More than an apology

jonstock wrote:
kaostheory wrote:

The most influential of those, by a HUGE margin, has been Class. Having money means that I got all sorts of advantages (like regular meals) that people all over the world don't have.

But, of course, race and class are closely correlated with each other. And even if you personally are mostly concerned with class, race issues are a huge part of what keeps the US from making much headway on class issues. It's very easy to divide and conquer the working class when you can pit white against brown against black.

Man, now I'm sounding like a Marxist. ;)

I completely agree that they're correlated, but race issues in the US just isn't that big of a deal when looking at the injustice that goes on in this world. I'm not saying it's not a problem, or that we should ignore it.

It's absolutely ridiculous that race should have the impact that it does, but I have a limited capacity for actively caring about injustice (there's just too much to actively care about it all), so I'm not going to spend my cycles on something where the negative is so mild when compared with other injustices.

Also, you should be sounding like a Marxist, because Marx was spot on... in his assessment of the problem. Now we just need to find a working solution.

Edit: I think any real solution to the class problem would also solve the gender, race and ethnicity problems as well. Unfortunately, I'd have to be living in a fantasy world to believe we'll ever actually solve all those problems.

The only issue I have is the statement that my mother was treated better as a white person than a black person in her trials with cancer. He has no idea what the situation was, has no idea what she went through yet its ok for him to lump her into some group of privileged people. That right there is a discriminatory remark as he was "making distinctions".

So, what is the conclusion to all this? Should I grovel to only those people who honestly believe I have had it better than them? Because, with all of these links to articles and arguments going back and forth, none of it matters because I know I am not racist. I try my best to be non-judgmental and I live my life to the best of my ability by working hard and not trouncing all over another in order to succeed.

PAR

LobsterMobster wrote:

...The only way we can make up for slavery is if we make amends with each and every person affected negatively by it, one by one, until everyone is completely satisfied.

That said, the very act of trying has meaning. If we do something, anything, then even if it does nothing to undo the damage, the fact that we took action at all has to mean something.

In some ways, its permanency might be good for us. We can't just fix it. We can't sweep it under the rug. America once kept slaves. That's a mistake we need to own and learn from. African Americans have the right to be angry and Caucasians such as myself don't have the right to demand forgiveness, with the comfort it provides. At the very least, we deserve our guilt. We need it to remind us that this is not a post-racial society and we need to keep working toward the ideal of equality.

Because we screwed up. Oh how we screwed up...

Personally as a partial descendant of slaves and a person that is viewed and treated by society as a black man I can appreciate everything you wrote in the above post...

As a person that has a very mixed family and a world view which includes African Uncles and cousins from Ghana I sometimes chuckle at the talk of reparations and the whole slavery thing in general...My family on the African side sold entire tribes to white slave traders....My Uncle's tribe is a tribe of interpreters and has been for hundreds and hundreds of years dating back to before the institution of American slavery (he himself speaks more than 10 languages fluently)...To paint a clearer picture my uncles tribe conquered other tribes and worked deals with slave traders simply because there was no language barrier; and boy did they get rich by doing so, I mean really rich, as well as powerful politically; and yes they owned many slaves as well...A common misnomer is that only white southerners profited directly from the slave trade which is simply not true....

The thing that most Americans black and white don't understand is that the black folks that were brought to America were destine to be slaves or slaughtered in Africa. My uncle used to tell stories about how African blacks shipped to America were weak mentally and his tribe did his nation a service by getting rid of those who were less capable of strengthening his home land of Ghana.

So while it's true that slavery existed in America and is something that can be called an injustice, it was the 100 or so years following emancipation and the laws created to extend "white privilege" that has been more detrimental to black folks than slavery ever was and that is nothing to dismiss or chuckle about....

The fix: No amends or reparations need to be made, but laws that prevent equality for all people here in America need to be revised. That alone will level the playing field and would mean much more than any apology or check anyone could give; we don't need a handout, we need a hand up!!!

Mike Honcho wrote:

The fix: No amends or reparations need to be made, but laws that prevent equality for all people here in America need to be revised. That alone will level the playing field and would mean much more than any apology or check anyone could give; we don't need a handout, we need a hand up!!!

Beautiful. As in individual, I think we can only do and live as we can, but as a group we can help change the laws that make this possible.

