Aren't they all better off????

[TomAiello 26]

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OK, I might give you the threatened part if somebody shoved a Desert Eagle in your face or something, but "called whitey"?

I felt very threatened one time when someone called me "honky".

That someone was a college instructor, telling me that I wouldn't be allowed into the section of Calculus I wanted because I was a "honky."

Seems that section was reserved for the privileged elite--based on their skin color.

Her manner of informing me of this had some very negative impressions on me.

Let's here it for "affirmative" action at the University of California!

-- Tom Aiello

Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[quade 4]

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I felt very threatened one time when someone called me "honky".

That someone was a college instructor, telling me that I wouldn't be allowed into the section of Calculus I wanted because I was a "honky."

Really? You felt threatened? As if your life was in danger?

Come on. I totally understand an African American being threatened if a pick-up truck filled with guys pulls up and calls him a "nigger", but unless there's a lot more to the story you just wrote us, you MUST be joking if you thought your life was actually in danger.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[TomAiello 26]

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I felt very threatened one time when someone called me "honky".

That someone was a college instructor, telling me that I wouldn't be allowed into the section of Calculus I wanted because I was a "honky."

Really? You felt threatened? As if your life was in danger?

Threatened. As in threatened. It's not always physical danger.

For example, let's say that I told you I was going to get you fired from your job. Would you feel threatened? Even if your life wasn't in danger?

What if I told you I could make sure you never got another job? Never got into college? Never got into graduate school?

Still don't feel threatened? What if I could pass a law outlawing skydiving? Threatened yet?

Maybe we ought to be discussing what a "threat" really is. I don't think it has to be physical.

-- Tom Aiello

Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[quade 4]

Well, if that's the standard, I can't even imagine how threatened KATO must feel reading this thread.

Tom, this isn't specifically directed at you, but if you think the shoe fits . . .

I gotta tell ya, I'm NOT very proud of how this entire thread has been handled.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[TomAiello 26]

I don't know. I don't have any real power over Kato.

That college instructor did have real power over me. I think that's an important difference.

-- Tom Aiello

Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[Snowflake 0]

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Give me ONE example (specific and tangible) of how slavery affects your life today.

DWB (Driving While Black) it's happened at least 4 times, Being harrased by police on spring brake in South Carolina on our way to Fl because I was the only black person in the car with 4 girls and 1 other white guy, Being denied a rental house(I forget the reason they gave but it was so obvious, substanderd education and then people get mad about quotas things are not fair right now but it's fine as long as the scale tips your way, judicial system(blacks recieve longer sentences then whites), and since they usually have less access to $$$ which =justice in this country will be less likely to defend themselves...........The list goes on and on yet the only time white people get upset is when the scale tips the other way then life is unfair and they bitch........Crack not a problem till white suburbanites start getting hooked (no one cared about the epidemic it had become in the inner city).

Now try to tell me all this doesn't stem from slavery.

I accept the fact that this is human nature at that if your on top you don't want to be at the bottom again, and if the situation was reversed it would be exactly the same only blacks would be in power and would not want to give it up. The way the power structure is just is and most of you support it which in turn means you support raciscim(sorry but thats the way it is)

Like I said I accept this for what it is my parents worked hard to provide me an education and I have plenty of oppotunity but I'm lucky and even with all that I can truly say that I feel that it's me Vs America

On another note were all living in a country that was totally jacked from another people

[Snowflake 0]

I really treid to stay out of this

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The micks, wops, and kikes were as discriminated against, or more so than blacks of today are. By working hard as individuals and integrating themselves into society that's been almost entirely eliminated

The only reason is because they were white. Integration with Blacks has always been discouraged and once assimalated the "Micks, Wops, etc..." had the blacks to pick on. You have no idea what it's like and to compare you and your freinds being assaulted to something like the attrocities of the KKK is thoughly insulting

[Snowflake 0]

Reading this I can see how one can become militant......how fucking weak can you get

[Michele 1]

Hey, JG..

I think the original point of the thread was about reparations.

Can you (or anyone in favor of reparations) give me a reason why I should open my checkbook and write you a check? Or give you my house and my land?

I am open and willing to talk about this, but not in the tones which have gone on before. I am simply trying to understand why I should give you something. And I am not trolling, nor flaming. Just really trying to understand the reasons I should give you something.
Thanks!

Ciels and Pinks-
Michele

~Do Angels keep the dreams we seek
While our hearts lie bleeding?~

[Jasmin 0]

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Give me ONE example (specific and tangible) of how slavery affects your life today.

