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I guess being multiracial myself from a family that is as varied as planters nuts I really can't feel your pain. I guess I just don't see what's so important about eyes and skin color? My mother (Jamaican, Scottish, and Mohawk) has light eyes. My mixed race (pardo) Brasilian father has dark eyes and dark hair, but his sisters both have light eyes and light brown hair. My eldest daughter (half Mexican) has light brown hair and lighter eyes though both my husband's eyes and mine are dark. My youngest is bronze colored with dark hair and dark eyes. You don't know how genes will play out. I just never really cared about all of that...
There are millions of people out there with Sicilian, southern Italian, Italian or even southern european heritage so it's not as if there is slim pickings and although I do know that someone cannot control who they fall in love with they can control who they marry and reproduce with and they can also lessen those chances of failing for an inappropriate partner by not even going on that first date or giving out their phone number. We are taking that into consideration for a relocation that wherever we move has a nice sized Italian American community both for fun stuff like food and future family considerations.
Heritage is very important to me and it would break my heart, my fiances heart, all 4 of our parents heart if that line was broken and my ancestors buried in Italy would roll over in their graves..I'm a lowly contractor from along now but I'm 13 generations directly descended from a ducal royal family in Sicily, Malta and Savoy.
Besides this aspect I am very far from archaic snd traditional (read some of my posts) but this is one thing for me.
You don't gotta feel my pain and you're wekcome to think I'm an idiot, old fashioned and whatever else but valuing and preserving my heritage doesn't make me a racist, there is very big difference between hating someone for their skin color and ethnicity and not wanting to have babies with them or have them become part of my family tree and imprinted in the genetic matierial of my ancestors for the rest of time. I don't hate people because of their skin color, my feelings about someone (hate or like, platonic feelings) are completely dependent on how they act. I won't pull the whole "I have black friends bit" cause I do not have any close black friends (I am very close with these two brothers of Dominican descent but I see them as my friends not my token fiends of color), I will admit that I did feel uncomfortable and out of place when I went with them to a concert for a rapper and the crowd was entirely black and hispanic so I stuck out like a sore thumb because I'm pale (keep myself that way intentionally cause wrinkles from tans suck...spf100 all day ;P) but I think that's more a function of me not liking sticking out and a feeling of having no cultural common ground with most people in my surroundings.
I'm glad your happy and confident with who you are, we all like different things, care about different things and do different things and as long as we don't hurt others we are totally entitled too
I think because the New World Countries are so mixed, people become more conscious of their heritage here. I have cousins in southern Brazil (Florianopolis) who are conscious about finding other Italian women so they both married argentine women (Italian is the largest ancestry group in that country), whereas a relative I have from Sicily married a French woman and they live in Munich.
Thank you Clampdown69! I'm sure you will have a beautiful family with a bright future.
My family also came from Europe, long after the alleged b.s. happened so I accept no responsibilty.
I am so very proud that when my family did arrive in the U.S., they worked hard, earned respect, and were admitted to and graduated from college without having the American taxpayer pay for their hardships, or give them handouts. Personal pride, hard work, and integrity are important to us today and in the future. I also like our traits, culture, celebrate our culture. Many others have also come to the U.S. and thrived with hard work and ethical behavior.
We still have the right of free association in the U.S.!
Affirmative action teaches and breeds racism. When the Federal Government mandates one race be given preferential treatment over another it's bound to create resentment and hate.
So there was no racism before Affirmative Action? Racism was the REASON it was created in the first place!
What...did some Black get picked over you for a job? Don't be bitter and hateful about it. Get over it. Most of you anti-Affirmative Action goofballs don't realize that Affirmative Action doesn't help you keep the job. In other words, you screw up, you get fired or laid off like everyone else.
So there was no racism before Affirmative Action? Racism was the REASON it was created in the first place!
What...did some Black get picked over you for a job? Don't be bitter and hateful about it. Get over it. Most of you anti-Affirmative Action goofballs don't realize that Affirmative Action doesn't help you keep the job. In other words, you screw up, you get fired or laid off like everyone else.
BUT that race still gets chosen over you, even if less qualified. That is unethical and leaves the better qualified person unemployed.
So there was no racism before Affirmative Action? Racism was the REASON it was created in the first place!