Thanks for sharing, very interesting perspective.

PAR

FSeven wrote:

Like my parents and grandparents, they were able to "assimilate into whiteness" when coming over to this country. So while they may have faced some bigotry in their local neighborhood, no one by and large was denying them housing loans due to their race. They weren't being told to drink at a different water fountain because of their skin color. They weren't denied voting rights because they were from Europe. Indeed, while they may have faced name-calling and fisticuffs based on their heritage, there was no potent institutional force denying them opportunity or the ability to accumulate wealth.

I missed this paragraph the first time through. Your assumptions about the Italian experience in America during the 20th century are incorrect. A quick Google reveals:

- Italians (like other immigrants) were routinely restricted to crowded, unsanitary "immigrant" tenements in larger urban areas http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroo...

- Sacco and Venzetti were famously denied their due process in a murder trial largely because they were Italian anarchists. Eventually both were executed. http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/proj...

- During WWII, thousands of Italian Americans were placed in internment camps http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian.... Thousands more were placed under surveillance and had property confiscated.

- The largest mass lynching in American history was of Italians, not blacks. http://www.crescentcitylynchings.com/

- As recently as 2004, one politician accused his Italian opponent of looking and dressing like "one of Saddam Hussein's sons" http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feat...

If only anti-Italian sentiment were limited to "name-calling and fisticuffs"!

This isn't to say that Italians somehow had it "worse" than blacks--or any other group, for that matter. Only that if we look back through history, all groups--from Italians to blacks, from Irish to Puritans, from Catholics to Muslims, from Mohawk to Armenians--all of us have been discriminated against by someone, at sometime, for some thing. Why can't we use that shared experience to move past the mistakes of history, instead of continuing to redraw the same lines in the sand?

Datyedyeguy wrote:

This is how I feel about things myself. To get things out of the way, I grew up in the

Upper Peninsula of the state: a rural and almost completely white area.

What part? I'm originally from Cheboygan (unfortunately) and was up in the Newberry/Paradise area last week (went to Tahquamenon falls) when I was visiting the folks...

**Laughing** and yes the white folks were staring, ain't too many of my kind up there in all that nature

When my family moved to Howard County in 1972, my parents were made to sit for a "neighborhood interview" because the kindly white folks in the neighborhood weren't too sure about selling a house to the "orientals". They decided to let the sale happen because my dad was a college professor. I'm certain that if he owned a liquor store (like our white next door neighbor did) we would have been told to kindly find a different place to live. My dad was pissed enough to tell them to shove that house up their big fat asses.

Today, things aren't nearly as overt as that, but the temptation among many of the racially and class privileged is to state that structural racism and classism no longer exists. That's pretty demonstrably false.

Nomad wrote:

So what exactly is the author asking for in this article other than an apology? The closest guess I could make was more federal funding for schools in poor neighborhoods and for everyone to love each other?

Utopia. For starters?

Meh! I think everyone in this country is racist in someway against everyone else. I think the only way to remove this problem is stop doing ANYTHING about race for everything. That means if some crazy guy beats up another while yelling DIE WHITIE CRACKER! That should not be considered a hate crime, I would like all publicly funded organizations and scholarships that have one of the requirements that have to due with race killed. I would like to see descriptions of Americans not to include hyphens.

I am White, my family has been in America on both sides FOR A LONG, LONG time. My fathers side comes from the south so there might be a small chance that my family engaged in slavery. But did I ever whip some guy and make him wash my clothes? Did I ever deny someone something because they are funny looking to me? No, so why should I care.

If there are advantages to being white there are equal advantages to not being white, they might not have been even in the past but they are now. What ever happen to judging based on Character instead of race?

Pharacon wrote:

If there are advantages to being white there are equal advantages to not being white, they might not have been even in the past but they are now.

I make absolutely no judgment about the accuracy or lack thereof of your post, but I believe that popping noise I just heard in the distance was FSeven's head exploding.

Phara wrote:

If there are advantages to being white there are equal advantages to not being white, they might not have been even in the past but they are now.

Well..

Chris Rock wrote:

There ain't a White man in this room who'd trade places with me, and I'm rich! ...

Ok, Paleocon and Pharacon are WAAAY too similar at a glance. Talk about cognitive dissonance for a minute...

KaterinLHC wrote:

Excellent summary of historical racial attitudes towards Italian Americans.

