Very interesting article in the post gazette on Sunday, regarding minorities getting left behind in Pittsburgh (Fox Chapel: chapel, purchaser)

[simetime]

Originally Posted by sparrowmint

Hah, you'll never see that level of honesty in the schools. Oh they'll always do the token MLK and Rosa Parks stuff, but nothing that truly confronts the privilege deniers.

I can vouch for that. I went to Robert L. Vann on the Hill at the time that it was one of the best elementary schools in the city and I was never told that the school was named after a blackman (owner of the Courier)neverless taught anything about significant about black history, hell we were not even taught about the Jazz history on the Hill

[simetime]

Originally Posted by Hopes

But that has nothing to do with her being white.

No it does not, but her strong affilation with a group of people with a known number of racist does not help either.

[I_Like_Spam]

Originally Posted by simetime

This is were we part ways. I absolutely LOATHE herman cain! How can you grow up in the 60's in rural Georgia and totally ignore what was going on at that time just to applease your handlers.

Mr. Cain grew up in city of Atlanta, not a rural area at all.

Maybe you forgot the hubbub during his campaign about how he rode segregated city buses without incident instead of fighting for his rights?

[simetime]

Originally Posted by I_Like_Spam

Mr. Cain grew up in city of Atlanta, not a rural area at all.

Maybe you forgot the hubbub during his campaign about how he rode segregated city buses without incident instead of fighting for his rights?

Actually he was born in Tenn, and grew up in Atlanta. I'm sorry about that, but for any blackman that grew up in the mist of racial segregation and strif and dismisses it all like it never really happen pisses me off. With the marches, police brutality, lynchings and klan activity in the south at that time and for him to conviently ignored history to support the same people/type of thinking later in life for personal gratification ERRRRRR!

[pman]

Originally Posted by Hopes

Authentically black. Fake black. A real black. Not black enough. Married to a white woman. a black woman, a light skinned woman.

You post that crap all the time. It blows my mind that you don't realize you're part of the problem in society!

there you go, all bs all the time.

[Uptown kid]

I'll say it again:

A black sell out/uncle tom is a successful man or woman involved in corporate America who either forgot about or betrayed their heritage/background or never grew up acknowledging it... Furthermore, they betray their black counter parts especially by refuting association & neglecting the majority of the population (ie. poor-working class living in big city to backwoods ghettos). In addition they don't identify themselves as black when they can get away with it, and will do anything to stay in good standing with "the man" including or neglecting or suppressing fellow blacks. A sell out/Uncle Tom is not an assimilated professional trying to act notably civilized and keep a job, but a self-confused racist jerk who wishes he/she were born white.

A sell out/Uncle Tom is not a so called "Oreo," (a upper or middle class individual who lives a life more similar to your average white American than black)!

[pman]

Originally Posted by Uptown kid

I'll say it again:

A black sell out/uncle tom is a successful man ...

keep saying it

[zip95]

Originally Posted by Uptown kid

I'll say it again:

A black sell out/uncle tom is a successful man or woman involved in corporate America who either forgot about or betrayed their heritage/background or never grew up acknowledging it... Furthermore, they betray their black counter parts especially by refuting association & neglecting the majority of the population (ie. poor-working class living in big city to backwoods ghettos). In addition they don't identify themselves as black when they can get away with it, and will do anything to stay in good standing with "the man" including or neglecting or suppressing fellow blacks. A sell out/Uncle Tom is not an assimilated professional trying to act notably civilized and keep a job, but a self-confused racist jerk who wishes he/she were born white.

A sell out/Uncle Tom is not a so called "Oreo," (a upper or middle class individual who lives a life more similar to your average white American than black)!

I've been impressed by your passion for data, and since you're young, I've felt an obligation to give you tids-bits of advice acquired from years of experience. But after reading that I'm not so sure you're even remotely equipped for success here in America. The chip on your shoulder is enormous and it's going to sink you. wpipkins is an old black man who probably experienced horrific things. Him I can understand, but you?... you're to young for any of that. Some one has done you a great disservice teaching you this.

