Very interesting article in the post gazette on Sunday, regarding minorities getting left behind in Pittsburgh (Clarence: how much, schools)

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by wpipkins

I love Herman Cain and he is authentically black.

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!

[wpipkins]

Originally Posted by Hopes

I never said I would be harassed. I said they will be harassed. They don't want the crap THEY will get from their friends and family afterwards. And don't insult me by calling them so-called-black-friends AS IF they are imaginary friends because YOU CAN'T BELIEVE that it's even possible I have.

Show me one black familiy that would harrass another familiy member for simply bringing a white friend to church. Thats just silly. What church do these friends attend? It is possible for you to have black friends. It is impossible for me or any black person for that matter to believe that these "so called" friends would be harrassed for bringing some white woman to church. Bringing people to church is what black christians do? This has been encouraged in our communities for centuries.Those so called friends are not being truthful. I would love to meet them and pull their card....lol

Name the church.....Macedonia Baptist, Monumental Baptist, Bethal African Methodist Episcopal, St Benedict The Moore, Christian Tabernacle, Westley Center AME Zion? Thats just off the top of my head and none of these churches would condone such behavior. Thats not the christian way....

[wpipkins]

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!

Authenticall black has nothing to do with skin tone. My siblings are considered light skin and are as authentically black as they come. My wife is light skin as well and again....very black.

Ben Jealous (president of the national NAACP) is white in appearance but as black as they come. There are some black men who choose to mary white women and it has no impact on their blackness. Clarence Thomas is not one of them.

[robrobrob]

Originally Posted by Steelers10

Despite being Republican, Colin Powell acknowledges that desegregation and affirmative action policies aided his military career and that he would not eliminate such policies because they turned the military into America's closest approximation to a true meritocracy. African Americans by and large don't vote Republican but it is hard to look at Colin Powell's story (his immigrant parents pulling themselves up by the bootstraps but Powell acknowledging discrimination still existed when he joined the service and then how these policies leveled the playing field) and then argue against Colin Powell.

Clarence Thomas, OTOH, acknowledged the discrimination that occurred against him and apparently at one point was an activist who help found the Black Student Union at Holy Cross. However, later in his career due to his political ambitions riding the coattails of notable conservatives (being repeatedly appointed by his political connections) he chose to use his role as Reagan and Bush I's Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to NOT challenge lack of equal employment opportunities for blacks. I can't use his exact language here on City-Data but let's just say Clarence Thomas accused all blacks of a not so nice term for "whining".

Colin Powell is okay with benefiting from the affirmative action polices that exist in the military. On the other hand, Clarence Thomas is not okay with that fact. After getting accepted to Yale Law School, his main gripe was that when he graduated he believed that others thought that he was only able to achieve the grades that he did was because he was a beneficiary of affirmative action. In short, he wanted to stand on his own merits (grades) once he got his shot (accepted to Yale Law School). He thought he wasn't hired because employers believed that Yale pushed him through because he was black.

A true Meritocracy can't exist with affirmative action.

[wpipkins]

Originally Posted by Steelers10

I honestly think the negative points about Clarence Thomas, his "self" hate, and his "white" wife are being misconstrued or at least misunderstood to a point. I'm with everyone who says that having a black wife versus a white wife doesn't giveanymore credibility than Clarence Thomas. Colin Powell just has more credibility in general. I think if you are not particularly familiar with Clarence Thomas you should read up on him. It may give you a sense of why Thomas is hated on the political "left" and absolutely reviled among African Americans.

Despite being Republican, Colin Powell acknowledges that desegregation and affirmative action policies aided his military career and that he would not eliminate such policies because they turned the military into America's closest approximation to a true meritocracy. African Americans by and large don't vote Republican but it is hard to look at Colin Powell's story (his immigrant parents pulling themselves up by the bootstraps but Powell acknowledging discrimination still existed when he joined the service and then how these policies leveled the playing field) and then argue against Colin Powell.

Clarence Thomas, OTOH, acknowledged the discrimination that occurred against him and apparently at one point was an activist who help found the Black Student Union at Holy Cross. However, later in his career due to his political ambitions riding the coattails of notable conservatives (being repeatedly appointed by his political connections) he chose to use his role as Reagan and Bush I's Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to NOT challenge lack of equal employment opportunities for blacks. I can't use his exact language here on City-Data but let's just say Clarence Thomas accused all blacks of a not so nice term for "whining".

Despite the Republican doctrine of self-reliance, Bush I nominated him for the Supreme Court. Not because he was imminently qualified. Because the black Thurgood Marshall was retiring and Bush wanted to replace him with another black and Clarence Thomas was the only reliable black conservative he could find, despite how UNQUALIFIED he was. African Americans and certainly white liberals would have preferred someone else besides Thomas. He is the penultimate perversion of racial preferences. He is likely the highest level beneficiary of a racial preference ever and has done nothing in his career but fight against em.Thomas has done nothing but benefit from cronyism his entire career then slammed the door in the face of others behind him, notably blacks. African Americans hate Clarence Thomas.

