Posted: Sun 16 Jan 2005 17:33 Post subject: The search for more \"glory\" to pad the black racial resume..
Padpowell posted a reply to an op-ed I wrote a few months ago, "How Many Black Soldiers Fought in 1776" (http://hnn.us/roundup/comments/6636.html), with author and historian Gary Nash for the New York Times. She said, “The search for more "glory" to pad the black racial resume encourages the "one drop" myth because there are never enough blacks to satisfy the psychological need. The temptation is to make more of them via extreme hypodescent.”
For entertainment sake, and not disrespect, Padpowell, it never ceases to amaze me how ignorance can see only one side of things it fears. If Padpowell is trying to hide her "one drop" of black blood, no one really cares today, except her own conscience. I don't think there's a single black person that wants to claim her as their own or add her proudly to "our" family tree. However, had she been alive among the population of 1776, every wild eyed, greedy white slave holder would have coveted that "one drop" of black blood because it would have justified Padpowell's enslavement. And it's not as if every white person is competing with a black one to burn up microfilm trying to trace their roots so they can claim their drop of black blood and their ancestor's stake in giving this nation its principles. But donÂ’t you think weÂ’d be a better country if they were?
White people made America's rules: if any human being had a drop of black blood in 1776 or 1876, that person was black in America and subject to chattel slavery, or second class citizenship, for his or her entire life on earth and for eternity thereafter in the unmarked, untended, and segregated grave to which they were committed. That person would have been barred, or hindered by law and custom, from buying property or creating a destiny for their own children and passing on the wealth they accumulated in a lifetime to the next generation.
But today, Padpowell, like the DAR, wants to make them white and deny them the chance to tell their story of struggle and the deprivation of liberty and justice that molded their descendants and promoted the concepts of the Declaration of Independence we all enjoy today. Padpowell, you could have figured this out for yourself, if only you had given it just a bit more thought.
America needs to know the struggle of mixed-race people - after-all nobody is pure black, thanks to rapacious slave owners and the power of love between two human beings that transcends color. Why should an enslaved person, or one treated like a slave their entire life, be relegated to obscurity when it comes time to honor the struggle they waged and is now comprehended as something deserving of reverence? Now, that's cruelty, ignorance, selfishness, and evil.
It's time to build a memorial to those black patriots, no matter how many, or how few, drops of African blood that may have run through their veins. Padpowell, be a credit to your race, whatever it may be. In the current condition of your mind, no one wants to claim you. And if you should discover when those black patriots receive the accolades they deserve that one of them was your ancestor, keep your mouth shut. Don't spoil it for the rest of us.
Posted: Wed 19 Jan 2005 00:57 Post subject: Padding the black racial resume
I suggest that Maurice A. Barboza read the many historical articles Frank Sweet has posted here. "One drop" of the dreaded "black blood" DID NOT make anyone either "black" or a "slave." However, no amount of evidence will convince you otherwise if you have an emotional need to believe it.
I notice that you like to hang out at Melungeon web sites. Do you dare to scream at the Melungeons that their small amount of "black blood" makes them "black" and they should renounce their white ancestry to please blacks?
Here's a link to a well-received talk I gave at the Melungeon Fifth Union.
I have, with the exception of extreme liberals who worry about pleasing blacks, found that it is not hard to get my fellow whites to accept the idea that a person can be WHITE and mixed with African, American Indian, Asian or whatever. Only the black-identified seem to have hysterical fits, screaming that something is being stolen from them. I don't see American Indians screaming that whites who are part Indian are really all Indian. I don't see your fellow blacks screaming at their Hispanic allies (who are nearly all part-black) that they should consider themselves lighter, Spanish-speaking "African Americans." Is it because you don't want to insult them?
Did if ever occur to you why no enterprising "Bell Curve" authors try to write about alleged "genetic inferiority" in American Indians? Why not? They aren't doing too well in school, just like blacks. There's no political profit in it because American Indian ancestry is too freely acknowledged as part of the WHITE population. If American blacks had any sense, they would welcome the creolization of white American identity, which is the opposite of the mythological assumption of white racial purity that you can't seem to dislodge from your brain.
Speaking of liberals, I find it disgusting that you can ride on the coattails of Gary Nash to get published in The New York Times, when many diserving authors who have something important to say are not given access in order to indulge the overly sensitive feelings of blacks like you.
