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The bold may be true, however his statements towards to end of his life were quite contrary. He told us to proceed with caution.
I agree, he seemed to change his tune a bit, which is why I noted earlier, I think he would be similar to those of his era in regards to his political leanings today. I think he was starting to realize that nothing was going to change the perceptions that mainstream society has of black Americans and that we needed to re-focus on ourselves and our communities socially, politically, and economically.
I disagree with many liberals who believe he would have been a socialist as I don't think that he would have been.
I also do feel he had a lot of radical ideas, especially for a southern black person and I admire him in regards to his use of non-violence as a means of social progress. I think his leadership and especially his assassination directly caused the passage of the CRA and recognition of the rights of black people in this nation from a government level. However, those policy victories didn't impact the attitudes and perceptions that whites have of black people, nor the perceptions black people have of ourselves. And IMO that southern attitude of basing your success on living around white people and going to school with white people and being accepted by white people, is centering whites in your life as a black person and is an unhealthy fascination with acceptance and racial hierarchy. King was a brilliant man IMO and he was very young when he was killed. I have no doubt that he would have recognized what I'm typing about as others have of his generation.
ETA: I think he would have recognized it based on what Ralph shared as well. In that King grew up in a pretty sheltered community of black folks who supported him and uplifted him and encouraged him to do the best - our traditional community. Our community is our strength and many older black people I know who grew up in the south, and supported integration, didn't realize until they were older that the main thing we lost with desegregation was our communal bonds. Our friends/neighbors/family were our children's teachers back then, you could trust them to look out for and encourage the children. This was not the case in integrated schools all the time. I interviewed a lot of my professors when I really got into black history during my undergrad years. I also am an HBCU alum. Most of my professors were also HBCU alumni. I remember the director of my department in the late 1990s, she spoke of how she grew up in Nashville, TN under segregation. She was always encouraged to be a scholar/intellectual. She always attended church and Sunday school and developed bonds within their community. She attended Fisk University under scholarship so was embraced in the HBCU community. She attended Univ of Chicago for her PhD, which is when she first experienced a life as a "northern negro" and she said it was drastically different than what she had experienced in Nashville. There was no segregation signs and her movements were not as controlled, but that threat was still there and the atmosphere was just different. She spent a majority of her academic career at HBCUs and she said that the training and encouragement that black students received in the segregated schools made them better students in the past. They knew their teachers and administrators cared for them and knew their parents/grandparents and they would behave and rise to the expectations of their authority figures. She said this was lost with integration when black children were put into majority white schools and verbally and physically abused by students, teachers, and administrators. As a young woman she remembered being "for" integration and said that recollecting on her own life and community as a young person that she realized that what she grew up with was better than the integrated schools that black children then attended in the 1990s. Not always in the types of books or the buildings/materials of course, but just the fact that the teachers saw the children as children and not stereotypes.
Last edited by residinghere2007; 01-23-2020 at 01:53 PM..
In that King grew up in a pretty sheltered community of black folks who supported him and uplifted him and encouraged him to do the best - our traditional community. Our community is our strength and many older black people I know who grew up in the south, and supported integration, didn't realize until they were older that the main thing we lost with desegregation was our communal bonds. Our friends/neighbors/family were our children's teachers back then, you could trust them to look out for and encourage the children. This was not the case in integrated schools all the time. I interviewed a lot of my professors when I really got into black history during my undergrad years. I also am an HBCU alum. Most of my professors were also HBCU alumni. I remember the director of my department in the late 1990s, she spoke of how she grew up in Nashville, TN under segregation. She was always encouraged to be a scholar/intellectual. She always attended church and Sunday school and developed bonds within their community. She attended Fisk University under scholarship so was embraced in the HBCU community. She attended Univ of Chicago for her PhD, which is when she first experienced a life as a "northern negro" and she said it was drastically different than what she had experienced in Nashville. There was no segregation signs and her movements were not as controlled, but that threat was still there and the atmosphere was just different. She spent a majority of her academic career at HBCUs and she said that the training and encouragement that black students received in the segregated schools made them better students in the past. They knew their teachers and administrators cared for them and knew their parents/grandparents and they would behave and rise to the expectations of their authority figures. She said this was lost with integration when black children were put into majority white schools and verbally and physically abused by students, teachers, and administrators. As a young woman she remembered being "for" integration and said that recollecting on her own life and community as a young person that she realized that what she grew up with was better than the integrated schools that black children then attended in the 1990s. Not always in the types of books or the buildings/materials of course, but just the fact that the teachers saw the children as children and not stereotypes.
