When it comes to race: why do people "pick a side"? (enemy, illegal aliens)

[branh0913]

As a black man, I side with no race. And I definitely don't side with the black race. I've long gotten over the idea of being called a "sell out" or "uncle Tom". black people are their own worst enemies. Any barrier I've come upon trying to work my way up out of the ghetto into the corporate world has always been a black person. This goes back to the days living in the projects being intimidated and harassed by local gang members on the block. Black people constantly tell other black people trying to get ahead that "it's pointless" or "the white man white man will never accept you". The reality, the black people hold themselves back. It wasn't until I started having non black associates when I started hearing more encouragement. When I was around nothing but black people, all I heard about how many different ways I'd fail. The reality is when you're a black man trying to succeed in a sea of black people, you're going to get nothing but negativity.

The reality is black people are so conditioned to hate the white man, that we turn a blind eye to the people who really are the ones killing us. For every white cop who guns down some black teenager, I can guarantee there about 4 more black teens being gunned down by someone who is black. And yet white people are the enemy? No, black people are the enemy. There should be even more outrage for a black gangster and drug dealer who gun down other black kids as there is for some white cop who does the same. God knows blacks are killing each other in far greater numbers. But where is the public outcry in the black community? No, we just go ahead and accept it, because apparently blacks killing blacks is perfectly acceptable.

Blacks hold each other down. So no, I don't stand behind a race of people who are bitter, negative, jealous, and won't praise you unless you're limited and self destructive. Not all black people have been mean to me, and not all white people have been discouraging. But I've known a lot of different people from different races, and I can say in my path to success blacks have hands down been the biggest road block. I call it like I see it.

Black people know tat we do this to each other. But when someone comes out and public and say it, they say "we're airing out dirty laundry". Blacks in America need to be exposed for the hypocrites they are. Imagine if blacks encouraged people more, then we wouldn't have the problems we are today. But blacks don't encourage each other, we just put each other down. Right now, upon moving to the Bay Area, I have to stay with my cousin temporarily, who has the same mentality. I can't wait until I move up out of her house, and move to the South Bay, where people are presumably more positive.

[kidkaos2]

Originally Posted by residinghere2007

I agree with the premise of your post, except the bolded area. I am black and don't think, at heart, that any group of people are any better or worse than any other. We are all human, the human race, there really isn't much of a difference between any of us so I don't buy into the common stereotypes of all people from black to white or Asian or Hispanic or Native Americans or any others around the world outside the confines of our own nation.

In regards to the bold above, I would ask if you are black. If not, then you may not know that black people are not in denial about anything that goes on in the "black community." I also don't think that many whites are in denial about "white privilege." White privilege is common knowledge amongst educated white Americans. Just like black Americans are well aware of things going on in "black communities." And we have been for generations, hundreds of years really. There are many books, essays, poems, artwork, sociological studies, etc. by black people regarding the positives AND negatives of black people in America.

I think where the denial comes is not in denying the negative trends in the black community, it is in denying the reasons for them.

The negative aspects have increased in the last 50 years. The fact that people blame the problems on oppression, a lack of education, and a lack of jobs is where the denial comes in. The major problems in the black community come from within the community itself. Because the problems are greater after the civil rights movement's major victories than they were before.

And note that I said from within the community. I didn't say from within black people. Black people are no different from white people. The fact is there is a white underclass in Britain that is in the same position. It has nothing to do with race. It has to do with the unintended consequence of a welfare state. You institute a welfare state with the noble intention of uplifting disadvantaged people. But what happens is that while you do uplift some people, you don't uplift them all. And the ones who are not uplifted end up forming a muligenerational underclass. Parents who never saw hard work or education improve their own lives instill no value for them in their children. It becomes a cycle. It has happened throughout history as far back as ancient Rome.

I personally don't feel I "take sides" because as a black American, I don't think I'm any greater or worse than any other American. But I do take issue with the mis-information put out about black Americans in general, which is why I went into the long diatribe above. Many people see us black Americans as "foreign" or needing to "assimilate" which is both sad and amusing to me being that the majority of black Americans genetically and geographically are "more American" than the majority of whites in the country since our families have been here longer. I do have an American pride going on there in regards to the knowledge that my family has been "American" for over two hundred years in this country and that my ancestors had a hand in touching nearly every facet of American life.

Assimilation isn't about geography or genetics. It's about culture. American blacks have formed their own culture. It has its own modes of dress, language, entertainment, icons, etc.

There's no particular reason this is a bad thing or to say that blacks need to assimilate. But the fact that it exists is simply reality. I see no particular reason why blacks shouldn't have a separate culture. But to deny that the culture exists is simply factually incorrect.

This post also highlights what I mentioned above, that black Americans have been Americans longer than most white Americans in this country, but because we are viewed with suspicion and thinking that we need to "assimilate" the country was willing to bring in other ethnicities from other countries to do jobs that blacks could have done, which in turn kept us from upward mobility economically for generations. The only time blacks were brought in, was when the Irish and Italian immigrants and poor whites decided to join forces and create the Labor Movement and then the blacks were used as "scabs" and this further solidified blacks in poor whites' minds as horrible, evil people and race could be used to justify their beliefs in this respect.

Well, people weren't brought in from other countries to do jobs. They immigrated on their own during a period in which immigration controls were pretty much non-existent. But as for the types of jobs and pay they were able to get once they were here, I'd agree with you.

However, as for assimilation - they did assimilate whereas many blacks did not. There are no Irish or Danish or German or Japanese or Korean or Jewish ways of dressing and speaking in America. Whatever nation they came from, they adopted the mainstream American culture after being here for a couple of generations.

