Today is a sad day...

[cjolley]

Don't even get me started on the terms White and Black for skin color.
chuck

[motub]

Errr.... let's just all be <u>very, very careful</u> with this, all right?

Please.

<font size=4><u>Please</u>.</font>

I love you all, and I do trust you, but you're now treading in my personal cultural trash, and I don't completely trust <u>myself</u>.

So let's us all just step lightly, 'k?

--------------------------
Holly

[HollyBerri]

Joel, you and I don't always agree (and this is looking like one of those times ), but I deeply appreciate you sharing your feelings about the impact on your heritage.

It's always good to remember that every argument has <u>two</u> sides... and that each side has deep meaning to the people involved.

I respect your right to your heritage as I respect my right to mine--- for those of you just joining our program, I'm Black (I don't particularly like the term "African-American", so I don't use it much in reference to myself, without meaning to disparage the term or the reasons it was brought into use).

(Boy, never has the usefulness of introducing "HollyBerri" as a separate entity from "motub" been so clear as now, huh ?)

All right, I think I want to come at this a little sidewise, because, really, we Americans have been over this ground for years, and nothing new has been said for most of them. So let's just not even go there.

I think I'll talk about what Jord said to me that day.

they will call each other by the 'N' word and it is no big deal but you let a white person, or anyone else for that matters, use it and that person is automatically labeled a racist.

Or worse, Joel. I tried it with Holly once and we had a complete out of hand fight.

Well... not exactly...but....

We were starting an ICQ/HoneyQ session. HoneyQ is a videoconferencing plugin for ICQ. The video wasn't working, as I recall--Jord must not have been able to see my face, I'm sure-- and we were testing the mikes to see if we should just go to chat or something... and he suddenly, in the midst of the usual, "testing, testing" commentary, burst out with, "Hello, nigger!"

How many of you have such a cultural heritage that you might know how my heart plummeted at that moment? I went cold... a feeling that I have rarely had, and I'm sure that if someone had been looking at me they would have seen me "pale"... don't know what that looks like on me, but I have been seen to blush, so....

The whole "fight", as he calls it, was that I logged off coldly almost immediately, and spent the rest of the night searching links... links to discussions about the word 'nigger' and the current controversies about it, links to historical documents, links to hate sites with "nigger jokes".... and sent him an email containing some 50 of those links. (I think he followed a lot of them, too.) A few hours later, I got an email that made me burst out laughing... "All right, I'm <font size=3><u>sorry</u></font> I called you that!!!" (Well, that's Jorden, and that's one reason I love him, but that's another story.)

But the point is.. he really didn't know. He said that because he loves the Mel Brooks movie "Blazing Saddles", and it's a line from that...that's all the meaning that the word has for him, with whatever other movies he might have heard it in.

I realized at that point something I had to explain right before I left, to a (Black) worker at Burger King who had taken a shine to me. When I told him I was moving to Europe to marry a Dutchman, the first thing he asked me was if he was White. The first thing I said was that he (the worker) was thinking like an American.

Jord is Anglo-Saxon, he's Caucasian... but he isn't "White" in the way I have understood it all my life... because what I as a product of Black culture mean by that relies on the American heritage of slavery with all its ugly repercussions for both White and Black people there (not to mention the Brown, Red and Yellow people caught in the fallout).

I can only touch upon what it means to me to be here in Holland, with people who don't care. I have been to a private island in Maine, driving for hours on a highway where all the other faces in all the other cars were White, to reach a place where children looked at me as if I was from the moon, and I frightened a lady I talked to on the ferry by offering her a piece of a banana I was eating.... I have been to Boston and been steered to "Black clubs" by my friends...I lived in NYC all my life, and never seen Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, nor a lot of other neighborhoods where I "would not be welcome". I have been followed in stores by the stereotypical "Korean storekeeper", and more security guards than I care to consider-- one notable time, I recall my mother saying to the air "While they're following us, someone else will be stealing the whole store."...

So, yes, now I know why so many Black entertainers like Josephine Baker and Eartha Kitt live in Europe.... and yes, you may be right, Joel-- maybe the NAACP is a racist organization in a sense, the term "African-American" is a sign of separation, the Civil War wasn't about slavery, and the Confederate Flag isn't about anything but pride in what it means to be from the South.

But it is part of, part of a symbol of, something much uglier, something that kept me out of places I wanted to be (like the deep woods, for example)--- and would keep you out of many places as well, since the anger runs both ways...

