[Mel P.]

I believe that white North Americans do understand how race functions in the United States. They assume they are 'normal' and mainstream, whereas the peoples of the world are special or a 'problem' to be solved without dumping their white skin privilege. In other areas of the Americas, race and class are melded in a way so that you have black and white capitalists with a unity of class interest, but the U.S. whites want to maintain white skin privilege as they do in South Africa. Have you ever asked a white person if they wanted to change skin color? They wouldn't do it, ever.

User Detail :  

Name : Mel P., Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Hispanic/Latino (may be any race), Religion : Agnostic, Age : 41, City : San Francisco, State : CA Country : United States, Occupation : Labor Union Representative, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Lower middle class, 

[Mel P.]

Being of Latino-Caribbean background, I believe some of the choices surrounding naming are rooted in historical/linguistic patterns. The faux-Swahili names that became popular in the 1970s among African-American parents were the result of cultural resistance to the imposition of Anglo-Saxon names that blacks received from white slavemasters. All blacks in the Americas with English, Dutch, French and Portuguese names had some ancestor who was named by his or her slavemaster. The names and language from their tribal heritage were forever lost. In the '60s and '70s, blacks tried to reclaim their humanity by recovering what was lost in enslavement: their identity. For me, I think a false idea of 'blackness' is a chimera. We need pride in our resistance to racist domination and discrimination, and we need self-love and a healthy sense of common humanity with others. But we black folks should not engage in a fantasy world of the African past. We do have religious and linguistic survivors in popular culture in the Americas, but what does that mean for the 21st Century? Does it liberate us? Or does it submerge us into fantasy?

User Detail :  

Name : Mel P., Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Hispanic/Latino (may be any race), Religion : Agnostic, Age : 41, City : San Francisco, State : CA Country : United States, Occupation : Labor Union Representative, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Lower middle class, 

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