Yes, there are tiny ethnic pockets here and there but they are mostly tourist traps or isolated fundamentalist communities such as the hassidic jews or the quakers.

Also note that black culture is not something retained from Africa. It's a unique culture developed here. Don't take what I'm saying as meant to be criticism of there being a separate black culture. By itself it is fine. The problem comes when in the past 20 to 30 years that culture has been developing as a counter-culture. If you look at someplace like Harlem in the 20s to 40s it had its own culture also, but it was a culture that was compatible with the mainstream one. The current "thug life" culture is not.

I will also mention that fear is the primary reason why black people are so vilified in our society and even in general around the world. We are seen as hyper-criminal in many ways.

Because the rate of violent criminal behavior amongst black men is 10 times that of any other segment of society. We're not just talking about a 5% difference here or there. We're talking a thousand percent greater. That's not an excuse to treat all black men as criminals. But it is reality and denying it won't fix it.

And it is interesting to me, this criminalization being that black people did not go around the world conquering others or subjugating the world, like Europeans did.

Because of geography and a lack of resources. Africa is a poor region of the world. The people who emigrated from Africa thousands of years ago found better terrain than those who stayed and over the course of the centuries they used the abundant resources they found to advance in technology in ways that weren't possible for the peoples who stayed.

Within Africa itself, the Africans behaved no differently than the Europeans. They fought each other, stole from each other, conquered each other's lands, and took each other as slaves. They simply didn't have the resources to extend their depradations as far and wide as the Europeans did.

It's just like the middle east. For the past thousand years it was a relatively quiet area of the world once the crusades were over. Because it was largely a barren land. But once oil became a hugely valuable commodity, the middle east exploded.

There's only one area that can truly say they behaved in a more civilized manner, and that's the Asians. As Japan proved in WW2 they had the capability to be international conquerors. It was truly Asian culture which prevented them from launching wars and invasions throughout the world. They have had the manpower and the resources all along, but were philosophically isolationist. They made a conscious choice not to adopt firearms for centuries after being the first area of the world to discover gunpowder.

Also, black slaves were not typically thought of as criminally minded, they were seen as "beloved servants" by the majority of slave owning families in the American south, yet upon emancipation, the need for free labor was still there so many strategies were put into place after Reconstruction, that allowed the criminalization of blacks to be put on the books so that black people could be picked up and enslaved via the prison labor system.

I have to disagree with you there. Prison labor was not a replacement for slavery. The scale of prison labor is negligible compared to slavery. You don't run an economy on prison labor the way it was run on slave labor. And white prisoners labored right alongside the black ones.

Certainly the legal system was weighted against blacks to a morally reprehensible degree. Barbaric. But I can't agree it was done so out of a desire for free labor. The numbers of prisoners compared to the numbers of slaves just weren't close enough for prisoners to be anywhere near a replacement for slave labor.

The replacement for slave labor was sharecropping, not prison work gangs. And, once again, there were white sharecroppers along with blacks.

Statistics were inflated by court systems so if one peruses the records, they would think that black people were evil villains. This was also the cause of many race riots in our country's history. I live in Atlanta and there was a horrible race riot in 1906 where the newspaper media got white Atlantans into a frenzy by portraying black men as rapist of 4 white women. This story caused a huge riot over the course of 2 days and many people were killed due to the fear that people had of black men raping white women. Something that didn't happen.

Yes, I agree with this. If you want to keep a segregated society going, then you have to keep inculcating in people a fear and hatred of the other race. Once slavery is over, you run the risk of white people living their lives alongside blacks and realizing hey these black folks are just regular people after all. To prevent that, you need to keep stoking the fires of prejudice. Just like Hitler didn't round up and kill the Jews right away. He spent years in the early 30s doing propaganda campaigns against them to turn the German people against them first before taking drastic action.

Even today, it seems that a lot of white people blame blacks for crimes that we did not commit. I remember when that Susan Smith story came out about her kids being "kidnapped" and she blamed a black man and even had a composite drawn up. I wonder how many black men were arrested due to her lies. I watched something recently on CNN in the breakroom at work where a white guy - who eventually was convicted of the murder - blamed a black man for committing a murder he committed and of course, people believed him and her and others who have done the same thing. I thought Susan Smith was extra ridiculous with her story since you rarely see black men kidnapping white children anyway lol. Here in Atlanta, black men have been known to steal cars, found there was a kid inside the car and drop the kid off at a gas station lol! It has happened at least 10 times that I remember so when I hear these kidnapping things in particular they are extra amusing.

But then again you have the Duke lacrosse players where it was assumed by the public they were guilty also. And they were upper class white college students. What you're describing here isn't racial. It's a general tendency in human beings to assume if someone wasn't guilty they never would have been accused. It doesn't really matter who the accused is. The human tendency is to sympathize with and side with victims.

People think that blacks are criminals. They think that we are dumb. They think that we are "different" from other people. In this country, many whites in the past did not think that we should have things that they had, like property or economic prosperity or an education. We have been labeled as inferior throughout our country's history but we know this is not the case. As because of that, most of us, try to stick together. We are attacked almost daily by people seeking to paint us all with a broad stroke. You can see evidence of this here on CD POC every day with all the "black threads" that are posted.

Yes, and you can replace blacks with conservatives in that paragraph and the exact same thing will apply. Because I support limited government, a balanced budget, and strict adherence to the constitution I am a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, a warmonger, hate poor people, want to deny people medical care, etc.