We moved temporarily during the second half of my fifth grade to a Chicago suburb. It was my first experience in an integrated school, and thinking back, it must not have been long integrated.
I'd already been wearing glasses for a couple of years (myopia), and as was my habit from Carver Elementary, I took a seat at the front of the class so that I could see better. The teacher promptly moved me to the rear of the room into the corner farthest from her, beside a little girl who was the only other black student in the class.
And that was the last time she spoke to me. She ignored my raised hand, she would not talk to me if I went to her desk.
I was so bored, I crosshatched my thumbnail with a straight pin and charted its growth.
Fortunately, my desk was right in front of the classroom bookcase, and it got me hooked on science fiction. Between Asimov and Heinlein, I begged my mother for a slide rule and learned how to use it.
Fortunately, we were only there for that one semester. I can't recall ever speaking to any of the white children, or playing with them, or having any interaction with them.
I did learn, however, about clothing labels and that there was some importance to wearing Lacoste polo shirts (they had the little embroidered alligator). I do recall that from the white kids.
ETA: I did go and see "Harriet" and it was GREAT movie. It made me look at Cynthia in a different way a bit, but as noted, I do still feel she probably views African Americans from a stereotypical perspective based on her social media and interviews I've seen/read. I supported the movie because I love Harriet Tubman. I was VERY disappointed that it seemed black men had an issue with it. My husband didn't go see it because he saw online that it had a "white savior" in regards to the white slave owner who was trying to kill her in the movie shooting the black bounty hunter (played by "Hollywood" from Queen Sugar, which was cool). I told him that that was the dumbest internet thing I saw in teh 2nd half of 2019. He also didn't like that there was a black bounty hunter because he felt it was a way for a black woman (mind you the script was written partially by a black man as well) to denigrate black men. I study a lot of black history, interestingly pretty specifically in Pennsylvania and I know for a fact that black people did indeed help white folks catch slaves so it was not anything overtly negative to me in regards to portraying black men in a negative way. The movie also featured prominently William Still - who is one of my favorite black men in history as he was a true African American hero. So the idea that there were few or no positive representations of African American men in the film was sad to me as a lot of black men I know - especially the NOI folks who seem to have a disdain for black women in a leadership role - and Harriet really was a woman of her own action/making in a way - didn't support the film because of the "white savior" stuff they read/saw online which had nothing to do with the movie. People are very apt to follow trends.
I can't call "Harriet" a great movie for several technical and artistic reasons. It's at the level of a television production, IMO. It's worth seeing for its historical note, but pretty much by-the-numbers in just presenting a message. Technically, it's competent, not outstanding. The acting is competent, not outstanding.
And I am greatly offended by the character "Bigger Long" (a name straight out of a porno movie). While some people will say "there must have been black slave catchers," truth is that there is not a single historical record of professional black slave catcher, particularly not within the slave states themselves where no black man could move freely. Nor do Harriet's memoirs include any mention whatsoever of black slave catchers.
So we have to ask: Why did the writers sit down and create this totally fictional character that absolutely nothing in any historical record even eludes to have existed? What was their purpose?
And what was the purpose of giving him a porno name and making him the most despicable character in the movie?
No, the slave owner is not the most despicable antagonist. He is given reasonable rationale--he merely wants to save his plantation. He has a gentlman's manner. He's even shown to have soft feelings for Harriet (albeit, about the same feelings he would have for a prized mare).
And the slavery shown on his plantation could only be called "slavery lite." We don't see any significant brutality practiced on the slaves by whites.
Oh, no...for the worst on-camera brutality in the entire movie, they give us the ugly black Bigger Long, who kicks to death the lovely, brave, sympathetic Marie Buchanon. And he promised worse for Harried. They give Bigger Long zero rationale for his actions; he is shown as the most stereotypical of one-sided, mustache-twirling villains. They make him ugly, uncouth, evil, and slobbering for white women.