DWB (Driving While Black) it's happened at least 4 times, Being harrased by police on spring brake in South Carolina on our way to Fl because I was the only black person in the car with 4 girls and 1 other white guy, Being denied a rental house(I forget the reason they gave but it was so obvious

Get a grip.

The question was how slavery affected your life today.
You failed to answer the question, as you instead answered that your ethnicity/race led to your discimination.

Your unsubstantiated arguement that the enslavement of your ancestors led to this, is quite obviously for you, an assumption as natural as the one you make that you were discriminated against on slavery/racial grounds rather than on the grounds that there were young people in a vehicle: young people more statistically likely to be responsible for speeding accidents (typically males under the age of 25), driving under the influence of illicit substances, GTA, and police awarding of tickets for speeding, negligent driving, DUI etc.
I'm female. I'm young. I'm "ethnic". I drive a new red car with spoiler and mags. You think the cops (and many other drivers) don't harass me??!!

I'm a student, female and not married: I've been disciminated against because of this by bank-managers, real estate agencies, and many many others. However I'm socially and mentally aware enough to realise that, at some point, for some feeble reason, so has EVERYONE else!

Get a a grip, you're so hard done by that you've got the time to notice it and more noticeably, to complain about it. You're an individual....just like everybody else.

xj

"I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

[Jasmin 0]

Seconded. There is also the question of minority over majority, as much a form of discrimination!

I'm supposedly an unmarried, ethnic minority, religious, female student of divorced parents of many marriages. How do I deal with that?!
I don't. Iknow I'm really just plain old Jasmin.

At this point I'm posting my last post in here. The whole point of debate is to propagate thought, not to begin a pissing contest over who is the greater victim.

My main problem with such activists (and the ill-informed masses who support them) is that by seperating themselves into specialised groups, they alienate themselves into a group elite in their social-discimination and self-induced racism/religion/gender/etc

Monetary pay-offs that themselves become a form of discrimination and for which discimination must be introduced, aren't the solution. Can people honestly say they believe that its fair that I be made to pay for something I didn't do, and that my ancestors weren't responsible for?!!!!!!
REALITY CHECK:
Life was never meant to be easy, we ALL will be discriminated against in some way by someone too stupid or ignorant not to, we can ALL look back at history and see injustice by (and at) compatriots, we can ALL see the injustices in our world today if we care to look....we should take care not to inadvertantly propagate it ourselves.

FINALLY....(I will shut-up!) anyone who wishes to get a copy of some journal articles and books on how ETHNICITY and RACE DO NOT EXIST send me a PM....

Take a breath and realise the chip on your shoulder is one you'veput there...
xj

[Scratch 0]

Well said Jasmin >

I must say that as a 34 year old South African I believe I know more about racisim, restitution and reconciliation than most of the people posting on this thread.
To me it makes for interesting and quite sad reading.
Oh well, if people want to go through life believing that they have been wronged and are being discriminated against at every turn. They are welcome to the attitude, for them the world will always be a hateful place and they will die having lived a life less that what it might have been. So be it, shit happens.

There is just one thing I have an issue with.
What is it about the term 'African American'. It is racist and separatist by its very meaning.
With all due respect.....I am an African. I was born here and I have lived here all my life. I have no intention of moving elsewhere. This is my home.
I belong to a tribe (English speaking white). A Zulu or Xhosa or Tswana or Swazi will not disagree with that. Nor will they disagree that we are all South African. There are 11 official languages in this country and cultures that vary so greatly that they are barely understood by others. Yet we somehow manage to get along for the most part. How you may ask. It is simple....we try.
The Americans who refer to themselves as 'African' are not, they are Americans who happen to be black. Once they understand that they are Americans and part of that tribe and nothing else, it is then that they will place their feet on the road to contentment.

[indyz 1]

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Can you (or anyone in favor of reparations) give me a reason why I should open my checkbook and write you a check? Or give you my house and my land?

Let me add: What is a single mother who lives in the inner city and makes $6.00 an hour going to do with $50,000 in cash? How about land (1-1000 acres, your call)? Seriously.

[jfields 0]

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The way the power structure is just is and most of you support it which in turn means you support raciscim(sorry but thats the way it is)

That is both offensive and untrue.

I treat people equally without regard to their skin color, religion, or whatever else. Perhaps the only thing I am prejudiced about is people without common sense. I support the power structure of this country, namely by voting. I vote. My opinion matters. I make a difference in some small way. That is what this country is about.