And FWIW, I quoted "black community" because many blacks no longer live in a predominately black neighborhood. Like white Americans, many blacks move out of poor neighborhoods when they attain economic or educational success, but for some reason many still believe we all live in slums in urban ghettos.

Not really. When people talk about the black community they are talking about those ghettos. They don't mean all blacks. Just like when people talk about the white community they don't mean the millionaires who live in mansions or the trailer trash, they mean the general white middle class.

I read somewhere that more of us live in the burbs now than the inner city. In a way we are still a community because we share the knowledge that we are the same as all other Americans, so we have a communal mindset in a way and this can be both a good and a bad thing. I think it is mostly good.

I think it is mostly bad. Because it leads to a racial divide. It means you continue to divide people by race. It really doesn't matter if you're doing it for positive reasons. Obviously that's a whole lot better than being bigoted about race, but we are not going to reach MLK's dream until race doesn't matter for good or bad.

[jasper1372]

Originally Posted by Rocco Barbosa

I find it odd that mainly blacks and whites like to "pick sides"(usually their own) when it comes to race related issues.

I've had the pleasure of being exposed to lots of different people from different walks of life. I've come to the conclusion, there is not a lot of different between blacks and whites, at the core of the person. Life experiences are different but that's the same for 2 white people, just because they are white doesn't mean they experience the same kind of life same goes for blacks.

I think whites are in denial about the privileges that they have as much as blacks are in denial about many of the issues that take place in the "black community".

Funny thing is, neither group wants to hear the truth from the other. BUT either group will point fingers at the other. I've heard whites talking about blacks and I've heard blacks talking about whites but I never hear each group be honest an taking about themselves.

Blacks and whites always, it seems, take the side of their own race.

Why is that?

Generally people pick the side that makes the most sense to them. What makes the most sense to you over time is based on your life experiences and how you see those around you making decisions and the good or bad that comes from those decisions as well as how your own decisions have panned out in your own life.

It's very difficult is not nearly impossible to actually "feel" with conviction on any issue what someone else actually feels who may have had a totally different experience in life than you have. The saying, "before you judge someone else, walk a mile in their shoes" comes to mind here. Truly the only way to attempt to "feel" what someone else feels, would be a walk a mile in their shoes. But, how in the heck can two people with drastically different life experiences and different paradigms of life experience each others lives for a long enough time to really be able to empathize with each other ? How can a wealthy white adult in NYC living on the 30th floor in Manhatten really experience how a poor white adult lives in the Appalachia, or a black person living in the South side of Chicago ? It's nigh impossible. You can possibly sympathize.....but to actually empathize....not so easy. Obviously, vice-versa would apply too.

You can hardly ask people to come out with opinions on the issue of the day that they don't genuinely "feel" inside. To ask someone to feel what they don't feel is asking them to be disingenious to themselves and say or feel how others want them to say rather than what they really feel.

I myself am middle class in ever sense of the word. I have a friend who I have coffee with several days a week. He's part of the very upper middle class and has way more money and resources than I'll ever have. Trust me....in our conversations, his view of life is different than mine. I do think we've learned a bit about each other and how we view life....but it's still kind of amusing (not to mention frustrating) at times when he cannot fathom why we can't do all the things he and his family do. I do think he "get's it" on a mental level when actually thinking about it.....but he cannot get it on an emotinonal level and is simply NOT the way he feel's based on his life experiences. I cannot be angry at him for this since I cannot fathom how it would be to have all the options he has.....so we just enjoy each others company as it is.

[residinghere2007]

Originally Posted by kidkaos2

I think where the denial comes is not in denying the negative trends in the black community, it is in denying the reasons for them.

Like I stated in my post, black people, for hundreds of years now, have criticized black people and the negatives in our neighborhoods. You don't know about them because they are not taught to you and you have not sought them out. I have mentioned Carter G. Woodson on these forums before, he wrote in the early 20th century about the ills of both poor and "educated" blacks and the negative attributes of certain attitudes and institutions on black life. As did WEB DuBois, as did Booker T. Washington. Other more recent sociologist (mid 20th century) have done so as well - E. Fraklin Frazier and John Hope come to mind. Malcolm X was very outspoken regarding black societal ills.

Like I said, black people have been speaking of these things and writing of them for decades.

The negative aspects have increased in the last 50 years. The fact that people blame the problems on oppression, a lack of education, and a lack of jobs is where the denial comes in. The major problems in the black community come from within the community itself. Because the problems are greater after the civil rights movement's major victories than they were before.

Negative aspects for all Americans have gotten statistically better over the past 50 years except for specific societal issues like OOW births. Which "negative aspects" are you speaking of. And what problems are blamed specifically on the items you mention and what denial do you see other than from media figures. There are major problems in black neighborhoods but the major problems of 3rd world like poverty, education, acclimation of property, freedom to live where one is economically able to do so, are all better for black people in general than they were before the Civil Rights Movement began in the 1940s.

And note that I said from within the community. I didn't say from within black people. Black people are no different from white people. The fact is there is a white underclass in Britain that is in the same position. It has nothing to do with race. It has to do with the unintended consequence of a welfare state. You institute a welfare state with the noble intention of uplifting disadvantaged people. But what happens is that while you do uplift some people, you don't uplift them all. And the ones who are not uplifted end up forming a muligenerational underclass. Parents who never saw hard work or education improve their own lives instill no value for them in their children. It becomes a cycle. It has happened throughout history as far back as ancient Rome.