What was the purpose of that? It didn't just happen that way, the writers invented that character and his actions out of thin air and wrote it that way.
Why could the slave catcher not have been white? They could have made the slave catcher white and still given him the young man Walter as his slave. Walter could have then acted exactly as he did, refusing to track down Harriet and eventually joining the Union Army.
The writers deliberately chose to depict a black man as the most horrible character in the movie.
Nor do any of the other black men in the movie balance out Bigger Long. Yes, characters such as William Still exist in the movie, but they are portrayed as feckless and even obstructive to Harriet's goals. Harriet even points directly at Frederick Douglass when she accuses them of doing nothing to rescue slaves.
I recognize that this is Harriet Tubman's movie, but that is no justification for Bigger Long, nor is it justification to portray the other black men as barely effective, if not completely feckless, to make Harriet look more heroic.
I was speaking specifically of "Harriet." Oftentimes a lot of men I know have issues with all movies that black women direct/create because they feel that black women are out to get them like the white man lol.
I know for a fact that in the movie "When They See Us" that Ava Duvernay made one of the young men's father's look "better" than he actually was because I remember interviews of that young man and the documentary that came out before. The one whose dad was basically the reason why he confessed - his dad told him to say what they wanted. He was not threatened like he was in the movie and I didn't like that they did that. I told my husband this and he basically excused it by saying that it was okay since black men are villainized enough in media. But IMO that was not a good thing for Duvernay to do as kind of changed the story.
I don't remember a white savior in "If Beale Street Could Talk" either. I read that book years ago, it is my 2nd favorite book by James Baldwin and I just watched the move in the past 6 months on Hulu. It was a great movie and actually stuck with the story line of the book more than I thought it would. It is such a....I can only say literary book, meaning it is a lot of thoughts/memories that encompass the plot/story and so I was concerned that they would not do a good job with turning it into a movie as it is difficult. But they did a great job. If I'd not read what I did in regards to "Harriet" about there being a so-called white savior, I honestly would never have even noticed that. I didn't read anything about "If Beale Street Could Talk" because I knew I would wait a while to watch it and cannot even think of who/what they felt was a white savior lol. Who was it - the lawyer? . Most of the people I know said that If Beale Street Could Talk was "boring." But those are the types of people who primarily like Marvel movies and aren't into literature. I really enjoyed that movie. It was different from the book but really did bring the feel of the book to life. But I can see people complaining about it because James Baldwin was gay and many black men and women like to complain about black women and black gay men ruining black people, which is odd to me, but so be it. FWIW my favorite book by Baldwin is "Another Country" and lots of people don't like that book because it features gay sex. But man, it is a great story IMO. I had to warn my husband about another of Baldwin's books "Giovanni's Room." That is probably IMO his gayest book lol. And my husband doesn't like to read about homosexuality too much so I warned him he might want to try a different text (he had never read any of Baldwin's fiction). But he finished it and enjoyed the prose but did thank me for warning him lol.
On the bold..that was Antron’s father. I remember that scene. Why exactly DID his father advise him to lie if he was not threatened?
I thought about something today. I understand there are many issues that affect Black Americans. At the same time, as a Black person, I understand it in perspective. I've never really given much credence to Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson (past the 1980s). As usual, Black people are obsessed about more than anyone else on this forum, especially when it comes to politics. I realized something. I've had to wonder if growing up the way I did (growing up Black in a 90% White area) had something to do with it. I've been around Black people and I understand the kinds of things that would affect me as a Black person. At the same time, I don't think my understanding is the same as a Black person who grew up in a Black community. I had to think about that after coming from another thread.
I thought about something today. I understand there are many issues that affect Black Americans. At the same time, as a Black person, I understand it in perspective. I've never really given much credence to Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson (past the 1980s). As usual, Black people are obsessed about more than anyone else on this forum, especially when it comes to politics. I realized something. I've had to wonder if growing up the way I did (growing up Black in a 90% White area) had something to do with it. I've been around Black people and I understand the kinds of things that would affect me as a Black person. At the same time, I don't think my understanding is the same as a Black person who grew up in a Black community. I had to think about that after coming from another thread.
As I've mentioned before, I had a "well-ordered" childhood as the military child growing up mostly in the black areas of Southern small towns adjacent military facilities. And then I spent my own career in the military, with half of that out of the US.