Whatever the war was really about, it was fought over the bodies of my ancestors, and we as a group are still suffering the effects of being used as a shield for the true motives.

So are you, it seems....

God bless America... little other help seems to be forthcoming, sadly.

For what it's worth.

------------------------------
Holly

[ALBPM]

Is America going through an Identity Crisis???

Just go out and ask friends and acquaintances what they are. Most will answer...I'm a "XXXX-American", very few will say that they are an "American" or an "American of XXXX descent"

It seems that somewhere during the last 20 years or so we stopped putting our country first. It seems more important to identify with your ethnic background than your country
anymore.

Me, I'm an American...

If you really want to know my ethnic background..... I'm a descendant of various peoples looking for Freedom.

Paul

[paulcs]

Jorden, the term Native American seems to fall in and out of vogue. Some people prefer it, others prefer "indigenous Americans," others prefer Columbus's mistake, "Indian." Indian is used more and more in the media, if that's any barometer.

I suspect an Indian American would be a US citizen from or whose ancestors were from India.

"That’s because we have never heard of any one using I’m a irish-american I should not go to jail for drinking while intoxicated and running someone over or hitting someone else and killing them. Because Irish people are all lushes etc. the point is people don’t use I’m an Irish American or I’m an Italian American as a criminal defense due to racial bigotry and delusions of persecution."

I've heard of many novel defenses from my fellow Italian Americans when accused of crimes. I can't, for the life of me, understand how a small minority of people making excuses in courtrooms should be a reason to criticize an entire population of law abiding American citizens for using such a common convention. This seems extreme to me.

With respect to the N-word, words, like symbols, tend to take on a life of their own. Origins of words can become less relevant and take on different contexts. Let's face it. I'm convince the N-word was never used as a term of endearment or even neutrally. It was always meant as an ethnic slur whether it was used by Southern slave owners, a bunch of white guys standing on a corner in Brooklyn, or by British colonial forces in Africa.

I suspect "Negro" has an equally dubious past. Given the fact that "negro" is Spanish for black, the history of triangular trade and Spain's colonial past in the Americas, and that the word is dated to the mid-Sixteenth century, it was also used to describe a people the slave traders, merchants, and conquistadors considered subhuman.

As for its use amongst African Americans, while I think it is still inappropriate, ethnic slurs take on a different conotation when used within a particular ethnic group. I was taught when I was young to make a very broad distinction between fellow Italian Americans using disparaging names for Italians and non-Italians doing the same. The connotations are completely different.

Some people think by using a disparaging word over and over again, it will render the word harmless. In this particular case, I sincerely doubt it. The truth is, if a relative were to call me any of the ethnic slurs for Italians, I would not take offense. If a non-Italian, outside of my close circle of friends, were to, I'd probably take extreme offense. It's a completely different dynamic.

By the way, I have seen older African Americans become very upset when younger African Americans use the N-word.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[Brian R.]

If you're one generation removed from the "Old Country", then your ties are strong and you were brought up by your parents with alot of ethnic influence. This is a proper use of "ethnic"-american. After you are more than one generation removed from your roots (with some exceptions), you are an American.

Brian's Rule of Ethnicism

[paulcs]

Ah, Blazing Saddles.

"'scuze me while I whip this out!"

Jorden, I think it's hard to explain what an American is. I think the above line does us justice, however.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[Jorden]

Now she did it again, making me look like in her eyes a dumb whatever, but I'm going against it, no matter what:

he really didn't know. He said that because he loves the Mel Brooks movie "Blazing Saddles", and it's a line from that...that's all the meaning that the word has for him, with whatever other movies he might have heard it in.

No dear, we have the word here as well. Nikker. And I knew what the meaning was before you blatantly put me down as a dumb Dutchman who learns words from stupid (but hilarious) movies only.

Before you venture out to say things like that again, it might be a good idea to ask me?? I'm only sitting either next to you, or in the next room, not a bloody 5000 miles away from you!!

Sorry guys, but I couldn't ask her to edit it out either, cos I just read it, as well as a couple of you who answered to it as well.

I'm just becoming sick and tired of having to defend my every move on these fori. So I'm off, f*ck

Jord.

[andrei]

What's ironic is that white and black people of America "fight" on Native Americans' land and amidst this confusion the Native Americans are the ones that lost the most.

[HollyBerri]

**sigh**

Hey, if he wants to take it that way, fine. Last thing I meant was to imply that Jord was "dumb" in any way, please excuse me if anyone else took it that way. (I only excuse myself to the rest of you due to the fact that, since I'm here, naturally I'll be working it out with him myself.)