I agree that underclass is around for all ethnicities but you do not speak of a "white community." There is no "white community" like you think there is a "black community." Which in many ways is also a falso connotation, especially in 2013 as we are not the same in 2013 than we were in 1963 when there was actually a more cohesive, especially geographically, black community. The same can be said of Irish or Italian communities prior to the Civil War or Polish or Russian communities as well. All of us are pretty dispersed now, but the "black community" is still portrayed as being crammed in tenements or public housing when for the majority of black people, this is not the case at all.

Assimilation isn't about geography or genetics. It's about culture. American blacks have formed their own culture. It has its own modes of dress, language, entertainment, icons, etc.

Black American culture is American culture. What specifically about black Americans is culturally different versus mainstream. I will go out on a limb and state that mainstream American culture, in many ways is driven by media images of so-called "black culture." Black people, for many generations (as is described by some of the authors mentioned above) has shunned "black culture." BVE (black vernacular English, what you probably know as "Ebonics") is heavily shunned and has been heavily shunned by black people in this country for hundreds of years because many black people felt that we would not be "accepted" by whites if we spoke "improper English." It is a fact that the majority of black Americans do not speak BVE and they have a poor opinion of BVE (I don't BTW, but I won't go into here, but Carter G. Woodson does speak of this in his text "The Miseducation of the Negro.") We have not formed our own culture. Our culture was derived alongside the growth of America. We want an education, a good job, material possessions, homes, safe surroundings, good schools for our kids. We love our families. The only cultural things I can think of that is different from mainstream is our creativity in regards to music (most popular American music is derived from the black American's experience in this country - gospel, blues, jazz, rock and roll, hip-hop) cooking, and BVE. Other than that, we aren't much different culturally at all with white Americans. I grew up in a very integrated neighborhood and my white friends families weren't very much different from mine at all except they ate more boxed foods (mac and chees or hamburger helper lol we had homemade versions of these via my grandmother) and they did not speak BVE at home.

There's no particular reason this is a bad thing or to say that blacks need to assimilate. But the fact that it exists is simply reality. I see no particular reason why blacks shouldn't have a separate culture. But to deny that the culture exists is simply factually incorrect.

My point is, this is not a reality. Black people are Americans in this country first and foremost and we have no need to "assimilate." You view us as separate so YOU think we need to assimilate when that is not the case. And I don't deny that we have different cultural elements but to think we are foreign in our own country is ridiculous IMO. To me that is like saying a white person with a German heritage is not really American. A Polish American is not really American. An Irish American is not really American. Southern Americans are less American than Northern Americans who are more American than Western Americans, etc... See how silly that is!! We all share the American Experience so we are all American and none of these groups has a need to assimilate. Especially when their families have been in this country for more than 200 hundred years.

Well, people weren't brought in from other countries to do jobs. They immigrated on their own during a period in which immigration controls were pretty much non-existent. But as for the types of jobs and pay they were able to get once they were here, I'd agree with you.

When immigration controls went into affect, in the late 1800s, it was skewed toward people from Europe. Chinese immigrants were banned altogether. Advertisements in Ireland, Englad, and other European countries were around in Europe which further enticed these people to immigrate to our country. And FWIW, when they came, their children were seen as Americans, yet in the late 1800s, my Great Great Grandmother, whose own Grandmother was born in Virginia, would have been seen as needing to "assimilate."

However, as for assimilation - they did assimilate whereas many blacks did not. There are no Irish or Danish or German or Japanese or Korean or Jewish ways of dressing and speaking in America. Whatever nation they came from, they adopted the mainstream American culture after being here for a couple of generations.

How did blacks not assimilate when we have been here for many hundreds of years? This is our country. We are mainstream American culture. We speak English, our ancestors built this country. In no way did we not assimilate. Many prominent blacks, like WEB DuBois, shunned other black people who embraced our more African cultural heritage - like Zora Neal Hurston. What you view as "mainstream" America just did not see us as true Americans, and when I hear this assimilation thing, it is evidence that many people, and maybe you since you seem to think we are not assimilated , still view us as "less than" and nothing we can do will ever convince you that we are true Americans. I will also state, that personally, I don't really care what people think in this regard. Like I stated above, I am very proud of my long standing American roots and I also acknowledge that nothing I can do will change the minds of any person about black people in this country. I also do not think it is important to try to make white people or other American ethnicities comfortable with my presence. They are the ones with the preconceived notions. I harbor none against my fellow Americans.

Yes, there are tiny ethnic pockets here and there but they are mostly tourist traps or isolated fundamentalist communities such as the hassidic jews or the quakers.

Also note that black culture is not something retained from Africa. It's a unique culture developed here. Don't take what I'm saying as meant to be criticism of there being a separate black culture. By itself it is fine. The problem comes when in the past 20 to 30 years that culture has been developing as a counter-culture. If you look at someplace like Harlem in the 20s to 40s it had its own culture also, but it was a culture that was compatible with the mainstream one. The current "thug life" culture is not.


Funny you mentioned Harlem, as many people thought and still think that Harlem is a hell-hole lol. In the past it was not looked upon as being "mainstream." We look upon it fondly today due to the Harlem Renaissance but during that time, the majority of America didn't view Harlem as "mainstream."

I also do not think that black culture is something from Africa. Actually I only consider BVE as the only cultural thing that we have from Africa as the linguistics involved in the so-called "improper" speak of BVE is very much related to African dialects. I had a couple co-workers from Nigeria before who spoke a pidgin language similar to BVE and they were shocked that after a couple weeks, I knew what they were saying. I was also surprised, but they are very similar to BVE here in America and so I see BVE as our only direct connection to Africa, hence (even though I wasn't going to mention it) the reason I don't view it negatively like a lot of black people and most white people do.