The common modern concept of "black community" is the black urban community...so, I am rather detached from that myself as a childhood experience. But I do pay attention.
I agree, he seemed to change his tune a bit, which is why I noted earlier, I think he would be similar to those of his era in regards to his political leanings today. I think he was starting to realize that nothing was going to change the perceptions that mainstream society has of black Americans and that we needed to re-focus on ourselves and our communities socially, politically, and economically.
Towards the end of his life, Dr. King started to speak more about how reparations would be necessary. Alot of people will not talk about this stage of his life. Many don't want to. Dr. King was able to get alot of laws changed. At the same time, he realized that many things don't change.
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I disagree with many liberals who believe he would have been a socialist as I don't think that he would have been.
This is how I see it. He started to speak more on reparations, and how in some cases, it would take money to solve alot of problems Black Americans were dealing with.
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I also do feel he had a lot of radical ideas, especially for a southern black person and I admire him in regards to his use of non-violence as a means of social progress. I think his leadership and especially his assassination directly caused the passage of the CRA and recognition of the rights of black people in this nation from a government level. However, those policy victories didn't impact the attitudes and perceptions that whites have of black people, nor the perceptions black people have of ourselves. And IMO that southern attitude of basing your success on living around white people and going to school with white people and being accepted by white people, is centering whites in your life as a black person and is an unhealthy fascination with acceptance and racial hierarchy. King was a brilliant man IMO and he was very young when he was killed. I have no doubt that he would have recognized what I'm typing about as others have of his generation.
The Civil Rights Act was passed before his assassination. No doubt his leadership did help in bringing the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Using non-violence as a means for social progress, it worked. It was certainly more effective than many would have thought. On the other hand, I think about this. His strategy was about exposing the South and its ugly ways. On the other hand, during his time, many Americans didn't like him and felt he was "too radical" and "too violent" in spite of his non-violent disobedience. If you challenged White supremacy, you were deemed as "violent". I think this might have played a role in Dr. King's strategic way of dealing with the situation. He might have felt that violence would turn alot of people against the cause.
In many ways, that attitude of "your success depends on White people and your proximity to them" it isn't just a southern thing. I think in the South, it takes on a different meaning. In the South, there is more of a plantation culture, and in a big way, that plantation hierarchy permeated long after the Civil War ended. I think Dr. King wanted to break the hierarchy that had existed in the South. In the North, even with the more militant mentality, there were still those who felt like being accepted by Whites was a sign of success. In the North, there wasn't the plantation hierarchy. It was about breaking the tribalism, especially in the ethnic neighborhoods. In my father's hometown, a Catholic priest, Fr. James E. Groppi, led a march to integrate neighborhoods in Milwaukee. Some of the worst violent backlash Fr. Groppi received came out of Pulaski Park, which at the time was a Polish neighborhood.
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ETA: I think he would have recognized it based on what Ralph shared as well. In that King grew up in a pretty sheltered community of black folks who supported him and uplifted him and encouraged him to do the best - our traditional community. Our community is our strength and many older black people I know who grew up in the south, and supported integration, didn't realize until they were older that the main thing we lost with desegregation was our communal bonds. Our friends/neighbors/family were our children's teachers back then, you could trust them to look out for and encourage the children. This was not the case in integrated schools all the time. I interviewed a lot of my professors when I really got into black history during my undergrad years. I also am an HBCU alum. Most of my professors were also HBCU alumni. I remember the director of my department in the late 1990s, she spoke of how she grew up in Nashville, TN under segregation. She was always encouraged to be a scholar/intellectual. She always attended church and Sunday school and developed bonds within their community. She attended Fisk University under scholarship so was embraced in the HBCU community. She attended Univ of Chicago for her PhD, which is when she first experienced a life as a "northern negro" and she said it was drastically different than what she had experienced in Nashville. There was no segregation signs and her movements were not as controlled, but that threat was still there and the atmosphere was just different. She spent a majority of her academic career at HBCUs and she said that the training and encouragement that black students received in the segregated schools made them better students in the past. They knew their teachers and administrators cared for them and knew their parents/grandparents and they would behave and rise to the expectations of their authority figures. She said this was lost with integration when black children were put into majority white schools and verbally and physically abused by students, teachers, and administrators. As a young woman she remembered being "for" integration and said that recollecting on her own life and community as a young person that she realized that what she grew up with was better than the integrated schools that black children then attended in the 1990s. Not always in the types of books or the buildings/materials of course, but just the fact that the teachers saw the children as children and not stereotypes.
