Dare To Ask Talk And News About Our Differences - This topic has 9 replies, 10 voices, and was last updated 23 years, 7 months ago by
.
- Posts
I often read the posts here on Y? Forum, look at the news and read other news-related materials. I often come across ‘white’ America’s view on the state of ‘blacks’ in America. I am confused about how, why and where ‘white’ Americans come up with their assumptions. There was a recent study cross-matching ‘white’ assumptions with actual statistics of ‘black’ America. Needless to say, the results were so far apart that the data points could not be charted. If ‘white’ America is making these assumptions from the one or two ‘blacks’ they come across in the workplace or neighborhood, how can they transfer that to a whole population? I guess it comes across in reverse – that they see ghetto images and think that also applies to all. I just want to know: what are people thinking?
User Detail :
Name : R.J., Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Presbyterian, Age : 26, City : Washington, State : DC, Country : United States, Occupation : doctor, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,I have grown up watching Good Times and Fat Albert, where the families lived in the projects. My dad would drive us into Chicago, and we would go through poor, black neighborhoods with littered streets. I would hear on the news of gang members shooting each other. As I got older, I saw movies like ‘Colors,’ ‘Do the Right Thing,’ ‘Jungle Fever,’ ‘Boyz in The Hood’ – movies that all took place in the ghetto. I would drive home through poor neighborhoods with littered streets, and the majority of the residents were black and openly selling drugs. I would hear rapper after rapper talk about how they came from ‘the streets,’ and rap about gang affiliation, often glamorizing violence. When someone would talk about ‘inner-city youth,’ it usually meant black kids, and they would talk about the threat of drugs, gangs and violence in their lives. I’m unsure what assumptions whites made, but these are the dominant images, and when a black person says of these images, ‘This is how it is – I’m just keeping it real’ – what can one expect?
User Detail :
Name : Craig31908, Gender : M, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Agnostic, Age : 38, City : Minneapolis, State : MN, Country : United States, Education level : Less than High School Diploma, Social class : Lower middle class,I gather my opinions from what I see, read and hear. I see quite a few blacks, have read quite a bit of black literature (fiction/non-fiction) and hear your culture through the contributions of your artists. What more do I need to perceive? Is there anything? I think you are a group of citizens who are as diverse as whites, but not as large. Money and education make a difference in this country, and both seem to be lacking in the black community. Some nice people, some mean. Some happy, some sad, etc.
User Detail :
Name : Matthew, Gender : M, Race : White/Caucasian, Age : 45, City : New York, State : NY, Country : United States,Most whites I know get their viewpoint on race relations the same way anyone else does: personal experience, media, innate bias. And if you want the truth, most whites I know don’t even really want to think about it because the market on this discussion has been dominated by blacks. No matter what opinion a white person could share on blacks in America, it would be immediately pounced upon as racist, ignorant and hopelessly generalized.
I will state my opinion: In the last 20 years, an increasing section of the black population has moved comfortably into the middle class, carrying with them economic, educational and political power. However, it has not carried an equivalent level of comfort in dealing with whites. The poorer black population is worse off than 20 years ago because they are marginalized against whites and middle class blacks. Whites today are far less likely to make overt racist comments, but this is because of fear rather than enlightenment. Institutional racism is beginning to be understood by a larger portion of the white population. Blacks have regressed in having public leaders who clearly identify with the racial causes. Current black cause leaders are viewed as buffoons by whites, whereas 20 years ago, whites viewed black leaders with fear. Today white leaders overtly play the race card from both sides and are not even subtle about it. There is a large generation gap with whites in regard to interracial sexual relations. Whites under 30 seem far more comfortable having black partners than those over 30. No one but no one, white or black, can make a good arguement for Affirmative Action, but no one has a better idea, either. I could go on … how do I match up against your survey?
User Detail :
Name : Steve27684, Gender : M, Race : White/Caucasian, Age : 45, City : Houston, State : TX, Country : United States, Occupation : Corporate Cubicle Kind of Guy, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Upper class,It seems to me that the average white image of black America is informed by white liberals more than by direct encounters with blacks or white racists. That is why you see a self-contradictory portrait. Blacks are perceived as feral, ignorant people who can express themselves only through violence or gutteral wailing and require a ‘good’ white person to mediate their issues to the mainstream.
At the same time, blacks are perceived to hold middle-class liberal values on everything from gay rights to our involvement in the U.N. Quite often, the result is that a backlash against what Ted Kennedy says becomes a backlash against black America. There is also a perception that blacks would vote for Tom Metzger if he were to run as a Democrat. Consider the white man driving in the city who sees a black man get into the same model of car he drives. It p****s him off: ‘I thought blacks were supposed to be poverty-stricken refugees entitled only to a chunk of my hard-earned money because people who look like me made slaves of them 300 years back, and here one of them is driving a late-model Cutlas!’ Of course, it never occurs to him that the black gent purchased the car with money he earned at a job that requires a degree, which he also earned at a college, the tuition having been paid for by his father, who used the money he scraped together from one of the first decent jobs availible to blacks post-Civil Rights. This doesn’t occur to him, because the last time he was casually talking issues with his liberal friend, likely the only one he knows who actually ‘has a black friend,’ and stated that blacks can take care of themselves, his liberal friend admonished him, saying that that statement would be racist if he ‘didn’t know that it was rooted in simple ignorance of the crippling poverty and despair that the vast majority of African Americans are born into, and by the way, there’s never been a family like the Cosbys in reality.’