The so-called "counter culture" that you are speaking of is an "underclass culture." And that is totally separate from black people as all underclass people in America share similar whining/complaining, dependence on government aid, having multiple children with different dads, willing to live in substandard conditions, having a low opinion of education, etc. Like I said, I grew up in an integrated area - we had plenty of PWTs (poor white trash) and they and the "ghetto blacks" were the same. The ghetto blacks and the working class blacks or middle class blacks were totally different just like the PWTs and the working class whites and middle class whites were totally different. You are trying to assign all black people to the underclass in regards to culture when our subculture is not underclass.

Because the rate of violent criminal behavior amongst black men is 10 times that of any other segment of society. We're not just talking about a 5% difference here or there. We're talking a thousand percent greater. That's not an excuse to treat all black men as criminals. But it is reality and denying it won't fix it.

Only 2% of all black people commit any crime and really it may be less than that since the 2% includes people arrested, but not convicted of a crime. So to think that black people's culture equals murder is ridiculous. Also, I along with many other black people, both prominent and main street, admit we have a lot of underclass people. But citizens like you would like to paint all reasons for the large black underclass - some of which was discussed in this thread (including lack of quality education for hundreds of years and lack of viewing black people as true Americans) as null and void because one and a half generations ago, black people had a Civil Rights Movement. Also, you seem to think that people like me have a responsibility to the black underclass when, in essence, we do not. Many working and middle class black people do work to help lower income, underclass black people, but we have followed the American dream of education, home ownership, owning businesses or obtaining gainful employment and we have families that we are taking care of that are our prime priority. Just like you aren't going to Kentucky to get people off drugs or going to Maine to keep white women from giving birth to meth addicted babies, we don't have a responsibility to go stop someone in Detroit or Chicago from murdering someone else.

And no one denies crime either. So that is not an issue.

Because of geography and a lack of resources. Africa is a poor region of the world. The people who emigrated from Africa thousands of years ago found better terrain than those who stayed and over the course of the centuries they used the abundant resources they found to advance in technology in ways that weren't possible for the peoples who stayed.

Within Africa itself, the Africans behaved no differently than the Europeans. They fought each other, stole from each other, conquered each other's lands, and took each other as slaves. They simply didn't have the resources to extend their depradations as far and wide as the Europeans did.

It's just like the middle east. For the past thousand years it was a relatively quiet area of the world once the crusades were over. Because it was largely a barren land. But once oil became a hugely valuable commodity, the middle east exploded.

Don't understand the reason for this, like you said and like I said, black people are who have ancestry in America are not Africans. Just like I don't have a responsibility in Detroit or Chicago, I don't have a stake in Africa. I am American and I know of world history so don't need a lesson. It is funny to me as well, that people like to give histories of Africa and compare them to other ethnicities, especially when in this thread you stated that black people don't acknowledge or dismiss societal ills in our "communities" when there are a plethora of black American authors who have spoken on these topics for generations and I know about them, along with African, European, and Asian history but you only know of recent African colonialism in comparisons to Asia. I am not debating slavery, which many white people also think is something that blacks complain about. I didn't mention it at all lol. But yet you are giving a description of how "blacks had wars and slaves too" lol. Something that is usually done in order to try to say black people are whining about reparations. I have done no such thing nor did I blame anything on slavery and would not since I am far removed from slavery.

There's only one area that can truly say they behaved in a more civilized manner, and that's the Asians. As Japan proved in WW2 they had the capability to be international conquerors. It was truly Asian culture which prevented them from launching wars and invasions throughout the world. They have had the manpower and the resources all along, but were philosophically isolationist. They made a conscious choice not to adopt firearms for centuries after being the first area of the world to discover gunpowder.

So you think Asians are superior, good for you.

I have to disagree with you there. Prison labor was not a replacement for slavery. The scale of prison labor is negligible compared to slavery. You don't run an economy on prison labor the way it was run on slave labor. And white prisoners labored right alongside the black ones.

You need to read "Slavery by Another Name." It goes into detail on the convict labor system. White prisoners were also worked, but 90% of prison labor was black at a time when only 10% of the country's population was black and this system wasn't abolished until white prisoners started to die. Thousands of black prisoners died, especially children labeled as thieves or vagrants or potential rapists as young as 9 or 10 and sent to work camps.

Certainly the legal system was weighted against blacks to a morally reprehensible degree. Barbaric. But I can't agree it was done so out of a desire for free labor. The numbers of prisoners compared to the numbers of slaves just weren't close enough for prisoners to be anywhere near a replacement for slave labor.

You fail to remember that industrialization took hold of the south after the Civil War so the large amounts bodies needed for farm work in the antebellum period were not needed on such a large scale. Convicts were used in a variety of industries in the places where prison labor camps were set up from agricultural areas to farms to mines to urban areas. Many estimate that hundreds of thousands of black people were used as convict laborers from the end of the Civil War through the 1950s.

The replacement for slave labor was sharecropping, not prison work gangs. And, once again, there were white sharecroppers along with blacks.

I did not say there weren't white sharecroppers. There were and they were primarily the people used as prison laborers as well - poor whites. But since I am black, I answered the OPs question from a black perspective while also highlighting that I think we are all the same, unlike others, and seemingly yourself, who believe that black people are somehow different.

