained itself into society, and into the psyche of Whites.
Your intense defense of the system is not really your fault, it is your white privilege talking, and it is bred into you.
I have said quite a few times that redress is not reparations, it is into individual, it is systematic, it is to build a just and fair system to clamps down on the abuse while enabling empwerement and development. As I said before:
“Po
1, May 20, 2015 at 3:28 pm
Ari
You as well are others are unable to step out of your skin to see what others, blacks, are referring to.
Again, why can’t we talk about racism without every single white man raising his back and start fighting back? Racism is a structure, it is a system, it the enabling of the bad apples to take advantage and practice their bigotry.
It is slavery, then indentured labor, then socio-economic discrimination, then housing and work discrimination, then aggression by the representatives of the authority (police, courts and prisons.) At no point in our history, did the system completely break from its structure of discrimination and oppression.
No one is discounting the work white people have done to enable the civil rights fights…many have lost their lives in that struggle…just as many whites have lost their lives in the fight against slavery. So stop making this about you (communal) and learn to see the other outside of your traditional perspective. You (individual) are not racist, David is not racist, Paul is not racist…but your refusal to take stock of our history is racist…your refusal to allow blacks the full right to their trauma is racist…your closing the eyes to a system that treats you differently from them is racist. Your racism is not of action and sentiment, it is one of inaction and of denial, through which you permit the system to keep abusing those it is trained to abuse.
Why are we waging war all across the globe? Why do we keep repeating the same mistakes we continuously do? Because we refuse to take stock. We keep pushing forward, we keep refusing to sit still for a minute and wonder what is happening, we keep refusing to acknowledge our wrongs, seek out the higher authority, confess our sins and ask for absolution. We keep refusing to ask for forgiveness and to do the necessary penance for our sins, which is the ONLY way to keep from repeating them.
It works for your child as it does for the faithful s it does for the country. We ask our children to identify their errors, to confess to them, ask for forgiveness then work are being better. Yet, we refuse to do that as a nation.
Instead, we keep doubling on the denial of black people of their experience…we keep saying…just get over it, thinking it would solve our problems? Are you people serious?
Others have similarly suffered? Who? Where? And so what?
How do you explain the many recordings that are surfacing of police chiefs and police officers across the country disparaging blacks? The emails that make the round, similarly racist? The illegal kidnapping and torture of blacks by police, forcing them to confess to crimes they did not commit? The discrimination in hiring and housing based on the ethnic sound of a name? Stop and frisk?
po – this country was not built on slavery. Actually, even in the South, very few landowners owned slaves. The fact that you think that the country was built by slaves shows a poor grasp of US history.
po wrote: “The simple fact you say that there is no national crime committed against black people expresses better than anything the gulf of your disconnect.”
It illustrates that you and I do not interpret history the same way. What federal law can you point to that advocated a crime against black people? Just name two for me please. It should not be that hard to do if what you are saying is true.
po wrote: “This country was built on the labor of slaves, and the fact you don’t see that reflects the depth of either your ignorance or your denial. Let me repeat that: There is no USA without the free labor of slaves.”
Repeat it all you like, but repeating it doesn’t make it true, neither does it illustrate that I am in denial.
Here are some facts about slavery in the United States:
———————————————————————
In 1860, only 30% of Whites lived in States that had slavery.
There were 27,000,000 Whites, with 8,000,000 living in States that had slavery.
There were 4.5 million Blacks, with 4 million Blacks living in States that had slavery.
Blacks represented 14.8% of the U.S. population.
There were fewer than 385,000 individuals who owned slaves.
Some of those individuals were Blacks who owned slaves. In New Orleans alone, 3000 Blacks (28% of the free Blacks who lived in New Orleans) owned slaves . But for simplicity, if we assume that all slaveholders had been White, that would still amount to only 1.4 percent of Whites in the country (or 4.8 percent of southern Whites) owning one or more slaves.
“… when free, blacks disproportionately became slave masters in pre-Civil War America. … about 28 percent of free blacks owned slaves as opposed to less than 4.8 percent of southern whites, and dramatically more than the 1.4 percent of all White Americans who owned slaves.”
———————————————————————
http://newobserveronline.com/hidden-facts-about-slavery-in-america/
So if only 1.4 % of all White Americans owned slaves, how is it possible for you to claim that without the labor of slaves (their labor was not actually free), there would be no USA?
po wrote: “Your inability to see that reflects how much it has ingrained itself into society, and into the psyche of Whites.”