This corporate life that you are imagining I actually live. The black people you're speculating about I actually know. I'm not talking about the entry to mid level revolving-door employees. I'm talking about the higly-paid mission critical decision makers and check writers. I promise you that 100% of them will say you have no idea what you are talking about... I hope it's just youthful inexperience.

Listen carefully: There is no such thing as a sell out/Uncle Tom. Every person of ANY gender race religion and sexual orientation is there because they have spent decades being smarter, quicker, better, and more driven than everyone else. You have no idea the battles they've had to fight.... How good do you have to be to graduate top of the class at Pitt med school? Indian is sending the best and brightest of their Billion people so you have to be better than all of them.... How smart do you have to be to write code for Google? Smarter than the Billion Asians who have been trained since birth to work 60 hours per week... How good of a sales person must you be to work for PNC's high-net-worth wealth management. Better than all the Upper Saint Claire kids who where taught golf at age 4... Want to sell office furniture to Highmark? Do you have any idea the level of infrastructure you will need to build to satisfy them.

Yet you will disparage people who've won these battles because they don't reach the appropriate level of "blackness" as defined by your Uncle Willie or the local church deacon in Wilkinsburg. This sounds exceedingly stupid and naive to me. If you want to one day crunch crime stats for Rand here in Pittsburgh, you would do well to focus more on beating out the Oxford grads you will have to defeat and focus less on being down with the high school drop outs in Homewood.

[sparrowmint]

Originally Posted by Uptown kid

I'll say it again:

A black sell out/uncle tom is a successful man or woman involved in corporate America who either forgot about or betrayed their heritage/background or never grew up acknowledging it... Furthermore, they betray their black counter parts especially by refuting association & neglecting the majority of the population (ie. poor-working class living in big city to backwoods ghettos). In addition they don't identify themselves as black when they can get away with it, and will do anything to stay in good standing with "the man" including or neglecting or suppressing fellow blacks. A sell out/Uncle Tom is not an assimilated professional trying to act notably civilized and keep a job, but a self-confused racist jerk who wishes he/she were born white.

A sell out/Uncle Tom is not a so called "Oreo," (a upper or middle class individual who lives a life more similar to your average white American than black)!

It's almost funny to watch, Uptown Kid, as their eyes glaze over, and they don't read your entire post, let alone understand it. Typical though, the tenets of social justice are often meaningless to those who think they have it made, so they're blind (or complicit in) to the corruptions throughout society and its institutions. One thing you'll learn is that it's best not to waste much time on privilege deniers. They either eventually get it on their own, or they don't, and they'll just cherry pick and misinterpret everything you say. Case in point. They want things to stay exactly how they are.

I love the "I know black people" game though. I can play too. I know quite a few successful, highly educated black people. Despite doing very well for themselves in varying careers (finance, law, medicine, government), they're still social justice activists who could tell people plenty about institutionalized racism, sexism, classism, and white/male/heterosexual/wealth privileges. They don't disassociate themselves from other black people and don't consider wide swaths of people beneath them. Success and being aware of the extensive problems in society are not mutually exclusive, not all successful people are self-absorbed or ignorant enough to actually think they did it all themselves.

[eschaton]

I'm on vacation visiting with my mom for Mother's Day, but my two cents.

Race is ultimately a cultural designation, not an objective reality. That's why many light-skinned blacks, who clearly have more European than African ancestry in extreme cases, can call themselves black. It's also why Dominican-Americans, who don't spring from a nation where one-dropism exists, often deny being black even when they are visibly black in the U.S. sense.

Since this is all subjective, there are no right and wrong answers. That said, I'd never think as a white American to counter the arguments of black Americans about the status of blackness. White voices had centuries to talk about how things really were for black Americans, and I'm happy to leave it to be an internal debate within black culture, now that we are at least a little bit more enlightened. My opinion as a citizen of America is important regarding how race intersects with any number of public policy areas, such as race, crime, and education. But in terms of how "the tribe" defines itself, it's irrelevant.