I think the information that Katerin provided actually supports both her and Fseven's arguments. Most Americans today do largely consider people of Italian ancestry as part of "White America" and yet that was clearly not the case in the early days of Italian immigration to this country. Par himself identifies his ethnicity as a regular ol white boy. How has this change come about? In large part it is due to the efforts of Par's immigrant ancestors to self-identify as white, because they experienced first hand the disadvantages of being identified as something else in American society.

This experience has been repeated by many other immigrant groups and ethnicities, and it is not uncommon attitude in American history for non-white ethnic groups to actively position themselves so as to at least not be seen as black.

Just a few of the many excellent reads on racial identity and formation would include;

Claudio Saunt's, Black White and Indian. http://www.amazon.com/Black-White-In...

And Deborah Moore's G.I. Jews.
http://www.amazon.com/GI-Jews-World-...

Pharacon wrote:

What ever happen to judging based on Character instead of race?

1) It was always a myth.

2) The more accurate phrase is, the perception is reality.

Unfortunate, but true, more times than it should be.

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:
Phara wrote:

If there are advantages to being white there are equal advantages to not being white, they might not have been even in the past but they are now.

Well..

Chris Rock wrote:

There ain't a White man in this room who'd trade places with me, and I'm rich! ...

It reminds me of the time someone on another forum told me Blacks should me thankful for slavery.

Kat, you are familiar with the concept racial assimilation, that many white groups that were heavily discriminated against were eventually folded into America's larger dominant society while other races were not?

Prederick wrote:

It reminds me of the time someone on another forum told me Blacks should me thankful for slavery.

Ew. What in the world could possibly have been the reason for saying that (other than wanting to stir up a little sh*t while remaining anonymous)?

Kat, you are familiar with the concept racial assimilation, that many white groups that were heavily discriminated against were eventually folded into America's larger dominant society while other races were not?

Yes I am, although I'm not sure why you ask. I'm not making the argument that discrimination no longer exists. In fact, I'm making the opposite argument--that it happens to more groups than we like to admit, and that the experience should help us better understand and accept one another. If we acknowledge that blacks/Jews/women/etc. don't have a monopoly on Being Treated Like Crap By Their Neighbors, shouldn't that only help foster a stronger community, by acknowledging the common experiences we share?

KaterinLHC wrote:

Yes I am, although I'm not sure why you ask. I'm not making the argument that discrimination no longer exists. In fact, I'm making the opposite argument--that it happens to more groups than we like to admit, and that the experience should help us better understand and accept one another. If we acknowledge that blacks/Jews/women/etc. don't have a monopoly on Being Treated Like Crap By Their Neighbors, shouldn't that only help foster a stronger community, by acknowledging the common experiences we share?

Then I misunderstood, I was reading your post as yet another "It wasn't that bad!" screed.

Mike Honcho wrote:
Datyedyeguy wrote:

This is how I feel about things myself. To get things out of the way, I grew up in the

Upper Peninsula of the state: a rural and almost completely white area.

What part? I'm originally from Cheboygan (unfortunately) and was up in the Newberry/Paradise area last week (went to Tahquamenon falls) when I was visiting the folks...

**Laughing** and yes the white folks were staring, ain't too many of my kind up there in all that nature ;)

I was born and raised in Harvey/Marquette. Nice little town up there. Miss the snow.

KaterinLHC wrote:

This isn't to say that Italians somehow had it "worse" than blacks--or any other group, for that matter. Only that if we look back through history, all groups--from Italians to blacks, from Irish to Puritans, from Catholics to Muslims, from Mohawk to Armenians--all of us have been discriminated against by someone, at sometime, for some thing. Why can't we use that shared experience to move past the mistakes of history, instead of continuing to redraw the same lines in the sand?

This.

KaterinLHC wrote:

This is exactly my point: Dismissing the very real prejudice that other groups experience as somehow less important or "very superficial" compared to another form of prejudice undermines the whole point. Discrimination is wrong when it happens to any group.

More importantly: All of us have or know someone who has experienced some discrimination. That should be a uniting force, not an excuse to draw firmer lines in the sand, to point fingers at each other and say, "How could you ever understand my pain?" We should be saying to each other, "I've been discriminated against myself, so yes, I REALLY can understand what it's like. So let's not do it to each other anymore. Let's move on."