Growing up sheltered can instill some confindence in you, a sense of being. He had the strength of the community. It also helped that his father was a minister. That likely helped him alot. Having that strong church community and his father being a leader in it, it kept Dr. King Jr in line. At the same time, Dr. King realized that the way Blacks were being treated, the way they were being dehumanized in the South, it could not be anymore. If someone calls me a "n word" out in the street, I go back to my neighborhood, my family, where I'm loved and supported. However, when I have to look at signs everyday like "No Blacks Allowed", "White Waiting Room", and when laws dictate what I can and can't do as a Black person, that cannot be. It doesn't matter if we're liked by the larger society or not. Some things just cannot stand. HBCUs were quite helpful in churning out scholars and scientists. At the same time, this is where I stand. As an American, you should be able to go wherever you want, when you want to do so, however you want to. Jim Crow, and the way America was operating, it was a quasi-dictatorship for Black Americans. One thing a strong Black community could do is fight back.
I think about the scholar who went to Fisk, and then I think about how my parents grew up vs how I grew up. My father came up in Black schools in a Black neighborhood. To be honest, his school wasn't treated as well as other schools in his city. I think this is where the idea of "we need to be in white schools" can come from. It isn't out of seeing Blacks as inferior. It comes from seeing White schools getting better treatment and funding than Black schools. My father moved the family out to an area where he could get a house for a reasonable price. At the time (the late 1990s), he thought that perhaps White schools would be a better option. The schools were actually worse than where I had just moved from. The quality wasn't as good as my parents thought it was be. I remember getting bullied alot during middle school. I got a reputation for being "lame", "nerdy", and that kid who was "smart". Some kids I was a hit with (for some reason females were more likely to show me love). Other kids were just bullies. My siblings didn't have it as bad as I did. We moved when I was in the 6th grade. My siblings were much younger (5 and 6 years old). I remember someone of my teachers expecting alot from me. I rarely had issues with teachers who thought "he can't learn" or "don't expect much from him". It happened, but it was rare. Most of my battles were with other students. On occasion it would be a teacher or an administrator that didn't have any respect for me. It was ironic. There are teachers that other students would say "she's mean" or "I hated her", and that teacher would end up being nicer to me than what I was being told about.
My father might have had better schools (when it came to the teachers he had) than I did. On the other hand, his old high school isn't what it used to be. I think of integration and segregation like this. Segregation was never meant to be "separate but equal". It was all about keeping people subjugated. If it was so natural, it would have not been backed up by laws or by violence.
As I've mentioned before, I had a "well-ordered" childhood as the military child growing up mostly in the black areas of Southern small towns adjacent military facilities. And then I spent my own career in the military, with half of that out of the US.
The common modern concept of "black community" is the black urban community...so, I am rather detached from that myself as a childhood experience. But I do pay attention.
You've mentioned your childhood to me. It certainly kept you together. I lived in several different places through my childhood. I had a together childhood. I just didn't grow up in the same environment that you did.
Whenever I hear someone say "Black community", I wonder what said persons are talking about, particularly if said person is just trying to complain about Black people. Langston,Oklahoma is a Black community. It isn't an urban area, but it's a Black community. Langston University is there. When alot of people say "black community", I assume they aren't talking about places like Langston,OK or Mound Bayou,MS. They are talking about the Black inner city neighborhoods in places like Chicago or Philadelphia. Now, those are places I've never lived in. I know what my father tells me of such places because of where he grew up. I know what I know based on reading and from an academic perspective. On the other hand, I grew up a suburban/rural areas. I don't know Black urban environments the way people who grew up there do. I know about it through family, and through reading about such places like college. One reason when there are threads consists of "why do black people,etc, etc", it gets old fast, feeling like you have to answer for some things.
