(no subject)
In my many internet travels, I found something that spoke to me today.
Malcolm Jamal Warner had wrote this in response to someone on his MySpace.......and it spoke to me because even though I do not live in America, I live in North America and it rings true here....it rings very true for me in my daily life. As much as I can try to go bumbling through life and ignore certain things, behaviours, the way society is, it is too hard to ignore. As always, my entries cause controversies, get things heated up, and different views get vehemently denied, but for the love of God....one cannot put themselves and see how things actually are until they have actyually gone through it themselves and lived a life faced with constant oppression. People can change a lot of things in life....but you cannot change your ethnicity....and Malcolm has made a very bold, and yet truthful statement.
Matthew, I appreciate your perspective, your candor, and even your frustration. Glad I touched upon emotion-that was mos definitely the point. Unfortunately, we live in a world where blanket statements are the norm so let me clarify by saying that I understand that there are exceptions to the generalities. I am very quick to point out that many whites fought in the civil rights struggle and some even lost their lives in our fight. I also understand that the white male dominated power structure doesn't care for poor whites much more than they do blacks, ironically almost putting us in the same boat. However, the race-centric view of history you accuse me of perpetuating shows the very difference between even the most progressive of whites and blacks. All of the diversity in your family and your living in a predominantly black city such as Atlanta still doesn't give you our perspective or our DNA. Many whites feel that we are too concerned with race. How can we not be? Your people and other immigrants came here for opportunity. African-Americans are the only people who have been forced to come here, stripped of our land and identity. We've even had to go as far as to create a name for ourselves (from Negro to Afro-American to African-American and a bunch in between). While I am not ignorant to non people of color's hardships in this country and agree that it was a damn shame that your grandfather had to change the family name to get a job, I also say good for him that he was able to do that and put food on his table. How many black people could have "passed" by simply changing their name? The blacks that did pass did so based on skin color. Blacks come in various beautiful shades of brown, yet we are still called black. How can you possibly expect us to not to view life by color? We have no choice. You can change your name and dye your hair if you so desire. But no amount of dye will keep us from the racial contempt this country we call home has for blacks who are not rich or famous. Can you even possibly conceive that on a daily basis we have to keep convincing ourselves and our children that black is beautiful because we live in a country that teaches us that black is a wretched, ugly thing? We are taught that we "ain't" shit, never have been shit and never will be shit. Black on black crime isn't still so prevelant because we feel good about being black. Self hatred is a part of our DNA because we have been so conditioned by the very country we live in. Racism is a well planned and execellantly executed system of oppression that I find almost perversely admirable because it still has us on lock. So just as we can't yet shake it, let alone truly understand it, many progressive and "liberal" whites can't truly understand it's deeply ingrained impact. While I understand your frustration at getting shitted on just because you're white, I half-jokingly say "welcome to the club, dawg." Being shitted on is part of our daily existence, thus the vile, evil, and ugly things you hear from us sometimes. It's what we know. It comes with our low self-esteem. We've been taught by the masters of evil. Even those of us who know better still must make a conscious effort not to succumb to the negativity and hate and keep ourselves uplifted and inspired. As long as progressive whites remain naive to the deeply damaging effects this system called racism has on blacks even today, as long as low-income whites remain naive to the reality that Bush doesn't care about them either, as long as "hip" whites want to be down and act black, but don't want our hardships, as long as unenlightened blacks want to remain "niggas", as long as we remain blind to the fact that our struggle to "get ahead" is really only a struggle to stay afloat, as long as we remain disconnected to our true history and legacies, as long as we can't recognize that rappers have become the new step-n-fetch-its and rap the new minstrel, as long as the Klan can still make power moves and spread hate (and I don't mean only on the outskirts of the ATL), as long as the fact that other countries hate America and pray for our downfall doesn't make us wake the fuck up and come together as a nation, as long our school systems don't teach us the significant contributions different cultures have made to society and that diversity is good, as long as respect for others as well as for ourselves is not as deeply ingrained in us as is hate, then we can never, will never be able to see eye to eye and really love each other in this "melting pot" and land of opportunity our grandparents and greatparents were duped into believing it is. Imagine for a moment if we all made it a priority to teach our young not to be as crazy and messed up as we are. Wow, what would THAT world look like?
Mad respect to you Matthew (still lookin' to check out Chad, Uriah, Carmen, & McNutt), but if you really want more insight into our race-centric view of America, I strongly implore you (grammatically corrrect or not, that's how strongly I feel about it) to read The Isis Papers by Dr. Frances Cress Wesling and also Racial Matters: The FBI's Secret File on Black America, 1960-1972 by Kenneth O'Reilly.