(One last point: Many Italians would disagree that the marginlization or stereotyping of Italians is not widespread. Quick: Think of a movie or TV character who's Italian--and who isn't a mobster or hitman.)

I don't dismiss the prejudice Italians face. I am A) trying to stick to the topic, the subject of which are African Americans - European ethnic discrimination is another discussion for another thread and B) since it was brought up, trying to ensure that discrimination faced against blacks is understood to be far more harmful and ingrained than discrimination aimed at European ethnic subgroups and that no one engages in "comparative suffering" as if to say discrimination faced by Italians, Irish, Germans, etc. is anywhere near the level of that faced by African Americans in this country.

I agree that it should be a uniting force but it's never been, going back hundreds of years. Europeans in this country have always had their color going for them, even when they did not have a pot to piss in. To call another man or woman a {racist slur} and to treat them the way one is instructed to treat such an untouchable is to assert nothing less than a property right. It is to add value to what DuBois called the "psychological wage" of whiteness.

Just a brief history lesson which helps to explain that while discrimination faced by those of European descent is heinous, it doesn't come close to that faced by blacks. Prior to the mid 1600's or so in the few colonies that would later become this country, there was no such thing as the "white race". Europeans did not refer to themselves as such before then. In fact, in Europe, we spent most of our time killing each other. We most certainly were not one big loving family unified by our common skin color.

Here's Wise explaining how the concept of whiteness was created and how poor Europeans were actually convinced to work against their own economic self-interests. This is by far my favorite information that Wise delivers. What he makes us realize is that we should not only be bonding around the prejudice we face, but more importantly, on the basis of our common economic status. Some of the most rabid anti-black racists are poor whites who face the same economic condition as blacks. Yet instead of bonding over their common interests, voting based on shared poverty, and invoking change by strength of numbers, these whites still feel "superior" solely because of their skin color. That's a powerful, powerful phenomenon for it to have lasted hundreds of years and over generation after generation.

But in the colonies that would become the United States, what did we see in the 1660s, the 1670s? We began to see the Africans of indentured servant status, many of them not enslaved yet. They were not necessarily permanently enslaved. Some others were indentured, like many poor Europeans, for periods of 7-11 years. They could work off their indenture, and then they would be free labor, technically. Realize, as did the white indentured servants, the Europeans, who hadn’t even been called white yet, that they had a lot of things in common, like the fact that they were all getting their clock cleaned by the elite, and so they would get together, more than our history books taught us, to ferment rebellion, against the elite to try to get a better deal for themselves on the basis of economic necessity and economic justice.

And what did the elite do when you see that you are out numbered by black and white folks who are penniless, landless, peasants? You have to do one of two things: You either have to kill them all. But you can’t do that, because who is going to work? Rich folks are not going to work. They had to get poor people to work. The whole point was to be a person of leisure. That was the goal, was not to work. So you couldn’t kill them all. You didn’t want to kill them all. You’d have to do the work yourself. You’d have to build your own levy, build your own house, pick your own tobacco, harvest your own cotton. You aren’t going to do any of that. So you can’t kill them, but you can coop them.

And so the elite in Virginia, for example, begins to give certain carrots to people of European decent, saying things like, “you know, we are going to let you own a little land. Not much, but just a little, and we are going to get rid of indentured servitude. Now you are a free laborer.” And by the way, once you are a free laborer, you get 50 acres of land just because you are a free laborer. “So we are going to cut you in on this deal. We are going to let you enter into contract. We are going to let you testify in courts. And here’s the best of all, we are going to put you on the slave patrol, to keep those people in line.”

The idea was: you’re still going to get your clock cleaned. We still don’t like you. We still aren’t going to really empower you or change your economic subordination, but we are going to make you honorary members of this team (whites), and you are going to help us keep those other people (blacks) down. And so they got a little taste of power. And it did effectively divide and conquer those coalitions. Those rebellions began to stop, almost instantly.

Fast forward to the civil war era. You have rich white folks in the couth, where I come from, standing up and admitting that the reason they are willing to succeed from the union, and the only reason they ever articulated publicly ever, was to maintain and extend slavery and white supremacy. Not only where it already existed, but into the newly acquired, that is to say, stolen territories, from Mexico to the west. Now we lie about it, and say it wasn’t about slavery, and say it was about states’ rights. Yes, the right of the states to keep and maintain slaves, exactly. But back then, they had no
shame. So they didn’t try to cover it up. They openly said it.