What...did some Black get picked over you for a job? Don't be bitter and hateful about it. Get over it. Most of you anti-Affirmative Action goofballs don't realize that Affirmative Action doesn't help you keep the job. In other words, you screw up, you get fired or laid off like everyone else.
I have some issues with AA.
When it comes to AA in academic settings I believe that setting standards lower for college admissions because someone is black or native American is insulting to them because it assumes that they are not as smart as whites or Asians. Conversely I feel it is unfair to white people as well because we are being held to an arbitrary higher standard. Why should a black kid who lived in the same town and used the same school system as me be able to get into Harvard with a 3.6 GPA when I need a 4.0?
In some cases when a place of employment doesn't meet a diversity quota or whatever, they will hire people of color who are of less merit and less qualified than other white applicants just to meet the quota. That is unfair, merit first. If the goal is a society that doesn't judge employees by color it is counterproductive to judge employees by color. This has been an issue several times in the Law Enforcement profession where blacks and Hispanics are much less likely to apply for the job because of things like the fact that in certain cities there is a long standing mistrust between the cops and black communities, furthermore because of lower average educational attainment for minorities and a higher likelihood that they will have a criminal record (there are reasons for this that I am not digging into) there is simply a smaller percentage of minority people who are even eligible to be a cop. In these circumstances there have been cases where a black person who is less qualified and got a lower score on the civil service exam will be hired before a white person simply because he is the only black person that applied. A case like this recently happened with the FDNY.
In the late 80s/early 90s in Detroit which was increasingly becoming a mostly black city, it was felt that the police force (at 70%) was too white. The solution was for mayor Coleman Young to hire his buddies, the sons of his buddies, and black Detroiters from his old neighborhood who were recently released from prison.
Another concerning issue for me is over representation. Although it may feel like more depending on where you live, black peoples are around 14% of the US population, so not even 1/6 of America is black. However in federal civil service jobs that are vastly over represented and in the lower pay grades of the federal service they comprise a majority. This may be because DC and the areas of Maryland around it are very black, however the federal workforce should be more representative of the U.S. population at large IMO. Similarly my girlfriend used to work as a 311 operator for the city of New York. NYC as a whole is around 25% black 35% white 15% Asian and 25% Hispanic, however her office was more than 50% black easily. I have noticed this in other city government offices as well that whites and Asians are underrepresented in city employment in every department except for the NYPD, and the FDNY.
Unrelated to affirmative action, but concerning to me is the fact that racist comments about whites, particularly white males is pretty much socially acceptable. I once heard a politics talk show say that something (I forget what) was worthless because it was written by "stupid old white men", if she had said the opposite about "stupid old black women" she would have to make a public apology and might lose her job and all professional relevance. ASU in Tempe had a class recently about racism, that was entitled "The problem of whiteness", this is disgustingly offensive to me and I know for a fact that if I was a professor and I wanted to make a class known as "The problem with blackness" there would be campus protests, walkouts, and a campaign to ruin my career. It is perfectly acceptable for a person of color to point out the shortcomings of white people and their culture, however if I pointed out the problems with contemporary black culture, such as a high (70%) out of wedlock birth rate I would be labeled a bigot. I am not denying that racism exists toward people of color because it does, however the door does swing both ways. A big problem I have with my fellow white people is that many feel that the only way to reject racism and rid themself of white guilt (a ridiculous concept because while I can be disappointed at the actions of previous generations I feel no guilt and take no credit for the actions of people in the past. Whites are not the only group who did bad things. Tribes in Africa did things too, as did east Asian Mongols, Berber moors, South Asian Mughals etc.) is to reject their own ancestral culture and forget their heritage and traditions. White european culture deserves to be fostered and preserved by the ancestors of white Europeans in the same way that the Navajo, the Salvadorans, the Indians, the Kenyans, the Cantonese and the Hawaiians foster and preserve theirs - warts and all - there is nothing wrong with that and to call our society multicultural and then reject "white" culture makes no sense and is just as bad as the other way around. I love my heritage, I want to preserve it both culturally and genetically and I believe that is totally okay and I encourage others of all backgrounds to the same. I don't wanna be a cheese ball but a rainbow is only pretty is because the colors are DISTINCT, yet coexisting. When you take paint of many colors and mix it up it turns into a bland grey blob. That's what monoculture is to me, you can't think about Americsn culture without remember the very european backbone of it.