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=38218095&blogID=63775383&MyToken=c7b39f96-e19c-48c1-a228-59e830291eb0
Malcolm Jamal Warner had wrote this in response to someone on his MySpace.......and it spoke to me because even though I do not live in America, I live in North America and it rings true here....it rings very true for me in my daily life. As much as I can try to go bumbling through life and ignore certain things, behaviours, the way society is, it is too hard to ignore. As always, my entries cause controversies, get things heated up, and different views get vehemently denied, but for the love of God....one cannot put themselves and see how things actually are until they have actyually gone through it themselves and lived a life faced with constant oppression. People can change a lot of things in life....but you cannot change your ethnicity....and Malcolm has made a very bold, and yet truthful statement.
Matthew, I appreciate your perspective, your candor, and even your frustration. Glad I touched upon emotion-that was mos definitely the point. Unfortunately, we live in a world where blanket statements are the norm so let me clarify by saying that I understand that there are exceptions to the generalities. I am very quick to point out that many whites fought in the civil rights struggle and some even lost their lives in our fight. I also understand that the white male dominated power structure doesn't care for poor whites much more than they do blacks, ironically almost putting us in the same boat. However, the race-centric view of history you accuse me of perpetuating shows the very difference between even the most progressive of whites and blacks. All of the diversity in your family and your living in a predominantly black city such as Atlanta still doesn't give you our perspective or our DNA. Many whites feel that we are too concerned with race. How can we not be? Your people and other immigrants came here for opportunity. African-Americans are the only people who have been forced to come here, stripped of our land and identity. We've even had to go as far as to create a name for ourselves (from Negro to Afro-American to African-American and a bunch in between). While I am not ignorant to non people of color's hardships in this country and agree that it was a damn shame that your grandfather had to change the family name to get a job, I also say good for him that he was able to do that and put food on his table. How many black people could have "passed" by simply changing their name? The blacks that did pass did so based on skin color. Blacks come in various beautiful shades of brown, yet we are still called black. How can you possibly expect us to not to view life by color? We have no choice. You can change your name and dye your hair if you so desire. But no amount of dye will keep us from the racial contempt this country we call home has for blacks who are not rich or famous. Can you even possibly conceive that on a daily basis we have to keep convincing ourselves and our children that black is beautiful because we live in a country that teaches us that black is a wretched, ugly thing? We are taught that we "ain't" shit, never have been shit and never will be shit. Black on black crime isn't still so prevelant because we feel good about being black. Self hatred is a part of our DNA because we have been so conditioned by the very country we live in. Racism is a well planned and execellantly executed system of oppression that I find almost perversely admirable because it still has us on lock. So just as we can't yet shake it, let alone truly understand it, many progressive and "liberal" whites can't truly understand it's deeply ingrained impact. While I understand your frustration at getting shitted on just because you're white, I half-jokingly say "welcome to the club, dawg." Being shitted on is part of our daily existence, thus the vile, evil, and ugly things you hear from us sometimes. It's what we know. It comes with our low self-esteem. We've been taught by the masters of evil. Even those of us who know better still must make a conscious effort not to succumb to the negativity and hate and keep ourselves uplifted and inspired. As long as progressive whites remain naive to the deeply damaging effects this system called racism has on blacks even today, as long as low-income whites remain naive to the reality that Bush doesn't care about them either, as long as "hip" whites want to be down and act black, but don't want our hardships, as long as unenlightened blacks want to remain "niggas", as long as we remain blind to the fact that our struggle to "get ahead" is really only a struggle to stay afloat, as long as we remain disconnected to our true history and legacies, as long as we can't recognize that rappers have become the new step-n-fetch-its and rap the new minstrel, as long as the Klan can still make power moves and spread hate (and I don't mean only on the outskirts of the ATL), as long as the fact that other countries hate America and pray for our downfall doesn't make us wake the fuck up and come together as a nation, as long our school systems don't teach us the significant contributions different cultures have made to society and that diversity is good, as long as respect for others as well as for ourselves is not as deeply ingrained in us as is hate, then we can never, will never be able to see eye to eye and really love each other in this "melting pot" and land of opportunity our grandparents and greatparents were duped into believing it is. Imagine for a moment if we all made it a priority to teach our young not to be as crazy and messed up as we are. Wow, what would THAT world look like?
Mad respect to you Matthew (still lookin' to check out Chad, Uriah, Carmen, & McNutt), but if you really want more insight into our race-centric view of America, I strongly implore you (grammatically corrrect or not, that's how strongly I feel about it) to read The Isis Papers by Dr. Frances Cress Wesling and also Racial Matters: The FBI's Secret File on Black America, 1960-1972 by Kenneth O'Reilly.
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=38218095&blogID=63775383&MyToken=c7b39f96-e19c-48c1-a228-59e830291eb0