White liberals (and I’m saying this as a socialist who happens to be white) seem to feel they own the black agenda. I was shocked and dismayed when some friends who generally hold political correctness to be the law of the land presume to use the terms ‘Uncle Tom’ and ‘house nigger’ in reference to Colin Powell and Clarence Thomas. One gets the feeling that whites in general have never heard the viewpoints of blacks, but only what viewpoints white liberals agree with.
User Detail :
Name : Justin26882, Gender : M, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Atheist, City : Chicago, State : IL, Country : United States, Social class : Lower middle class,Whites also have a misperception that blacks have had 150 years to get back on their feet since abolition and have simply chosen not to bother. This comes from willfull ignorance of Jim Crow, sharecropping, the depth and breadth to which white supremacy was accepted perpetuated by whites in general. Whites prefer to steer any argument about race all the way back to slavery because we can’t realisticly be held responsible for what happened centuries ago by people most of us have no direct blood relation to. We are, however, responsible for the contemporary age of racism and things that happened not 40 years ago. Whites need to wake up and realize it’s not about Harriett Tubman, but about Amadu Diallo. Finally, there are irreconsilable cultural differences that will never be understood as long as white children and black children grow up on opposite sides of town. White people don’t understand that Hip-Hop style sportswear worn by an average black teenager doesn’t indicate criminal behavior any more than black people understand that shaved heads, black clothes and HeavyMetal imagry displayed by an average white teenager indicates satan worship or white supremacy.
User Detail :
Name : justin26883, Gender : M, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Atheist, City : chicago, State : IL, Country : United States, Education level : 2 Years of College, Social class : Lower middle class,Let’s keep the record straight. Affirmative Action policies resulted from widespread, persistent and often virulent white resistance to civil rights laws and rulings between 1954 and 1970. These were intended to end the often legally sanctioned discrimination that had run rampant across many parts of this country for a full century after slavery. Nowhere was this more flagrant and devastating than in education and employment.
Some of the best examples of American creative genius could be seen in the degrees to which many whites (especially here in the South) went to ‘keep blacks in their place,’ out of the workplace, out of then all-white schools and to protect century-old traditions of white privilege and advantage. Civil rights policies were never welcomed by these people, and when implemented, were done grudgingly and often through the insulting practice of tokenism. Knowingly under-qualified minorities were chosen for showy (reception-like) positions where their under-qualifications were publicly apparent, thus providing fodder for the unscrupulous propagandizing of presumably ‘unqualified minorities.’ Indeed, the reasons whites gave to justify continued discrimination was that minorities (especially blacks) were not qualified. Affirmative Action policies said that was nonsense and that resisting institutions must consider qualified minorities or prove that none existed. There was no assumption that ‘a minority can’t make it on his or her own.’ It was a certainty that minorities were not going to get an opportunity to try without intervention. Affirmative Action was that intervention. Your argument (including your ‘preference by race’ buzz phrase) is just one of those disingenuous, conservative right wing spins created a decade ago as part of the arsenal to be used to undermine Affirmative Action.
It was massive and chronic white discrimination against blacks that led to the civil rights laws outlawing that abuse to begin with. It was then massive and often deadly white resistance to the implementation of those laws that led to Affirmative Action. The current resistance to Affirmative Action just continues the tradition among many whites who seem to view the right to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ as being preordained by their God for ‘whites only.’
User Detail :
Name : Floyd L., Gender : M, Age : 59, City : Memphis, State : TN, Country : United States,Pat, do you know who has statistically benefitted the most from affirmative action policies? White women. So if you’re going to talk about getting rid of affirmative action based on race, then let’s also talk about affirmative action based on sex. If minorities can do fine ‘on their own,’ white women can do the same thing. In addition, what about ‘legacies’? Those kids, mostly white, did not earn their way to college. They’re riding on their parents’ success (or their own legacy status). So why doesn’t that qualify as ‘affirmative action’? What makes them better? A word on affirmative action itself. Affirmative action is about having opportunity which would not be there without it. I’m a student who graduated top of the class in high school and scored well on the ACT and SAT. However, pre-affirmative action, my grades and scores would mean nothing because of my race and sex. This was a racist and sexist society before these policies, and it still is that way. Regardless of race, no one automatically gets into school or gets a job due to merit. That’s a fallacy. The other issue is, no matter how someone gets employed or admitted into school, they have to work to stay there. Affirmative action doesn’t control for actions after the foot is in the door.
User Detail :
Name : Jessi-J30821, Gender : F, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Christian, Age : 20, City : Columbus, State : OH, Country : United States, Occupation : College Student, Education level : 2 Years of College,Based on my experience and efforts to learn more about people who are Black…I can speak for one white person in America…me…I think Black people want the same things I want out of life… that is: optimum health, a good education,a nice home, decent clothes to wear, a functional family, a job that pays a decent living wage, friends, respect from our children, a community where people watch out for each other, the unconditional love of our parents, and religious freedom. The only difference I see is the color of our skin which really doesn’t matter to me. I believe that Africa was the cradle of civilization…so that means we are all connected…and I wouldn’t have it any other way. The Blacks that I have met have enriched my life. My church family gives me all the love I give to them. I stepped out of my comfort zone when I was five years old , and I have never regretted it.
User Detail :
Name : Lily White, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Catholic, Age : 51, City : Kansas City, Ks., State : KS, Country : United States, Occupation : Bed&Breakfast owner, Education level : 2 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.