Posted: Wed 19 Jan 2005 03:57 Post subject: Padding the black racial resume
When Ms. Powells says something that makes sense and isn't blinded by her fear of the one drop she carries, I might respond. As for the reasons the New York Times would publish my op-ed, or anybody's submission, the first prerequisite is you've got to make sense. Then it helps if you've spent the past 25 years uncovering lost history, helping your aunt battle the DAR for 17 years and obtaining land near the Lincoln Memorial to build a monument to black, and "one-drop," patriots.
Posted: Mon 24 Jan 2005 17:30 Post subject: Padding the black racial resume
Like so many of the black identified one-drop advocates, Maurice ignores all evidence that contradicts his faith in the mystical qualities of "black blood" and its supposedly miraculous ability to destroy whiteness. This makes him an advocate of the myth of white racial purity. He has no answer regarding the obvious "black blood" in Hispanics and Arabs, who happily spread it here and there throughout the 'white race" without said "race" appearing to worry about it. He also cannot explain why Melungeons have acknowedged African ancestry while remaining Southern whites.
White Continental Army soldiers with "black blood" were white. They saw themselves as white and were viewed as white by others. Period. Your attempts to "honor" them with "black" memorials would have been deemed an unforgivable insult.
I also note that you violate the rules of this forum by challenging the racial identity of another member.
Your attempts to attack me by utilizing two of your friends on another listserv who think I should be punished for showing your illogic a lack of "respect" has backfired and only exposed them to riducule.
One drop of black blood does not destroy a persons whiteness. If they look white and associate with whites, most people(including blacks) view them as white. For instance, heather locklear is a "white" woman who is part black and indian but we've never tried to claim her. I think what Maurice was trying to imply is that AD Powell does not look like a white person. Your black ancestry is visible so it makes it impossible for people to view you as white. In a way, it does seem like your denying your "black blood" by taking on a white identity. Why not call yourself mixed or multiracial? In my opinion that would make more sense, being that you look like a mixed person and not a white woman. I'm not trying to violate the rules but that's just my opinion.
Why do you have a problem with some mixed people identifying as "black" but it's ok to identify as "white"? I take it that you view blacks as inferior or not as good as whites, thus you lash out at mixed people who call themselves black.
When it comes to arabs and hispanics, i have to disagree with you. Most of them deny having african blood all together. Some of them aren't even aware of having african blood so it's irrelevant to them. Now can you explain how he was trying to "honor" them with "black" memorials.
I also note that you violate the rules of this forum by challenging the racial identity of another member.
backhaze wrote:
…what Maurice was trying to imply is that AD Powell does not look like a white person. Your black ancestry is visible so…
I agree with A.D. here. A member’s ancestry and appearance are not legitimate subjects for debate. They are too subjective. This thread is withering into nonsense.
Whatever happened to the discussion of the Black Continental soldiers? That was what I was hoping to read.
Why did no one bring up the well-known fact that far more Blacks fought for abolition by joining the British Army under Dunmore (England had ended slavery in 1772) than ever fought (inadvertently, it seems) to preserve slavery by fighting for the slaveowning colonists?
When cascade wrote that people like AD “deny them the chance to tell their story,” why did no one point out that it was death, not A.D., who denied them the chance to tell their own story. What Cascade apparently meant to say was, “deny *Cascade* the chance to tell their story.” And this, of course, raises the question of why one person is more authorized to tell history than someone else—another worthy topic.
Do not misunderstand. I am not picking sides here. I am just trying to point out that many interesting facets of the Black Continentals are well worth discussing. What A.D. (or anyone else) looks like or self-identifies is just not worth the bandwidth. Please move on.
Last edited by fwsweet on Wed 05 Oct 2005 10:30; edited 3 times in total
Posted: Wed 26 Jan 2005 16:10 Post subject: Loyalists in the American Revolution
Quote:
Upcoming Exhibit:
After the War: The Black Loyalists' Continuing Search for
Freedom
Opening June 23, 2005
After the War: The Black Loyalists' Continuing Search for Freedom traces
the fate of those African-Americans who joined the British cause for
promises of land and freedom. At the end of the Revolutionary war Loyalists, both black and white, fled to New York, the last city to be occupied by the British. While patriot slave owners searched the city for their property, General Birch held hearings at Fraunces Tavern to decide who had earned their freedom fighting as a Black Loyalist. Those who did (some 3500) were given passage to Nova Scotia where they settled Birchtown and other communities. The transition though was not smooth, and settlers endured Nova Scotia's harsh climate, scarcity of arable land, high unemployment, and racial tensions. While many stayed to create new lives in the Canadian Maritimes, almost half the Black Loyalist population continued the search for a new home and moved to Sierra Leone and founded Freetown in 1792. This exhibition is funded in part by the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency.
