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Yeah you're right. I've been thinking in terms of inherited wealth, which most black people don't have. Yet it's the community who builds the wealth. Servicing the community is what keeps the money inside, and profit starts to build up. So it's the community that builds the wealth up. Perhaps forgetting black history in this country is the wrong route, but not to dwell on how we never prospered on anything. It was all systematic and we have been socially engineered to breakdown our own communities. They were successful because today there is no black community for the most part. That has to change soon because already a third of our population is on the brink of extinction.
Exactly, on all points.
I think it's questionable whether those communities can happen in the northern migration areas, but I think it's still possible "down home" where the cultural touchstones have not quite yet vanished.
The last generation directly affected by Jim Crow (both advantaged and disadvantaged) is the Boomer generation, which as I've said before is still in control of US industry, politics, and media. Jim Crow won't be past until the Boomers are dead.
Since Boomers created the modern-day prison system and "War" on Drugs, I dare suggest it's going to be a long, long time after all the Boomers are dead that Jim Crow - last known as the Rockefeller laws - will pass. Hell, our school district wasn't desegregated until 2003.
Wealth is not the correlation, society is the correlation. Asian communities built wealth by being communities rather than ghettos. Notice the difference: A community is a self-created social entity while a ghetto is an imposed social entity.
I disagree. I think that it's the strong Asian traditional family structure that creates wealth for that particular family, not a community... a Chinatown. Asian families are very loyal to their members, they pool their money and other resources for common goals, and the natural leader of their family dynasty is one of the elders (usually a man). Then they have a strong sense of family honor. They will not do anything to shame their family name (which is why Asian baby mommas are virtually non-existent). And because keeping their word is so important to them, they can skirt the banking system and borrow money from private parties who don't worry about defaulted loans. They know that the whole family will pull together to pay it off if the original borrower isn't able to.*
And another thing about Asians and also Indians. They have family arranged marriages. And the point is, one doesn't marry for love, but as a duty to improve their family's fortunes. Their parents get involved and use matchmakers, looking for compatibility between the families and to form strong alliances. Chinese horoscopes are involved also (lol but they do work!). And even in a video I saw taken about ten years ago in China, there were older adults who were fine with their arranged marriages and said that the love for their spouses grew over time. They scoffed at marrying just for love.
A Chinatown is about preserving traditional Asian culture. And actually, I remember a Chinese friend telling me this... and her dad owned several Chinese restaurants in the Boston area. She said that Jewish people were smarter, they all go into different professions and then network with each other. On the other hand, with the Chinese, if you open a Chinese restaurant and it's successful, you can then count on another Chinese person opening up a restaurant next door to you.
* Years ago, there was some tragic car accident in the Midwest. A couple of Chinese students were killed in the crash. Their relatives back in China were distraught with grief and because of the one child policy, these families were left childless. And to add to this tragedy, their families had borrowed money from several friends in order to send these students to the US. Obviously they were counting on their children's future good careers to help pay off the loans. And btw, the car accident wasn't their fault, it was a drunk driver.
That's rather like telling a Jew to stop commemorating Passover.
I have worked several Passover dinners for the same Jewish family. I love listening to their ritual. I wish that blacks had a similar one. I think that reciting the history of how they left Egypt, and the four questions for the children to answer, the unleavened bread, the bitter herbs... it's remembering the past in a matter of fact way and then moving forward. I don't think that any of the Jewish people I know hold any lingering grudges towards what happened to them in Ancient Egypt and they don't have negative feelings towards the Ancient Egyptian artifacts in museums or to the standing pyramids. They've just moved on and know that they will never be in that situation again. Anyway, Passover is an important annual event, but once over they don't dwell on it the rest of the year.
But the Jews didn't let their past cripple them. And they are highly productive as a group... unlike the American black community.
Who wouldn't be a productive group if you were awarded a free country(Israel) from colonial powers and receive $billions of financial aid every year from various countries worldwide. It's an apples to oranges to try and compare the Jews to the Black American community. Also the Jews were never stripped of their identity, language, customs, etc. Jews know who they as oppose to Black Americans who only know that their ancestors are from a huge continent called Africa.
But the Jews didn't let their past cripple them. And they are highly productive as a group... unlike the American black community.
Jews have suffered at least three attempts at genocide that I can name. And yet Ashkenazi Jews have far and away the highest IQs on the planet, and Jews in general are amongst the most financially successful people in the world, if not number 1.
We dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese. The rebounded to become the number two economy in the world, and now sit at number 3.
The massive bombings, invasion from East and West, and partition actually did far more damage to Germany than was done to Japan. Germany now leads a confederation far more powerful and influential that it ever could have dreamed.