But once again, the rich didn’t want to go do the work, are you kidding? No. They are going to get poor people to go fight for them. And the poor folks didn’t even own slaves. Now think, how do you get poor people who don’t even own the shirt on their back, let alone slaves, to go fight to go keep your slaves for you? You’ve got to convince them that their skin is more important than their economic interest. Because, think about it. If I am a farmer who has to charge you a dollar a day, or two dollars a week to work on your farm, and harvest that tobacco or pick that cotton, but you can get a black person to do it for free because you own them, whose going to get the job? Not me.

In other words, slavery actually undermined the wages and the wage based the economic floor of the typical white working class, or low-income person. But they were told, “If these people are free, they are going to take your jobs.” No fool. They’ve got your job. That’s the point. And so at some level, working class white people are being harmed by white privilege. Relatively being advantaged, right? Being given a leg up, being given a membership to the club, but in absolute terms, being kept economically subordinated by the very thing that gave then a sense of superiority. How’s that for irony?

Then in the present era, this hasn’t stopped. This is not ancient history. Now we have people running around insisting that we should close the borders with Mexico, because if we don’t the wages of working class people will continue to fall. The implication being that the only reason workers are paid like crap in this county is because the border is open. But if you believe that, you would actually have to believe that if that border were closed that all these owners of capital and industry would just say, “Oh well, you figured us put, here, it’s a raise.” Do we really believe that the only thing keeping bosses from paying people more is the presence of low-waged, medium-skilled labor from south of this artificial border? Is that really what we believe? We know that if that border is closed it isn’t going to be closed to capitol. It isn’t going to be closed to goods. If you have a border that can be crossed by capitol, looking for the highest return on investment or goods looking for the highest price, but labor is chained to its country of origin, how is that going to work for the benefit of working people? By definition, it doesn’t. By definition, it eviscerates the worker class. Divide and conquer.

KaterinLHC wrote:

(One last point: Many Italians would disagree that the marginlization or stereotyping of Italians is not widespread. Quick: Think of a movie or TV character who's Italian--and who isn't a mobster or hitman.)

Again. Generally speaking, Italian-Americans by and large are not being denied housing, jobs, education based on their ethnicity or skin color. As a Jerseyite all my life and having lived within close proximity of set locations in places like The Sopranos and Goodfellas...indeed, also being of Italian descent (my paternal grandmothers maiden name is Fiero) and having a huge Italian family here in Northern New Jersey...having an Uncle who is most definitely affiliated with the mafia, I am well familiar of the stereotypes faced by Italians and perpetuated by Hollywood.

But we're talking about African-Americans here.

@Jolly Bill Thanks for explaining my position.

kaostheory wrote:

but I have a limited capacity for actively caring about injustice so I'm not going to spend my cycles on something where the negative is so mild when compared with other injustices.

With all do respect kaos, this is an incredibly ignorant and offensive statement. And if your capacity is limited why bother participating in this thread? You can't make statements like that and then expect your point of view to be taken seriously. And you may not see it, but the very ability to "not care" about the injustices of the world because there are "too many" is a direct privilege of being white in America - because none of the injustice is happening to you.

par wrote:

The only issue I have is the statement that my mother was treated better as a white person than a black person in her trials with cancer. He has no idea what the situation was, has no idea what she went through yet its ok for him to lump her into some group of privileged people. That right there is a discriminatory remark as he was "making distinctions".

I apologize if that's how you took it. I thought I made my position clear that as a whole, whites inarguably receive better healthcare than blacks, and that while that may be true, your mother's case was obviously an exception to the rule and she was treated horrifically.

par wrote:

So, what is the conclusion to all this? Should I grovel to only those people who honestly believe I have had it better than them? Because, with all of these links to articles and arguments going back and forth, none of it matters because I know I am not racist. I try my best to be non-judgmental and I live my life to the best of my ability by working hard and not trouncing all over another in order to succeed.

Again, you're making the whole situation about you. It's not about you. I think when you understand that, everything else will make sense.

MikeHoncho wrote:

My family on the African side sold entire tribes to white slave traders.