And the white wife part? It is not so much that his wife is white, but the fact that Clarence Thomas was this family values shill who trumpeted the true ills of blacks were not discrimination but teenage pregnancy and illiteracy. So Mr. Family Values Black Women Are Baby Mamas And Look At Me With My White Wife Who Of Course Genetically Has No Proclivities Toward Such Dramas then turns around and sexually harrasses Anita Hill, a black woman. When confronted with her testimony at his confirmatiion hearings, Clarence Thomas, ye of conservative egalitarianism, turned around and played THE RACE CARD! Despite his known advances to specifically black women staffers, Thomas accussed the U.S. Senate of a "high-tech lynching" because they portrayed him as an "uppity black"! Thomas's confirmation squeaked by with the narrowest confirmation margin in a hundred years at this point and Anita Hill was railroaded out of her position at the University of Oklahoma School of Law by Oklahoma Conservatives.

As it turns out, Anita Hill was quite influential in highlighting sexual harrasment in the workplace and it is believed her testimony provoked Bush I's opposition of a bill allowing harrassment victims from being able to receive damages and back pay from the federal government. Hill was actually able to rebound from the severe misfortune of having ever been a staffer of Clarence Thomas and established a successful career as a professor and women's rights activist. Just when it was all said and done, or at least you thought, in 2010 Clarence Thomas's wife made a public spectacle of herself by leaving a harrassing voicemail for Anita Hill demanding she apologize for what SHE did to Clarence Thomas! I don't think this is a function of Thomas's wife being white, but be aware that there is no love lost between Clarence Thomas and the African American community and certainly not between highly educated professional African American women and Clarence Thomas's wife! Sorry that this deviated from the specific point of discrimination in Pittsburgh, but those who have invoked the Curious Case of Clarence Thomas are correct in that it is instructive of how particular sectors are not going to attract professional blacks (particularly black women) if there is this hanging perception harrassment will be tolerated in the workforce. From my perspective the "steel mill" legacy of Pittsburgh reinforces a stereotype that women and minorities will not get a fair shake in Pittsburgh.

Excellent post!

[gg]

Originally Posted by wpipkins

Authenticall black has nothing to do with skin tone. My siblings are considered light skin and are as authentically black as they come. My wife is light skin as well and again....very black.

Ben Jealous (president of the national NAACP) is white in appearance but as black as they come. There are some black men who choose to mary white women and it has no impact on their blackness. Clarence Thomas is not one of them.

Guess I will never understand what it would be like to have to be authentically (insert color of skin here) mentality. I feel bad for black people who are judged harshly by other black people that live a certain way. Last I checked we are all part of the human race and in the US where it is a huge melting pot, the race thing is so old and played. Lets get out of the 60's and get into at least the 2000's. Goodness, how judgmental can people be?

[Moby Hick]

Originally Posted by h_curtis

Guess I will never understand what it would be like to have to be authentically (insert color of skin here) mentality.

You're just really, really, super, extra-strength authentic white.

[pit2atl]

Originally Posted by Hopes

Huh? I've never attended the church. Where did you get that?

If you've never been to any church in the hill district, where are you getting this preconceived idea that a black family will be judged by they're fellow church members for bringing a white friend to worship Christ. That's insane!

[SteelCityRising]

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!

Agreed. wpipkins, I typically really enjoy your contributions, but the reason why I nitpicked on you in the other thread (that is eerily similar to this thread) is because of this. There's no such thing as being "too white", "not black enough", "fake black", "real black", "fake white", "real white", etc., and the assumption that such statements are relevant to society in the 21st Century is mind-boggling.

I see plenty of white boys here in the East End who wear saggy pants, gold chains, and listen to rap. Does that make them "fake black"? Is Bill Cosby "not black enough"? I'm confused.

[sealie]

When I was young and there would be a couple black students in the advanced classes, they were definitely accused of "acting white". By black people; nobody white would have said that, nobody white even thought that as far as I know. So I don't see why it's so hard to believe that Hopes' friends have friends who would say that, or that Gnutella or whoever it was would have been minding his own business and then threatened with violence if he didn't stick to white women. This stuff happens. Maybe it doesn't happen a lot, and maybe not with most people, but it does happen. It looks a little silly to claim that it would never happen because no black people you know would do that, in a "No True Scotsman" way.
And Hopes already said that her friends SAID that they would be judged by other people, not that she thought that they would. Don't shoot the messenger.