My point was that not having so many years of the essential African slave trade and labor in the national gestalt makes a difference, both in his understanding, and in mine. It may be true that some other group here is in the "penalty box" as it were, it's not like practically every country didn't colonize and/or enslave <u>somebody</u> at some point, but, here, now, it's not me for once....and no matter what he may say, I don't (and, I admit, maybe can't, in a couple of senses) believe that his knowledge and understanding of the "n-word" has the depth and resonance that mine does, nor that he can relate to that resonance.

If he wants to say that he already knew such a word, knew perfectly well what it meant, and then called me it anyway ... who am I to argue? Or to consider it further, for that matter, ... since that way lies nothing but broken dreams.

Do you think he would understand why?

Cultural gaps are a ...female dog, you know?

All I'm going to say, I think.

**/sigh**

Please ignore this thrilling domestic interlude, if you will. Didn't mean to interrupt.

My mistake.

-------------------------------
Holly, wondering how she managed to f**k up the d@mn thread after all....



[This message has been edited by HollyBerri (edited 05 July 2000).]

[paulcs]

I really don't see us as an ethnicity. It's strange. I sometimes think the rest of the world views us as an ethnicity either. When an American of European extraction does well, he or she often is regarded as a "native son" in the country of his or her ancestors. Jack Kennedy seemed to be very popular in Ireland. Mario Cuomo appeared to have a following in Italy. I can only use this theory to explain David Hasselhoff's popularity in Germany.

Maybe being an American, legalities aside, is more a cultural thing, an attitude, than an ethnic thing. We're certainly a nation. I don't think we've been around long enough to be an ethnicity.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[This message has been edited by paulcs (edited 05 July 2000).]

[paulcs]

It's good to see you back, Holly. This stuff aside, how are things in the Netherlands?

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[Joel]

And the so called 'N' word also did not start out as a racial term either. It was and is southern slang for negro. But what gets me is that they will call each other by the 'N' word and it is no big deal but you let a white person, or anyone else for that matters, use it and that person is automatically labeled a racist. Hell, I'm automatically labeled a racist/sexist pig just because I am a middle aged white man.

Joel

[Joel]

"Whatever the war was really about..."

That's one of the problems. Some people just don't want to accept the truth behind the war and realize that slavery was a very small backburner issue. Believe me the Northen Plantation owners did not want to give up their slaves anymore than the Southern Plantation owners. But it was real hard to tell the Southern owners to get up theirs without the north doing the same. And if you will check history you will see that this move by Abraham Lincoln was not very popular amoung the northern states and was almost his undoing. But they were in the middle of a war.

"it was fought over the bodies of my ancestors"

???? Don't quite know what you mean here but you were not the only one to have ancestors in that war. I had ancestors that fought and died in that war for what they believed in and am damn proud of that. And to tell me that I am wrong for that is not right.

"and we as a group are still suffering the effects of being used as a shield for the true motives."

All I can say is that as long as you see yourself as a victim you always will be a victim.

"With respect to the N-word, words, like symbols, tend to take on a life of their own."

I agree with that, but why should I be held responsible for the way someone else feels about something. That's one of our biggest problems in the 'United States of the Offended' today, lack of personal responsibility.

I just want to say that I have no problems with any group wanting equal rights or equal treatment, but I do have a problem with a group wanting preferential treatment just because of the color of their skin. And that is what the NAACP is all about. I have work hard for what I have and to have someone tell me that the only reason I have it is because I'm white pisses me off. Also to tell me that I owe someone something just because their great, great, great, great, great, grandfather might have been a slave pisses me off too.

But as you said HollyBerri "we Americans have been over this ground for years, and nothing new has been said for most of them."

Joel

A White Southern American Redneck and damn proud of it and if that offends someone, oh well.

[This message has been edited by Joel (edited 06 July 2000).]

[Helevitia]

Facts:

-History is my worst subject. I don't know anything about the civil war.

-The confederate flag represents hate, violence and racism.

-The word Nigger represents hate, violence and racism.

-My fiancee received a thumb cast today.

My opinion:

-History is my worst subject. I don't know anything about the civil war.

-I think that the confederate flag should be taken down because of the above facts. Noone can deny the above facts and if everyone wants to live in a better world we need to recognize the events and issues that plague our nation and do something about it...and that's exactly what we did.

START JOKE

[EDITED]
CENSORED! sorry, I just couldn't do it, I might piss too many people off

END JOKE

Dave