Europe as an entity has suffered more devastation than can be discussed in casual conversation. During the thirty years war, it lost a full third of its population. And yet I don't think I have to name the importance of Europe in the last 500 years.
When Hannibal invaded Italy in ancient times, he was able to destroy enough armies so that 200,000 soldiers were killed, and that is not tabulating the damage done in sieges, and due to famine, disease, etc. Historians have compared the demographic disaster to being equivalent to an atomic bomb going off in Manhattan. And yet Rome didn't need to recover...it won the war.
China lost 65 million people in the cultural revolution. It is now the #2 economy in the world.
I don't know how to calculate the damage done to Viet Nam, and I don't just mean by the United States. For centuries, Viet Nam was in a state of almost constant war and occupation from China, The Mongols, Japan, France, and ultimately the US at the end. It is now a formidable and coming power.
Mexico and Peru have some of the fastest growing economies in the world. This is even though their populations were ravaged by small pox and enslaved.
And on, and on, and on. we could name literally hundreds of examples of peoples suffering from worse than slavery/ Jim Crow and rebounding very quickly to do almost unbelievable things, and without the benefit that modern day African Americans are receiving.
It has now been 50 years since Jim Crow, and 150 since slavery. African American benefit immensely from affirmative action, recourse to the law, white good will and white guilt. Their descendants enjoy access to health care, education, and a social safety net unheard of anywhere in Africa today. We have a black president, if you didn't know, as well as black Senators, Supreme Court Justices, Secretaries of State and Defense, Millionaires, Billionaires, entrepreneurs...I believe the most admired woman in America is still Opra Winfrey.
Yes, is time to stop the endless rending of clothes and gnashing of teeth over race issues. Modern day African Americans will never solve their problems until they learn that they own them. The best thing white folks can do to help is to stop the coddling.
This is a tough love message. No hate in it...I want everyone in America to be successful, happy, and more than tolerance, I would like to see friendship. But what I have written is the truth, and everyone knows it in their hearts.
I disagree. I think that it's the strong Asian traditional family structure that creates wealth for that particular family, not a community... a Chinatown. Asian families are very loyal to their members, they pool their money and other resources for common goals, and the natural leader of their family dynasty is one of the elders (usually a man). Then they have a strong sense of family honor. They will not do anything to shame their family name (which is why Asian baby mommas are virtually non-existent). And because keeping their word is so important to them, they can skirt the banking system and borrow money from private parties who don't worry about defaulted loans. They know that the whole family will pull together to pay it off if the original borrower isn't able to.*
And another thing about Asians and also Indians. They have family arranged marriages. And the point is, one doesn't marry for love, but as a duty to improve their family's fortunes. Their parents get involved and use matchmakers, looking for compatibility between the families and to form strong alliances. Chinese horoscopes are involved also (lol but they do work!). And even in a video I saw taken about ten years ago in China, there were older adults who were fine with their arranged marriages and said that the love for their spouses grew over time. They scoffed at marrying just for love.
A Chinatown is about preserving traditional Asian culture. And actually, I remember a Chinese friend telling me this... and her dad owned several Chinese restaurants in the Boston area. She said that Jewish people were smarter, they all go into different professions and then network with each other. On the other hand, with the Chinese, if you open a Chinese restaurant and it's successful, you can then count on another Chinese person opening up a restaurant next door to you.
* Years ago, there was some tragic car accident in the Midwest. A couple of Chinese students were killed in the crash. Their relatives back in China were distraught with grief and because of the one child policy, these families were left childless. And to add to this tragedy, their families had borrowed money from several friends in order to send these students to the US. Obviously they were counting on their children's future good careers to help pay off the loans. And btw, the car accident wasn't their fault, it was a drunk driver.
Sorry, friend, but you didn't disagree with me at all.
I have worked several Passover dinners for the same Jewish family. I love listening to their ritual. I wish that blacks had a similar one. I think that reciting the history of how they left Egypt, and the four questions for the children to answer, the unleavened bread, the bitter herbs... it's remembering the past in a matter of fact way and then moving forward. I don't think that any of the Jewish people I know hold any lingering grudges towards what happened to them in Ancient Egypt and they don't have negative feelings towards the Ancient Egyptian artifacts in museums or to the standing pyramids. They've just moved on and know that they will never be in that situation again. Anyway, Passover is an important annual event, but once over they don't dwell on it the rest of the year.
When I was a kid in the south, it was not very different for black people.
BTW, you may not realize that the majority of black people are middle class and the great majority are working. At least you don't appear to realize it from your rhetoric.
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