Whenever I hear someone say "Black community", I wonder what said persons are talking about, particularly if said person is just trying to complain about Black people. Langston,Oklahoma is a Black community. It isn't an urban area, but it's a Black community. Langston University is there. When alot of people say "black community", I assume they aren't talking about places like Langston,OK or Mound Bayou,MS. They are talking about the Black inner city neighborhoods in places like Chicago or Philadelphia. Now, those are places I've never lived in. I know what my father tells me of such places because of where he grew up. I know what I know based on reading and from an academic perspective. On the other hand, I grew up a suburban/rural areas. I don't know Black urban environments the way people who grew up there do. I know about it through family, and through reading about such places like college. One reason when there are threads consists of "why do black people,etc, etc", it gets old fast, feeling like you have to answer for some things.
Oh, for sure. Living around military installations in Oklahoma for a good part of my childhood, most of my college-educated elders were alumni of Langston.
For sure, when people--both black and white--speak of the "black community," they are not thinking about any of the black people they work with in most middle-class workplaces. We gave away control of our image, and the media shifted that image from the MLK/Hidden Figures-type community to the Black Panthers- type community. I'll give them the grace to say they were merely too lazy to look beyond the black neighborhood closest to the television studios in LA and NYC.
Oh, for sure. Living around military installations in Oklahoma for a good part of my childhood, most of my college-educated elders were alumni of Langston.
For sure, when people--both black and white--speak of the "black community," they are not thinking about any of the black people they work with in most middle-class workplaces. We gave away control of our image, and the media shifted that image from the MLK/Hidden Figures-type community to the Black Panthers- type community. I'll give them the grace to say they were merely too lazy to look beyond the black neighborhood closest to the television studios in LA and NYC.
Oklahoma has alot of issues. It has one of the highest Black homicide rates in the USA. On the other hand, there is a rich history of what Blacks have been able to do, in spite of what they had to deal with. Black people founded some towns in Oklahoma. Langston is one of them. This is a part of Black history that I was basically cheated out of knowing.I had to learn about it on my own.
I knew about the Exodusters, the Black pioneers who moved to Kansas. I knew about the Tulsa race riot, something I found out about on Nickelodeon. Ironic that my history teacher never taught that, but I could watch TV, a kid's TV channel at that. It was on Nick News with Linda Ellerbee. However, I never knew about the Black-founded towns in Oklahoma. Brooksville, Clearview, Boley, Langston, Vernon, Summitt, etc. I had to read National Geographic to learn about Nicodemus, Kansas. Odd considering the Exodusters were mentioned in my U.S. History textbook in high school. I don't recall my teacher ever mentioning them.
Oklahoma has the negative aspects, notably the ghettos in North Tulsa. On the other hand, Langston is among the positive aspects.
Black middle class people are not hard to find. Growing up as part of a Black middle class family, there were certain things I grew up with. It was expected of me to go to college, and I expected it of myself. Being the kind of kid that read books and magazines, I expected alot of myself. The fact that the image of the Black man is that of the ghetto, that of the worst possible circumstances, that is horribly ironic. But then again, I think of things like that. Black people seldom had control of their own images. Jim Crow wasn't just a bigoted legal system in the South. It was a minstrel show. Other stuff like Song Of The South, Birth Of A Nation, Amos n Andy, basically very racist portrayals of Black people from minstrels to the Black brute stereotype. Black people have rarely been in much control of their own image.
I can't really give much grace. Finding people who are among the Black middle class, unless you live in an area with hardly any Blacks, is not all that difficult. I don't think it's so much laziness. I think some people just aren't very intelligent. Some people only point out the bad because it suits their purposes.
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. Most of the people I know said that If Beale Street Could Talk was "boring." But those are the types of people who primarily like Marvel movies and aren't into literature. I really enjoyed that movie. It was different from the book but really did bring the feel of the book to life. But I can see people complaining about it because James Baldwin was gay and many black men and women like to complain about black women and black gay men ruining black people, which is odd to me, but so be it. FWIW my favorite book by Baldwin is "Another Country" and lots of people don't like that book because it features gay sex. But man, it is a great story IMO. I had to warn my husband about another of Baldwin's books "Giovanni's Room." That is probably IMO his gayest book lol. And my husband doesn't like to read about homosexuality too much so I warned him he might want to try a different text (he had never read any of Baldwin's fiction). But he finished it and enjoyed the prose but did thank me for warning him lol.