Amazing personal family history there Mike. If you ever have some time, I'd love for you to PM me some more stories.

I think in regards to your statement above, much care needs to be taken when saying it. Because many people might take that and use it to make slavery seem less harsh. They might take it and use it as a way to remove some of the responsibility from whites for engaging in the slave trade.

What we need to be clear about is that regardless of whether or not Africans sold each other into bondage, white Europeans came to Africa specifically to obtain slaves. They weren't there for the climate. They weren't there for Safari. They weren't there to pick up some new exotic food recipes. They were there specifically to get slaves.

KaterinLHC wrote:

- Italians (like other immigrants) were routinely restricted to crowded, unsanitary "immigrant" tenements in larger urban areas http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroo...

But again Kat, at least the Italians were able to acquire wealth, however little it was. At least they were largely free. At least they could vote for their own interests (even though they seldom did).

KaterinLHC wrote:

- Sacco and Venzetti were famously denied their due process in a murder trial largely because they were Italian anarchists. Eventually both were executed. http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/proj...

I have to contest this as an example of discrimination. Well, at least on ethnic basis. The actions taken against Sacco and Venzetti were more because they were anarchists than Italians. They were members of the Galleanists who were an Italian-American anarchist terrorist group suspected of several bombings in the US including a 1920 Wall Street bombing which claimed 30 lives. They were made an example of not because of their ethnicity but because of their political affiliations.

KaterinLHC wrote:

- During WWII, thousands of Italian Americans were placed in internment camps http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian.... Thousands more were placed under surveillance and had property confiscated.

Again. No laughing matter. But hardly on par with hundreds of years of rape, torture, genocide, enslavement, lynching, murder, etc.

KaterinLHC wrote:

- The largest mass lynching in American history was of Italians, not blacks. http://www.crescentcitylynchings.com/

Comparative suffering. A good subject for another thread but used as a barometer against what blacks have suffered? The topic of this thread? Not that great. Also, the families of those Italians lynched in the Crescent City Lynchings received reparations.

KaterinLHC wrote:

- As recently as 2004, one politician accused his Italian opponent of looking and dressing like "one of Saddam Hussein's sons" http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feat...

Ever hear about the rhetoric aimed at our own President?

KaterinLHC wrote:

This isn't to say that Italians somehow had it "worse" than blacks--or any other group, for that matter. Only that if we look back through history, all groups--from Italians to blacks, from Irish to Puritans, from Catholics to Muslims, from Mohawk to Armenians--all of us have been discriminated against by someone, at sometime, for some thing. Why can't we use that shared experience to move past the mistakes of history, instead of continuing to redraw the same lines in the sand?

Just as a side note, Japanese-Americans interned during WW2 received reparations for their suffering.

So, Italians lynched = reparations made. Japanese interned = reparations made. Land stolen from Native Americans = land given, tax breaks given, casinos built, fortunes made.

But being black? Hundreds of years of rape, torture, enslavement, genocide, lynching, murder, depriving of rights, racial profiling, unequal wage compensation, denial of the accumulation of wealth, housing discrimination, educational discrimination, income disparity, over-representation in incarceration facilities? You don't get sh*t.

Lines in the sand have already been drawn Kat but not by me and most certainly not by blacks.

Teneman's close - my head very nearly did explode. God I hope that was satire Pharacon. Equal advantages to not being white than being white? As Barney Frank said, "On what planet do you spend most of your time?"

FSeven, I know this topic is your own personal hot button - we all have them. But with all due respect, it seems to me that you either completely missed Kat's point, or intentionally overlooked it.

The way I read her posts, she's a natural ally to your cause. She's basically saying "Yeah, I've seen this type of stuff first hand too, it sucks. Let's work together and get past it." Your response is to draw exactly the lines in the sand she asked you not to draw. You spend a veritable wall of text to differentiate the poor treatment she's seen and experienced as it relates to Italians from the poor treatment experienced by African Americans. The effect is to push her away as an ally, because although her group may have been treated badly, they haven't been treated as badly as your group.

It seems to me that you're fighting so hard that you're taking swings at people who are actively trying to help you. Probably not the best way to actually win the fight.

(apologies to Kat if I've misrepresented her position in any way)

KaterinLHC wrote:
Prederick wrote:

It reminds me of the time someone on another forum told me Blacks should me thankful for slavery.