I certainly have the ability to see it… IF IT WERE TRUE! The problem is that I use my mind, and logically, what you claim does not align with the facts of history. It seems like facts do not matter to you.
po wrote: “Your intense defense of the system is not really your fault, it is your white privilege talking, and it is bred into you.”
Bred into me? Literally or metaphorically?
So my race prevents me from seeing your perspective, and it makes me defend a system of racism that continues to keep the Black man down and will continue to do so until the entire nation acknowledges its crime against the Black man. It sounds like you are saying that the Black man is justified to hate the white man and to be lazy and irresponsible and to burn cities until that point in time when the White man acknowledges the national crime that has been committed against the Black man. Please tell me that you are not saying that. No need to get emotional about it. I am sincerely asking for clarification.
po wrote: “… redress is not reparations, it is into individual, it is systematic, it is to build a just and fair system to clamps down on the abuse while enabling empwerement and development. ”
My dictionary says redress is to “make reparations or amends for”, so I am not sure what nuance you are making by saying redress is not reparations. I assume you mean that it is not money paid back. But exactly what is this “enabling empowerment and development”? How does that work? Does not that equate with money being spent in some kind of programs that give Black men an advantage over White men? What exactly do you have in mind? You repeated much of what you said before, but I still have difficulty understanding if it is not about money, so maybe you might try some new words to explain what you have in mind.
davidm2575 … I’ll await the explanation of “redress” , but not holding my breath. I look poorly with blue lips 😀 I suspect it is a term that fits a narrative, not a reality, of what we all can really do. If “redress” is the be all and end all, what follows that?
General observation: For those who prefer Tanqueray Gin as I did in my party down days, drunk always “neat” with side of ice water with a lime wedge, if you live in Africa plan on multiple trips to Jo-burg airport and the store there. It’s the only reliable place to find Tanqueray and sundry other higher end spirits. Rural Africans don’t seem to have the same palate as we Yanks…they’ll drink anything. 🙂
davidm2575 … I acknowledge the past wrongs and that is why I dwell on the future. Not because I’m unaware, but because I am.
My “apology” is manifest by living my words and looking forward to a more positive future. If I were to cross the street to avoid Al Sharpton it would not be because he is “black” but because of the stench he perpetuates. Actually I’d be far more likely to stay on the same side of the street and upon meeting face to face I’d ask him to join me for coffee and discuss his views versus mine.
Aridog wrote: “davidm2575 … I acknowledge the past wrongs and that is why I dwell on the future. Not because I’m unaware, but because I am.”
I acknowledge the past wrongs too, as millions of other individuals have. But it sounds like what he expects is a national apology for a national crime against blacks for the last 400 years (longer than we have been a nation)? The institution of the federal government must officially apologize for the nation’s crime against black people? The problem is that the nation never acted against blacks, only individuals and local governments did, following the traditions handed to them before we were even a nation. And he used the term “redress” so doesn’t he want more than an apology? I truly do not understand what he wants now. Let’s see how he responds.
Let me illuminate how closed minded some of us can be by an anecdotal experience. During one re-deployment, upon de-barking the Flying Tigers aircraft, we formed up in a column of twos. A large number of civilian nationals were there to greet us…and yet behind me I heard others saying “look at all the foreigners”. Say what?…we were in their country, and we were the “foreigners.” Like USMC LTG Victor Krulak proposed, we could improve our relationship with those were among by deploying small squad to platoon sized units directly in to villages to work with them to protect what they had, usually minimal. It was a far better approach than that demanded by Robert Komer under LBJ where we forced relocation of families who have an ancestral practice of living close to their original lands, not in some “strategic hamlets where they were herded in to, far form the burial sites of their ancestors…and called that “pacification” and a strategy to win the “hearts and minds” of the nationals. Nothing could have been further from the truth.
“I’m not live to live…” should have been “I’m not likely to live…” to see a fully assimilated future.
Po … said…
Are you really serious in comparing the lives of ex-pats to Africa to black people here?
You have completely missed the point of what I was saying. Perhaps I was not clear. I did NOT compare my friends situation to those of black people here, or there…read it again. What I cited was their observations of African culture from Zambia to South Africa, and how they observed some cultural issues that may have been passed down to those kidnapped, sold, and enslaved here in our earliest days. Africans do not seem to worry and fuss about amenities as much as we do here, white, black, or any other hue. Their history reflects some of what we don’t understand here (IMO) and some might call lazy…and in some case outright fearful. They are neither lazy, nor unmotivated, but fear can impact their behavior. I think that relates…just my opinion. Another point I was trying to relay was that Africa is also a land of opportunity and in most cases they welcome assistance, without the old colonialism, partnering willingly.