Yes, I agree with this. If you want to keep a segregated society going, then you have to keep inculcating in people a fear and hatred of the other race. Once slavery is over, you run the risk of white people living their lives alongside blacks and realizing hey these black folks are just regular people after all. To prevent that, you need to keep stoking the fires of prejudice. Just like Hitler didn't round up and kill the Jews right away. He spent years in the early 30s doing propaganda campaigns against them to turn the German people against them first before taking drastic action.




But then again you have the Duke lacrosse players where it was assumed by the public they were guilty also. And they were upper class white college students. What you're describing here isn't racial. It's a general tendency in human beings to assume if someone wasn't guilty they never would have been accused. It doesn't really matter who the accused is. The human tendency is to sympathize with and side with victims.

This is done to all people. I personally have a poor view of the media in general due to the frenzies they create and I felt the same way regarding that case.

Yes, and you can replace blacks with conservatives in that paragraph and the exact same thing will apply. Because I support limited government, a balanced budget, and strict adherence to the constitution I am a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, a warmonger, hate poor people, want to deny people medical care, etc.

Most black people view "Republicans" that way but not necessarily conservatives. I am a fiscal conservative, I would probably be a republican in another lifetime as I am frequently joked as being a "black Republican." So you thinking most black people would view you as all those things is a generalization. I will be honest though and say that black people would view you poorly because you think that we aren't "assimilated" into American culture. That is an insult being, like I stated, our ancestors have been American and lived in this country for many generations for many hundreds of years. When I first heard of such nonsense, I was insulted. And also FWIW, most conservative white people I know are great people, not racist, not sexist, not a homophobe (they don't care about who someone has sex with), not a warmonger, don't hate poor people, and don't want to deny people medical care - but many do not agree with Obamacare. Those things are not necessarily tied to a whole group of people. And you may not want to believe it because you might get your ideas of black people via the media, but we really don't paint conservatives in general with a broad stroke, not even Republicans, most will give you a chance - but then you will tell us we aren't assimilated into American society, that we subscribe to an underclass culture, that we should shout from the rooftops that we are horrible people because black people we don't know commit murders, that we are lazy, that we don't work, that we vote democrat because we get "free stuff," or because they give us affirmative action and we would never be able to get a job without it, and that we get educations at mainstream schools only because we took a white or Asian person's slot, or that we got a job over a more qualified white person, or any other stereotypical, ignorant assumption. That is what makes black people not like Republicans.

Not really. When people talk about the black community they are talking about those ghettos. They don't mean all blacks. Just like when people talk about the white community they don't mean the millionaires who live in mansions or the trailer trash, they mean the general white middle class.

Like I said above, you speak of the "black community" in relation to the black underclass. You do not make a distinction. Yet the "white community" means middle class.... Most black people are working or middle class, but it is okay to lump us all together with low-lifes in your opinion and others and you are okay with using them to punish all of us for the underclasses misbehaviors. That is ridiculous.


I think it is mostly bad. Because it leads to a racial divide. It means you continue to divide people by race. It really doesn't matter if you're doing it for positive reasons. Obviously that's a whole lot better than being bigoted about race, but we are not going to reach MLK's dream until race doesn't matter for good or bad.

FYI, MLK's dream was about racial equality (which hasn't occurred due to you thinking that we need assimilation), economic prosperity (and in this way he was more socialist than you would imagine), and fighting poverty. Many people have usurped that speech thinking that it wasn't a recycled speech that he had given hundreds of times like most ministers have a "go-to" speech). It was a catch phrase of sorts given at a perennial time in our country's history. People were afraid of him, thought him a terrorist, had him under surveillance. He was jailed as an "agitator." He was more of a liberal than people believe in todays day and age.

Also, why is it bad to share cultural connections? How is that "mostly bad." That is weird you would think having a communal connection to others is a bad thing.

A quick anecdote, but one of my nurses when I was pregnant with my son 12 years ago was from my hometown. We had a great repoire. We complained about the way people were in the south. We reminisced about our hometown. She even went to my high school, albeit 25 or some odd years before I went there, and so we spoke of high school football or basketball games and our mascots and old school songs. We had a connection. She was the only nurse I would let take my blood since she was really good at getting it on the first prick and I just was more comfortable with her.

She was white and I am black. Do you think it was a bad thing that we had a shared background and could find common ground and friendship via that shared experience? If so, what is wrong with finding friendship via similarities, that is how most people find mates, friends, etc. anyway.

Responses in bold.

[vox populi]

Originally Posted by Rocco Barbosa

I find it odd that mainly blacks and whites like to "pick sides"(usually their own) when it comes to race related issues.

I've had the pleasure of being exposed to lots of different people from different walks of life. I've come to the conclusion, there is not a lot of different between blacks and whites, at the core of the person. Life experiences are different but that's the same for 2 white people, just because they are white doesn't mean they experience the same kind of life same goes for blacks.

I think whites are in denial about the privileges that they have as much as blacks are in denial about many of the issues that take place in the "black community".

Funny thing is, neither group wants to hear the truth from the other. BUT either group will point fingers at the other. I've heard whites talking about blacks and I've heard blacks talking about whites but I never hear each group be honest an taking about themselves.

Blacks and whites always, it seems, take the side of their own race.

Why is that?

In real life most don't.

In the virtual battles it is a horde mentality - same can be told libs vs cons, dems vs reps, men vs women and so on.

We all live with some stereotypes and they show.

[Oldglory]

Of course one is going to relate more with someone who shares the same culture, language, etc. as they do. However, when one takes sides with them when they violate our laws that is where I draw the line. That is a tribal mentality run amok.

