Letters to the Editor
-
I suppose the cream of African society
Your theory about African Loser-Tribes is kooky abstract silliness. Do you know any actual person from another race, now? Did your own ancestors come from some tribe which had difficulty distinguishing real life from nutty fantasy?
Were bought and sold by the Arab traders?
-
Soup, not salad
The preferred end-state is not a separate culture for black Americans, correct?
Being absorbed into the larger whole is weird and tricky and we all negotiate it in different ways. But I don't aim for separation, and I pity people who do. We're all separate enough as it is, and staying apart isn't idealistic no matter how people try to spin it.
-
Is race dying?
In as much as liberal San Fran bloggers have ever thought of it, why yes it IS dying. They focus their bigoted rage on
Anyone to the right of Castro
Jews
People with more money than them
People with fewer regrets than them
-
Mirror Image
Quoting an earlier poster: "Oh and let's not forget the white superstar who murdered his black wife, and got away with it because a white jury refused to convict him."
OK, I'll bite! James Sullivan, Palm Beach millionaire (white) killed his black wife Lita Sullivan in 1987 and escaped justice for almost 20 years. No one was looking for him during most of those 20 years. When the OJ incident happened in 94 no one remembered this case. This guy was still globetrotting scot free and the case was never mentioned. WHERE WAS THE OUTRAGE????
-
I hate to engage Dimstar, nothing good ever comes of it, but yes...
the cream of African society--as in the warrior class--ended up in the jaws of the slave trade too. Defeat in battle has throughout human history been a good way to get sold off as a slave (ask the Romans and Greeks--better yet, ask the Trojans). War was as common among the West African kingdoms as anywhere else in the world, but when European greed for gold, ivory, and slaves entered the mix, things got more and more out of hand--and it was a process that unfolded over centuries... But lest this get too complicated, just take note that it's well documented in the historical record that anyone who was among the defeated--absolutely anyone, including princes, warriors, skilled artisans, tradesmen, and peasants-- might end up with a one-way ticket to the New World. Oh, and by the way--Arab slave traders attacked villagers out in the countryside because they were easy targets--no arms and no detachments of the king's warriors easily available to defend them. These were not the sweepings of the gutters and jails of Europe, like many of the earliest colonists of places like Virginia and South Carolina and Georgia--but country folks basically living their lives and minding their own business. So dregs of society? doesn't apply to those folks.
-
Where to start?! WOW
So many wrong things that Kamiya asserts, it's hard to know where to begin.
1) What, exactly, is meant by the phrase "black Americans no longer believe that blacks are a single race"? I guess I'm finding it so difficult to be surprised by the findings. I think blacks have known they were from different parts of the world since the early slave trade when sometimes black slaves couldn't communicate because they spoke different languages. Just because blacks are acknowledging Carribeans, for example, does that negate their feelings of a shared experience, in this case prompted by racist reactions to their skin color?
2) Kamiya acts as if mixed race folks have only recently begun to be born. Black Americans (and Americans generally) are one of the most mixed groups of people in the world. (Hasn't he experienced the veritable rainbow of skin colors in black communities?).
Traditionally blacks have accepted mixed race individuals into communities (or have been forced to because of one-drop rules); the only recent change has been whites' acceptance of mixed race peoples. I think that it's dangerous to assert that Tiger Woods can lead us to the promised land.
3) Hasn't Kamiya read a newspaper lately? Race seems to be at the forefront of news in the past year and racially charged crimes have been on the increase, according to the FBI.
--TRB
-
What blacks don't understand about racism:
Much of what blacks perceive as racism is just the same mean behavior that we all face from our fellow human beings. The police are paid to arrest and harass us. The government is screwing the whole of the American people for their own personal glorification. Prosecutors go after every case with vigor and a desire to win regardless of innocence. The guy working at the gas station is a jerk and he gives dirty looks to everybody. People are filled with rage behind the wheel, and cut us off, and give us the finger. The government forms are designed to trip you up. The insurance company denies claims for anybody that they can deny. We all get overcharged by plumbers. Old people give dirty looks to everybody who plays loud music in their cars.
It is easy for blacks to see those things as racism directed at them, because they are not able to step into white shoes and see that the system is hard and mean to everybody.
-
Wealth-building and race (not class, race)
Here is a huge difference in wealth-building opportunity within the middle class that breaks down by race.
Most middle class families' wealth and wealth-building (to be passed on to their next generation) happens in the form of home appreciation. You can call it land ownership if you like. A famous two-part article in the Atlantic in the 80's traced black families' success through generations back to two major factors, marriage and land ownership.
Most middle class families build and use that wealth to send the next generation to college and continue the climb up the class ladder.
But many African-American families do not get the benefit of appreciating home values due to various reasons, some of which are beyond their control. Call it accidental institutional inequality. Until very recently and still in many cases, they are red-lined out of the neighborhoods that stand to appreciate. Undesirable neighborhoods, even working-class black neighborhoods, mean home values staying stagnant if they are lucky and falling if the neighborhood tips too far to the undesirable.
What did I do to be able to get in the neighborhood that was going to appreciate? I was white. Would I have been able to get into that neighborhood and watch it appreciate if I had been black? I do not know. I doubt it.
No one set out to make it so that African-American families do not enjoy the same rate of home appreciation, but I think middle-class whites forget how much of their wealth is from escalating value of land they own, and not everyone's land escalates to the same degree.
Some would say that African-American neighborhoods would appreciate at more desirable rates if the undesirables were kept out--but I see that as everyone's job not just the hardworking African-Americans who are working and paying off the houses.
I think the reason I was able to get into the neighborhood that was going to appreciate and not go downhill if one or two bad houses were in it, was because I was white to start with. I don't think any one person is to blame but I think it is an inequality that should be taken into account, that is, if people are trying to be compassionate. Oooooops what am I saying. this is Salon which was so proud to host David Horowitz.