You don’t like the way the power structure is, then vote. Vote with a ballot. Vote with your money. Take your business away from companies you see as unfair. Write a good editorial to the paper. Hold a picket sign in front of their business. Whatever. But please do not accuse me of racism, and please do not simply whine about it. Neither action helps your cause.

[rhino 0]

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REALITY CHECK:
Life was never meant to be easy, we ALL will be discriminated against in some way by someone too stupid or ignorant not to, we can ALL look back at history and see injustice by (and at) compatriots, we can ALL see the injustices in our world today if we care to look....we should take care not to inadvertantly propagate it ourselves.

Rhino and Segador smiling at Jasmin

[JDBoston 0]

My feelings about reparations:

Slavery was wrong.

There's still a lot of racism today (in both directions between virtually all ethnic groups out there) and that's wrong too.

Two wrongs do not make a right, and no matter where reparation funds would hypothetically go (to charities, public works, individuals, etc.), in my mind it's wrong to arbitrarily take money that could go to wider, more inclusive social programs and earmark it for one racial group based on things that happened 150+ years ago.

I say arbitrarily because reparation is a symbolic issue, not a fact-based one (i.e. I don't see anyone creating spreadsheets that accurately lay out the exact economic impact of slavery on today's descendants of slaves), and as such, is NOT any kind of basis for any concrete action whatsoever. As a basis for discussion and debate, fine - it's always good for people to brush up on their history - but as a basis for action, it does not meet the test.

Farrakhan is a fucking joke and a complete bigot himself, and there could not be a more wrong person to be a leader of the discussion if anyone in the black community wants this issue to be taken seriously.

African Americans do not have a monopoly on suffering, and neither does any other ethnic group. Mexican, Chinese, even white European immigrants have all faced fierce, and often violent and deadly discrimination in different parts of the country at different times, and many continue to do so.

Also, it's funny no one ever talks about discrimination against poor white people. But it exists too. Try going into an interview for, say, a software sales job with a beer belly and a mullet and talking about the trailer parkyou live in. Or try going into a nice store on Madison Avenue and getting someone to help you instead of following you around suspiciously. It may sound like I'm joking, but I'm not. People are discriminated against by employers and others because of their socioeconomic status, and the cultural group they're perceived to belong to, ALL THE TIME. This is not a trivial thing, and it also has a very serious impact on people's prospects for breaking out of the socioeconomic band they've been born into.

We all have a very serious responsibility to expose and combat discrimination as it exists TODAY, but I can think of few things more un-American, and frankly more harmful to the spirit of self-determination that this country was founded on, than economically compensating people for things that were done to ancestors they neither knew nor can identify (how many people know their family tree back to before the Civil War???) by the ancestors of other unidentified people hundreds of years ago. To say nothing of the fact that a significant portion of whites in the US today are descended from people who immigrated (in many case, with no money, no connections, and minimal language skills) after slavery had already ended. Imagine what kind of a precedent this would set.

Sure, there's a strong streak of white-black racism and discrimination in US history, and some of it certainly persists today. But this whole reparations thing is a band-aid at best and a political stunt at worst, and it is NOT the way to improve anyone's position in society or the amount of respect and fair treatment they receive from other people. Anyone who thinks otherwise is, in my very humble opinion, somewhat deluded.

Please flame now.

Joe

[jfields 0]

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Please flame now.

No flames. Your post was well thought out and clear. You only used profanity in regards to Farrakhan, but that is understandble. His agreement with any subject does a great deal to instantly discredit it with many people.

[skreamer 1]

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Oh well, if people want to go through life believing that they have been wronged and are being discriminated against at every turn. They are welcome to the attitude, for them the world will always be a hateful place and they will die having lived a life less that what it might have been. So be it, shit happens.

Yep, they'll waste their whole lives being victims instead of doing something THEMSELVES to improve their OWN lot... It really amazes me, you speak to young black people in South Africa where their people got a raw deal until recently. The one thing they value most is an education, so they can make a better life for themselves. My mom was a physics lecturer who did volunteer teaching work in a coloured high school and also taught a bridging course for black students who weren't quite up to university standards yet. She also personally sponsored two Black girls through school. She was always telling me how hard these students worked and how important getting a good education was to them. This from the people who were disadvantaged by Apartheid in their OWN life-times. These people in America just seem to want everything on a plate and are looking for a hand-out and someone to blame for how shitty they've made their own lives.

What a joke! What about the Afrikaners who died in English concentration camps in the Anglo-Boer war, should their descendants be entitled to compensation from the present day British government?? I think not...