On the other hand, many Africans are as entrepreneurial as anyone here, in fact the wife I referred to opened a martial arts studio with an African partner, a 5th dan in some of those arts, successfully covering Judo, Ju Jitsu, Taekwondo, Kick Boxing, and Boxing. In short, they’ve joined hands so to speak. The husband’s business I am not at liberty to describe save that it, too is a joint operation with Africans.
My bias refuses to allow me to constantly looking to the past for reasons for recriminations. I look for positive aspects in any culture I find my self living among, for a better future overall…and Africa is one place I have never been, so the daily updates are like a long running course in human relations and social economic environments. The martial arts business begun in more central Africa will be continued on by the wife’s partner, while she starts a new one, again jointly, in their next home there. It could evolve in to a franchise both can enjoy and manage. I find it uplifting that this family is living the life I once had here, before the early 70’s, when the majority of my friends were black Americans, given I lived in Detroit and downtown in fact, where I went to school.
One of those families threw my going-away party for me and my parents, populated by more black than white, when I was ready to deploy long long ago. Same folks were the first to welcome me home. That guy is now in advanced stage dementia and it pains my heart to know that when we meet again he may not recognize me…although his wife will…they now live in Atlanta, near their extended family, re-repatriated from Canada, thus live further away from me than a relatively easy drive. I owe this guy so much, when we both endured the crazy 60’s, worked in the civil rights movement on a small scale, by setting positive examples as part of it, at one point he laid his life on the line for me, and we watched it evolve to the hatred of the early 70’s … the main reason he & his wife moved to Canada as landed immigrants. That said, I approach others different than me with a smile and curiosity, and those relationships here and half way around the world have served me well…and have built trust on a tiny scale, but it is a start.
One thing I abhor is when politics and religion, of any kind, become one. Nigeria is feeling the threat of that as we speak…among other places on the African continent. I am leery of the hyphenated descriptors as well. Last week I was talking to a 19 year old Arab kid who said he thought of himself as “Arab-American” (he is a citizen by birth) and I rejoined by saying, if you must hyphenate, make the “American Arab” with the emphasis on the first part and no hyphenation. I can be called American Irish I suppose, while I have no connection today to the “troubles” from Dublin to Belfast. Similar issues existed, and my Protestant grand father (Antrim County) marrying a Catholic woman…something that made their lives hard so they left for Canada, then to the USA.
Finally, my point was that black Africans can and do accept assimilation there, far more than we do here, black, white, Asian, whatever….especially the race hustlers who dwell on the distant past and modern differences, refusing to work toward a common outcome. As said elsewhere today seems like a step backwards and I’m not live to live long enough more to see it change. But I never give up the hope.
Ari
The example you offer of your friends in africa proves my point about that disconnect I spoke about.
Are you really serious in comparing the lives of expats to Africa to black people here? Your friends chose to move there, have the means to live there, have, due to their status as being from a western society, more opportunities that the locals? Everything about their lives in Africa is based on a choice! They were not kidnapped and taken there in shackles, they are not forced to live there against their will, they are not forced to live in a shack in Lagos or South Africa.
Yes, indeed, life is about choices, however some have more choices than others, that’s the legacy of slavery/discrimination. Your fellow army soldiers were not allowed to buy houses where you did. That limited their choices as to where to live. That limited their choices as to where their children went to school. Which affected their choices about which gang to join for fear of being killed. Which affected their choices about whether to plead guilty or innocent…
David said”
You are on a witch hunt. You are no different than those in Salem seeking out someone to crucify, and you hope to turn a profit by doing it.
Man, David, you are flailing… witch hunt, crucify, profit…you are being silly now!
How often should I say I am NOT asking for REPARATIONS? Have you missed my whole post about what REDRESS means to me?
Have you missed my point about NOT all white men were guilty? That many white people played a huge role in the civil rights gains? That black men can be as dumb as whites and that therefore their problems are often self-induced? That I refuse to listen to black men complain about the system, just as I refuse to listen to white men complain about blacks?
Have you missed my prediction that though I was not blaming all white men, some here will nonetheless take umbrage and start fighting back?
At least be honest enough to attack me on the things I said, not the things you are trying to make say.
I asked you the same questions in various ways, you have yet to answer/acknowledge any of them. Meanwhile, you kept doubling down on your feeble attempt to discard the racist factor in everything that happened (s) to black people since slavery.
iSn’t this whole debate based on my claim that the legacy of 400 years of slavery and the subsequent oppression and discrimination is still at play in the Black community , and your relentless refusal to acknowledge such legacy?