[residinghere2007]

Originally Posted by branh0913

As a black man, I side with no race. And I definitely don't side with the black race. I've long gotten over the idea of being called a "sell out" or "uncle Tom". black people are their own worst enemies. Any barrier I've come upon trying to work my way up out of the ghetto into the corporate world has always been a black person. This goes back to the days living in the projects being intimidated and harassed by local gang members on the block. Black people constantly tell other black people trying to get ahead that "it's pointless" or "the white man white man will never accept you". The reality, the black people hold themselves back. It wasn't until I started having non black associates when I started hearing more encouragement. When I was around nothing but black people, all I heard about how many different ways I'd fail. The reality is when you're a black man trying to succeed in a sea of black people, you're going to get nothing but negativity.

The reality is black people are so conditioned to hate the white man, that we turn a blind eye to the people who really are the ones killing us. For every white cop who guns down some black teenager, I can guarantee there about 4 more black teens being gunned down by someone who is black. And yet white people are the enemy? No, black people are the enemy. There should be even more outrage for a black gangster and drug dealer who gun down other black kids as there is for some white cop who does the same. God knows blacks are killing each other in far greater numbers. But where is the public outcry in the black community? No, we just go ahead and accept it, because apparently blacks killing blacks is perfectly acceptable.

Blacks hold each other down. So no, I don't stand behind a race of people who are bitter, negative, jealous, and won't praise you unless you're limited and self destructive. Not all black people have been mean to me, and not all white people have been discouraging. But I've known a lot of different people from different races, and I can say in my path to success blacks have hands down been the biggest road block. I call it like I see it.

Black people know tat we do this to each other. But when someone comes out and public and say it, they say "we're airing out dirty laundry". Blacks in America need to be exposed for the hypocrites they are. Imagine if blacks encouraged people more, then we wouldn't have the problems we are today. But blacks don't encourage each other, we just put each other down. Right now, upon moving to the Bay Area, I have to stay with my cousin temporarily, who has the same mentality. I can't wait until I move up out of her house, and move to the South Bay, where people are presumably more positive.

Just had to say I find it hilarious that you say that black people don't uplift or encourage you, yet you are staying with a relative lol!!

But I do agree with a lot of what you said, but I find those things more true with the black underclass versus middle or upper income black people. Though I grew up poor, the majority of my family were and are middle class or above. I received lots of uplift and encouragement from them, especially extended family as my parents were the black sheep's of sorts in both of their families who were two prominent black families (by reputation not by wealth) in our city. We had a good name and people who knew of my family helped me and my friends/other family members quite substantially and really encouraged us to be entrepreneur minded especially and stressed the importance of a good education.

So I think it depends on what sort of family or neighborhood you grew up in. You stated you grew up in the projects, so of course you would be around more negative people. Though we were poor, my mom made sure we didn't grow up in the projects. We lived in a poor, heavily integrated neighborhood around all sorts of poor and working class people, many of whom, including my mom were middle class by the time I got to high school.

The only people I know who have what I call a "woe is me" attitude are people who like to "blame whitey" and I admit, now that I am in Atlanta and it is a transient area, that there are a bunch of those sorts of people from all over the country here. Also, many black people have just as bad a view of whites as whites have of them, and I mean vehemently, awfully bad. Luckily, I grew up with everyone, so I never buy into to all that and I do challenge people on the "white man keeps us down" crap.

And if you are a male, you may be offended, but I will go out on a limb and state that most of the black people who subscribe to these ideas are black men and mostly from certain areas that I won't mention, but they include the west coast. Black women have more of a "can do" attitude, which is reflected in our surpassing black men educationally and even the poorer ones striving to do something better, but many of the underclass women make a lot of excuses too and they use their kids as excuses and many aren't very good mothers or choosers of potential mates. But this is not exclusive to black underclass Americans. Underclass whites are full of it too and aren't encouraging and blame the government for all their problems or various conspiracy theories. So these things aren't unique to black people.

[vox populi]

Originally Posted by residinghere2007

Just had to say I find it hilarious that you say that black people don't uplift or encourage you, yet you are staying with a relative lol!!

But I do agree with a lot of what you said, but I find those things more true with the black underclass versus middle or upper income black people. Though I grew up poor, the majority of my family were and are middle class or above. I received lots of uplift and encouragement from them, especially extended family as my parents were the black sheep's of sorts in both of their families who were two prominent black families (by reputation not by wealth) in our city. We had a good name and people who knew of my family helped me and my friends/other family members quite substantially and really encouraged us to be entrepreneur minded especially and stressed the importance of a good education.

So I think it depends on what sort of family or neighborhood you grew up in. You stated you grew up in the projects, so of course you would be around more negative people. Though we were poor, my mom made sure we didn't grow up in the projects. We lived in a poor, heavily integrated neighborhood around all sorts of poor and working class people, many of whom, including my mom were middle class by the time I got to high school.

The only people I know who have what I call a "woe is me" attitude are people who like to "blame whitey" and I admit, now that I am in Atlanta and it is a transient area, that there are a bunch of those sorts of people from all over the country here. Also, many black people have just as bad a view of whites as whites have of them, and I mean vehemently, awfully bad. Luckily, I grew up with everyone, so I never buy into to all that and I do challenge people on the "white man keeps us down" crap.

And if you are a male, you may be offended, but I will go out on a limb and state that most of the black people who subscribe to these ideas are black men and mostly from certain areas that I won't mention, but they include the west coast. Black women have more of a "can do" attitude, which is reflected in our surpassing black men educationally and even the poorer ones striving to do something better, but many of the underclass women make a lot of excuses too and they use their kids as excuses and many aren't very good mothers or choosers of potential mates. But this is not exclusive to black underclass Americans. Underclass whites are full of it too and aren't encouraging and blame the government for all their problems or various conspiracy theories. So these things aren't unique to black people.