Finally, this website has illustrated the double standard for me quite a few times. If I posted as a black woman in the "General US" and asked for a black majority city with a strong middle class I might be told to go to Atlanfa or DC/PG County, MD. If I pose as an Asian gay man looking for a liberal city with lots of Asian culture I might be told San Francisco or Honolulu, if I say I am Latino looking for hot weather you'll send me to Miami. If a Mexican came on here and said they were uncomfortable living around whites and wanted a Spanish speaking Mexican neighborhood you might suggest East LA of the city of El Paso, TX. However If I say I am a white straight man looking for a conservative neighborhood that is mostly white in the new city I am relocating too, there won't be one helpful answer - you will tell me that I should join the Klan, go to hell, get a time machine to the 40's deep south, or that I'm nazi scum. See the difference?
I hope I didn't offend anyone but any person can be affected by bigotry and racism it is not a problem exclusive to those who have more melanin than me, my culture and heritage is just as worthy of preservation as anyone elses, and if you tell me that my culture and heritage is not worth preserving I hope you think that every Chinatown should be knocked down and every Juan Martinez should become John Martin. Not that I want that to happen but if you believe that I shouldn't preserve my culture then you should apply that every race and background equally because if you single me out because my blood comes from Europe that's just as bad as hating someone for having dark skin and origins in Africa.
Of course it's learned HOWEVER (playing the devil's advocate). We are most comfortable with what we are familiar with and understand. If we are Asian, in a crowd, and know no one. We will probably gravitate towards any Asian person we see. It may be who we end up hanging out with but it will be where we start.
We all want something in common. Color is the simple first gage of similarity. Then we can hope we have similar opinions. And WE can talk about THEM. Because we feel secure with us. And THEY are rather unknown. It might take effort to know them.
I can't tell you how many times someone has made racist remarks to me thinking that, just because I share their skin color, I share their prejudices. Also, no matter what culture setting you're in, as one group talks about members of their skin color, they will identify others.
EG: Black kids: My first period teacher, Ms. Holt, is very strict. My second period teacher, Ms. Johnson, is much nicer. My third period teacher is nice, Ms. Williams. She's white.
Another EG: White guy telling a story: We were all standing around when a cop walks up. Then this black guy comes out of the store.....
I don't think they mean it in a racist way. It's a familiarity thing. Like in a herd of horses, the spotted ones hang out together.
Not only racism, but hate in general. We just live in a testosterone fueled world these days, where the simplest things get us into a rage and snark mode extreme. Gone are sportsmanship and manners, it's all about aggression and humiliation.
When some mother explodes at a car that cut in front of her, screaming profanities and threatening violence with a young child in the car, when a son watches his dad go after a little league coach with fists flying, what do you expect.
Yes, it's really awful. It's about competitiveness, superiority, one "being better than", trying to prove something... coupled with aggressiveness.
I do think that hate, racism and certain viewpoints are taught, which is why bullying continues. In fact, I think that those who do this have it so ingrained within, they do not know the difference, then they automatically pass this negativity on. It disturbs me to think of innocent children being taught this way of thinking, having it inflicted upon them by their elders, only to develop into having hard-core attitudes.
You might want to brush up on your U.S. History if that's what you think is the case.
AA didn't just get pulled out of thin air, there were and are reasons for AA for women and minorities. If there wasn't blatant racism and sexism in higher education and professional world, then there would be no need for AA, so the resentment and hate is misplaced.
This is always been so ironic to me. The same group of people that complain certain minorities such as blacks are lazy, don't want to work or don't want be productive members of society (that usually come from poor, urban areas) turn around and complain when those same people "take" their scholarships and jobs away from whites.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Yes, that same group will complain regarding something, such as Abortions or criticizing those on Financial Aid, while "their group" are amongst the highest portion of those utilizing both. But they have to blame someone for whatever makes them mad and it cannot possibly be "their own", so they keep up this stance about everything being the fault of "the other guy". It's as if they are arguing with themselves.
My so-called 'racist' views, judgements and opinions were formed by my observations and experiences.
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Racism was the REASON it was created in the first place!