Ew. What in the world could possibly have been the reason for saying that (other than wanting to stir up a little sh*t while remaining anonymous)?

I think the argument was "Africa was and continues to be hell on earth." Not a very good argument.

FSeven wrote:

Land stolen from Native Americans = land given, tax breaks given, casinos built, fortunes made.

I agree with your point, but most Native Americans aren't rich from the casinos. Most are probably not thrilled with how things turned out.

God I hope that was satire Pharacon.

Alas, nope. That's just how Pharacon rolls.

Land stolen from Native Americans = land given, tax breaks given, casinos built, fortunes made.

And 90% of the native American population dead after European contact. (stat from 1491) Don't forget that.

ETA: The more I think about this statement, the angrier it makes me; it really is akin to Prederick's anecdote of being told that he should be thankful for slavery. FSeven, I think you may want to brush up on your Native American history.

I don't dismiss the prejudice Italians face. I am A) trying to stick to the topic, the subject of which are African Americans - European ethnic discrimination is another discussion for another thread and B) since it was brought up, trying to ensure that discrimination faced against blacks is understood to be far more harmful and ingrained than discrimination aimed at European ethnic subgroups and that no one engages in "comparative suffering" as if to say discrimination faced by Italians, Irish, Germans, etc. is anywhere near the level of that faced by African Americans in this country.

I'm not sure why this discrimination discussion has to be framed as a competition, because you can always find a group that's had it "worse", or suffered more. Yes, blacks had it "worse" than Italians. But Cherokee had it worse than blacks. And Pequot had it worse than Cherokee. And Aztec had it worse than Pequot. And so on, and so on. You can play this game until the cows come home, but it's not a productive line of conversation. All it does it retrace the same divisions by saying "Well, we had it worse than YOU." And what good does that do?

And no, Teneman, you didn't misrepresent me at all.

For some strange reason I get the feeling that we are now witnessing "Discrimination against those that have been discriminated against".

Discrimination is discrimination... regardless of who its against (unless of course you're discriminating against those that are being discriminated, which is how this discussion has evolved).

It's all one big problem and its the same problem. That's the issue. Not who had it worse.

PAR

Removed.

Ok, I'm being misunderstood most likely due to my own inability to properly allay my position.

I am in no way denouncing the discrimination other groups face or have faced. My Native Americans example was simply to illustrate that they've received at least something for the transgressions they faced. and I am well aware that any wealth given, in terms of casinos and such, is the exception rather than the rule and the majority of Native Americans still live in horrific poverty, albeit on land given to them. It in no way makes it all better and I agree that Native Americans faced far worse than any other group.

I am also on board with Kat even though every time I go to a family reunion for the Italian side of my family the usual 200 or so who show up completely reinforce Italian-American stereotypes.

Kat, here's an interesting article which addresses the stereotypes Italian-American's face.

I am not trying to make discrimination a competition. I'm just trying to stay on topic. Focusing on African-Americans and their experiences, which the article linked too that was the entire reason for this thread was about.

Sorry if I didn't properly express my intention or if it seemed like I was belittling any other ethnic groups experiences. I didn't mean to do that; I just meant to bring the discussion back to the topic of the thread.

FSeven wrote:

Sorry if I didn't properly express my intention or if it seemed like I was belittling any other ethnic groups experiences. I didn't mean to do that; I just meant to bring the discussion back to the topic of the thread.

FSeven - I can agree with many of the things you have written and quoted. In fact lyrics have been written that express musically the points you are making...

“Don’t give the black man food, give the red man liquor. Red man – fool, Black man – nigga. Give the yellow man tool make him railroad builder, also give him pan make him pull gold from river. Give the black man crack, glocs and ‘tings. Give the red man craps, slot machines.” - Lupe Fiasco

However, I challenge all of you to not turn this into a debate about who had to suffer the most or is still suffering the most. My intent with creating this thread was to have a discussion with all of the intelligent folks on this board, and to check the pulse of a variety of people from different backgrounds to see if through all of our differences we could come up with logical solutions to an obvious issue that continues to plague our society.

We can all agree that there is an issue, the million dollar question is; what can we do as just ordinary people to help solve it?

Discuss the topic, not the people discussing it. - Certis

That said, thanks for the article link. Browne has some very excellent commentary from a point of view rarely expressed in print.