I was 23 when I first left Africa, I have been to the USA 4 times now - I think maybe a lot of people in the USA don't quite realize the difference in quality of life between the two places. Even your lowest Mcdonald's worker has a WAY better life than most people in Thirld World Countries.

Will

[PhillyKev 0]

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OK, I might give you the threatened part if somebody shoved a Desert Eagle in your face or something, but "called whitey"?

Yeah...as in late at night, alone, walking down the street and having someone yell about how he's gonna get his gun and start killing people and how it's whitey's fault and pointing at me. I felt a little threatened.

And again, the lack of inflection on the internet has bitten me. The majority of my post was written as parody. I was pointing fingers at a race and blaming them sarcastically. Apparently it inflamed people and they didn't read the bottom of the post where I stated that I don't blame an entire race for the actions of individuals of that race. I was illustrating how easy it can be to do that though, and comparing that to what Farkhan is doing by demanding reparations. If you took my post as being a serious reflection of my beliefs and found that insulting, well, that's how I feel about Farakhan's beliefs.

[Snowflake 0]

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Can you (or anyone in favor of reparations) give me a reason why I should open my checkbook and write you a check? Or give you my house and my land?

actually I totally disagree with the Rev as much as I disagree with the KKK. I do feel however that blacks in America are owed at least a decent education if you want to look at that as reperations then fine. As I said before I will get mine and I realize that I will have to fight for it. I am no ones victim and I want nothing from you, but there are plenty of children living in squallor with 1 or no parents who look to criminals for role models these are the people I feel who are owed something. Debate away

[JDBoston 0]

I would phrase it differently: POOR people are owed a decent education. Blacks have as much opportunity as whites or anyone else in any given school to take advantage of what's there. If parents want to augment the education their kids get at school, it's only a public library card away.

But I agree that the quality of public schools in poorer areas is an extremely important issue, and we as a society neglect it at our extreme peril. Large numbers of uneducated people, especially uneducated people with voting rights, is a very bad thing for our country. Just look at the presidents we're electing these days.

Joe

[Snowflake 0]

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That is both offensive and untrue.

I treat people equally without regard to their skin color, religion, or whatever else. Perhaps the only thing I am prejudiced about is people without common sense. I support the power structure of this country, namely by voting. I vote. My opinion matters. I make a difference in some small way. That is what this country is about.

You don’t like the way the power structure is, then vote. Vote with a ballot. Vote with your money. Take your business away from companies you see as unfair. Write a good editorial to the paper. Hold a picket sign in front of their business. Whatever. But please do not accuse me of racism, and please do not simply whine about it. Neither action helps your cause.

I am not accusing you or anyone of personally being racist just saying that if you support the power structure thats in place then you support raciscim. I would feel bad about your being offended but my grandfather wasn't and he's a staunch republican(as a matter of fact he was part of the power structure).

As far as voting to change this country don't make me laugh what a complete waste of my time. The only way to make change in this country is with money.....lots of it

[jfields 0]

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I am no ones victim and I want nothing from you, but there are plenty of children living in squallor with 1 or no parents who look to criminals for role models these are the people I feel who are owed something.

Who owes those children? I did not abandon them. I did not renege on their child support. I am not the one who failed to provide them with a nurturing environment. I am not the one that failed to instill proper values in them, leaving them to look at drug dealers as role models.

Who had all those failings? Their parents. And if you are talking about black kids, then it is the fault of black parents. To be fair, plenty of white parents do the same thing. So do hispanic parents, etc. I don't owe them either. If you are saying that the disadvantaged status of the children merits help, are you willing to take some of your personal money and provide additional services to poor white kids in rural Georgia? Say "no" at the risk of being declared a racist, by your standards.

The whole point here is that people should be treated equally, because that is the only possible non-racist solution. I could throw out MLK quotes all day, as I did earlier in this thread, because he was a truly opressed black man that saw the bigger picture. The answer does not lie in anybody "owing" anybody else anything, except to be treated equally and with dignity. Equality is colorblind, not based on being a member of a disadvantaged ethnic group. You should not expect any special privileges for being any given race, nor should you be denied any opportunity because of race either. It is really a very simple goal, and the first step towards accomplishing it is to drop the concept of racial entitlement.

[scottbre 0]

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As far as voting to change this country don't make me laugh what a complete waste of my time.

If you don't vote, you've no right to complain.

"Your mother's full of stupidjuice!"
My Art Project

[rhino 0]

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If you don't vote, you've no right to complain.

Please explain why one who doesn't vote has no right to complain? Please explain? What makes them any less worthy than the next person?

Rhino