Weren’t these you own words:
Where is even one study that shows this causal link. The article you link to is an opinion piece. There are some studies referenced, but is there any study at all that shows what you claim here, a direct causal link between the current social and economic state of the black community with 400 plus years of enslavement, oppression, and discrimination? I don’t see even one. I don’t think it exists. Please show me otherwise. Show me the study that convinced you. Or is it the opinion piece that convinced you?
And that was in response to this comment of mine:
<"The bottom line is this:
Documented studies show a direct causal link between the current social and economic state of the black community with the 400 plus years of enslavement, oppression and discrimination. That is a fact!
But, some of you are adamant in saying:
1- Yeah, but others went through that, which is false.
2- Yeah but that was a long time ago, oblivious they are to the current continuation of the same policies in some form or another
3- Its no longer happening, which is false because to herd blacks and the poor into ghettos with governmental help and policies, allow industry to step up shop into those same communities, rob them of the good schools, bring in the police as an occupying force, introduce drugs into the community in order to support foreign wars, then use the drug war excuse to lock up blacks at much higher rates than whites for THE SAME crimes…
Once we acknowledge the crime of the nation against its black citizens, then we can acknowledge the responsibility of the black community to uplift itself. Otherwise, all you do is blame the victim, another bully tactic to go with white privilege.
Why are so protective of this status quo? Why are you so adamant in denying black people the reality of their experience?
Po wrote: “Have you missed my whole post about what REDRESS means to me?”
I am sorry, but apparently I have missed it. Redress generally means a sum of money paid in compensation for loss or injury. I looked back at your posts and I still do not know what redress means to you. So, please explain what you mean by redress. In particular, please parse and explain the following two sentences: “Recrimination will never cease until there is absolution. And absolution will never be given until redress is offered.”
Po wrote: “Once we acknowledge the crime of the nation against its black citizens, then we can acknowledge the responsibility of the black community to uplift itself. Otherwise, all you do is blame the victim, another bully tactic to go with white privilege.”
I do not see this as a crime of the nation against its black citizens. I see it as individuals and local governments treating a minority unfairly. The nation responded by correcting the wrong it saw being done by some individuals and some local governments.
Furthermore, the black citizens were not the only ones who were treated unfairly by individuals and local governments. So the idea of a “national apology” does not make much sense to me. Please feel free to explain why it makes sense to you.
In my thinking, the responsibility of individuals, whether white or black, should not only be acknowledged, but preached from the loudest pulpit. I believe this is independent of whether or not there is any national acknowledgment of a crime against black citizens. We should stand up for truth period and not make it dependent upon a national apology. I do not understand why you think that preaching this truth to the Black community or Asian community or poor White community would be a bully tactic if not preceded by some national apology. I don’t see the Japanese that were mistreated after WWII demanding a national apology before they would obey our laws and behave in a civil manner.
forgotwhoiam … are you serious? Are those just ad hoc random questions? When did I mention those topics? Right off the bat you are in error…Obama did NOT appoint black people to every post. I cannot clarify comments I did not make. If you have proof of me posing those ideas, link to it here. I think you need to take a break and get some fresh air.
Mr. Dog, how do you describe the phenomenon of Obama appointing black folks to every vacant post?
What do you call affirmative action that demonstrably favors black folks?
if Americans do it, it’s racism.
If, oh, how do you say, hyphenates do it it’s altruism done out of love.
Could you clarify that?
DavidM said ..
You cannot fight for equality and then claim we don’t understand because we are not equal. You can’t have it both ways. You either have to stand on the commonality of our humanity or you stand on the basis that blacks are different from whites so whites will never understand the plight of the blacks.
Perfectly said. Life is about choices and one cannot allege disadvantage without importing their own bias. I’ve referred to my friends who moved, as ex-pats, to Africa a while back and plan to stay there. Their view of “African” is quite different than ours here, in too many instances. However, none of their attitudes involves evaluation one group versus another, given they plan to live there for a long time now. They are a very distinct minority who intend to be part of the whole cloth of things African, and have succeeded so far. I wish them well and listen to what they say daily. Few of us, without their experience, have any idea how just simple things like paying bills can be confounding due to the various currencies that are required for this or that effort….it is not like they can just hop on over to some ATM to resolve currency issues. For them, it appears they find the effort worth the sacrifice of our taken-for-granted options.
It is funny (to me anyway) how we, here in the USA, cannot manage the same things without acrimony and hate.