Yes, that it is absolutely true. ANY underclass of people, living in a separate quarters will establish this type of mentality of holding back their own who want to jump off the poverty, and, ultimately, that sequestered group. And it is also usually males who are discouraging.
Race doesn't matter.
It is just human feature

[fortwashingtonkid]

Originally Posted by residinghere2007

You made my opinions correct by your post so thank you.

To the OP, this is what I was speaking of. In regards to criminalization in particular, forwashingtonkid, you should read up on the history of "convict labor" and see how the image of black criminality was born in our country. Also you can read the numerous studies that show that black people are discriminated against in our criminal justice system.

And BTW, I was not trying to argue. I was stating what I felt in regards to the OP's question, which I felt was not inflammatory.

And what is wrong about me saying that black people move out of inner cities more often?? You can do a quick google search on "black flight" to find evidence of this.

I used to live in the burbs for a long time here in the Atlanta area, but I do live in a ghetto, inner city neighborhood now so I do know what I'm talking about. I moved because this neighborhood is closer to my place of employment (and my husband's) as traffic in Atlanta is horrible and I was sick of sitting in it everyday. I also, am not afraid of black people so I have no qualms about living around them. In regards to the above, on black flight, I will also mention that black people, like myself who make a middle income salary (above $75K) are more likely to live in a poorer black neighborhood and I truly feel it is because many of those black people are like my husband and I, in that we grew up poor and know that all poor black people aren't horrible people (hence us and our college educations and middle income status coming from said neighborhoods) and we aren't afraid of them. Nor do we lump them all into criminals like you do.

You would probably be afraid to drive through my neighborhood, but I have never had a problem with criminals around here and I have lived here for over 6 years. Never even had a break-in or anything.

And if you (quoted poster above) don't believe what I said about some white people - that they believe we are all criminals (which you do believe based on your comments), that we are dumb, or that we need to assimilate into American culture, then by all means, you can continue to do so. IMO, you (people who believe these things) would be the dumb one because you like to generalize people. I also do believe that white people know what white privilege is and that many of them acknowledge that it is true in our country. Like whites know some black people - I know a lot of white people and the majority of the white people I know, are knowledgeable about white privilege and agree with at least some points of it, especially in regards to the fact that they don't get pulled over as much as black people (I admit I primarily only associate with educated people, so my friends and their experiences/knowledge are skewed to the academic side, and FWIW, most of them are not liberal). Their accomplishments aren't relegated to being attained only due to affirmative action in the workplace and at college. And just so you know, I went to an HBCU (no affirmative action for me, a white person at my school would get preferential treatment though) and I work in a majority black company (no affirmative action for me, white people do get preferential treatment, we go out of our way to hire whites and Hispanics as we don't have enough of them at my company).

ETA: For the poster I quoted above who thinks all black people are criminal or earned the criminality title - please know that 1 million black people are in prison in our country. There are 40 million black people in our country. So the 1 million is not even 2% of our population so to think were are hyper criminal - all of us, is ridiculous. Also, many of the black people arrested in our country annually are not convicted of any crime. I have been arrested before and charged, with what I felt, was a horrible crime, but it was dismissed, I sued the police department for charging me with said crime (which I encourage more black people to do) and the charges were expunged. My husband has been charged with about 10 crimes and all were dismissed, he is questioned regularly by police when DWB (driving while black), RBWB (riding bicycle while black - happened 4 times in the past couple years !! and my husband is 40 years old!), WWB (walking while black) most recently happened last week to my husband - he was questioned, while walking to work (pays to live in our neighborhood we save a lot with the biking and walking to work) about if he broke into any cars in a parking lot he was cutting through - he has been questioned three times walking to work within the past year about crimes, and he is dressed for work and has gray hair in his beard so he doesn't look like a "thug." Those that are arrested and convicted, usually are repeat offenders, so you get the same people committing crimes quite often. Regardless though, it is ridiculous to think that all black people are criminals.

arrested 10 times and innocent each time? OK.

Yeah OK 1 out of 40 black people are in prison. Those aren't numbers to be proud of. There are so many more numbers concerning criminality and blacks that are eye popping. But I'm not here to bash black people. I think your long diatribe is just rambling. You are afraid of the truth. Maybe I should just accept the crypts and bloods as my homies. Maybe I should just ignore all the stats like the liberals do. Maybe I should feel sorry for you and look the other way when black people commit so many violent crimes at such a higher rate than everybody else. Maybe the black kid who texted that he hated white people and then killed one by shooting him in the back was right in doing so. It's our fault right? Yeah I know. IMO, there are no more excuses. They were used up long ago. They weren't correct then and they aren't correct now either.

[green_mariner]

Originally Posted by fortwashingtonkid

Well I for one resent this. I am white and I was never privileged. More whites are not privileged than are. Stupid liberal crap like affirmative action and blind political correctness were designed to neutralize these imaginary privileges but it just created more problems. When black people can get their incarceration rate down about 75% and the men can start fathering their children and they get off their BS section 8 vouchers, then we can start to look at that race seriously as a positive contribution to society. Until then they are just a massive drain. One big fat drain.

And one wonders why race relations won't get any better. You judge all Blacks based on the stupidity of the the worst of the Black population. I'm Black. Does that mean you are going to look at me negatively? Last time I checked, I'm college-educated, I have never been arrested(I have a clean record), no kids out of wedlock(no kids period), not causing problems anywhere.