Example of the obsession with changing history to makes European Americans into "blacks" and the inferiority complex (combined hatred and adoration of whites and assumption of black inferiority) that inspires it:
Six Black Presidents: Black Blood : White Masks USA
by Auset Bakhufu
Just because a few one dropists claim these people as "black" does not mean that all black people think like them. I agree that alot of blacks have hatred for white people but where do you get the idea that we have an adoration for them?
Posted: Mon 07 Nov 2005 14:38 Post subject: Re: A deeper look at an artist who refused to be white
Powell wrote:
Kilian is trying to make something heroic out of accepting the "one drop" myth. Beardon was only following orders, obeying the status quo, etc. What's heroic about that? Courage lies in defying the status quo and rejecting the ODR.
Courage goes in claiming waht you identify with no matter what other people say.
If others would have been accepted as white and did so to avoid harsh treatment and he chose not to, because of his pride in his culture, that is a strong act. If identifying as white was not accepted and He felt white, and still chose to identify as white then that would have been courage as well. Hiding who you are or automatically accepting what others assume of you is not courage.
So long as he didn't try telling others that identified as White that they were sellouts or anyhting, then he is allright in my book. Was he a multigen or first gen by the way?
Posted: Mon 07 Nov 2005 15:46 Post subject: Re: A deeper look at an artist who refused to be white
Salsassin wrote:
Hiding who you are or automatically accepting what others assume of you is not courage.
I think that "hiding who you are" (in the eye of the accuser) is precisely what triggers externally imposed ethnic labels. It seems to me that "who you are" is something that only the individual himself/herself can determine. If you accept this, then by definition nobody can "hide who they are."
For example, given that Salsassin (Peruvian), Omar (Chilean), and I (Puerto Rican) descend from former Iberian New World colonies, I would bet that all three of us have easily measureable African DNA admixture (I know that I do). And yet none of us self-identifies as "African-American" or as a member of the U.S. Black endogamous group. Indeed, I suspect that we would be irritated at anyone who insisted that we were "hiding who we are" because we refuse to so self-identify.
Furthermore, not only is "hiding who you are" self-contradictory by definition, it contains the implied criticism (explicit in the prior post) that any Anglo-American with detectable African ancestry who refuses to self-identify as Black does out of self-interest to avoid persecution and oppression by a racist society (Black and White). The implication that such motivation is somehow reprehensible baffles me. To me, the desire to make a good life for yourself and your family is praiseworthy. And if you can make your family's lives easier by self-identifying one way or the other, why is that wicked?
It works both ways. AD chastises Gregory Williams for "falsely" adopting a Black self-identity merely in order to become rich and famous. Sheesh! What better reason is there? I would self-identify as a Martian if it would make me rich and famous. And there was an implied criticism above of people who chose to be White in order to live free of oppression. Again, I cannot think of a better reason to do so. Why is this a problem?
Joined: 04 May 2005 {Posts: 2021 } Location: santiago, chile
Posted: Wed 09 Nov 2005 13:02 Post subject: Re: A deeper look at an artist who refused to be white
fwsweet wrote:
...
For example, given that Salsassin (Peruvian), Omar (Chilean), and I (Puerto Rican) descend from former Iberian New World colonies, I would bet that all three of us have easily measureable African DNA admixture (I know that I do). And yet none of us self-identifies as "African-American" or as a member of the U.S. Black endogamous group. Indeed, I suspect that we would be irritated at anyone who insisted that we were "hiding who we are" because we refuse to so self-identify.
...
Hi,
I didn't know Salsassin was a fellow Latino. A Peruvian is a brother for us, although our countries, like brothers they are, keep discussing lots of things about limits, history, immigration and traditions. However, we got a common history and we share many things.
In my case I don't know if I have African admixture as you say. Chilean population has very little indeed, according to genetic studies. Slavery was very minor in here. However African influences can also come directly from Europe. Spaniards, Portugueses, Italians and French had mixtures with Arabs and North Africans since the beginning of civilizations and they carry a very diverse genetics. And they were also the main European immigrants to Latin America. As the matter of fact I look Arab or "Muslim" so much that I have trouble to convince Muslim and Jews themselves I am not one of them
And also I would like to say him that yes, Pisco (local brandy) is Peruvian but Chilean as well. After all Chile was the southern province of Peru in both Inca and Spanish colonial times so we share more than we usually think.
Anyways. I would like to say to Jorge that I am glad he is here, and that he can tell us a lot about that wonderful country that is Peru: the archaeological capital of the Americas; a melting pot of races and cultures; a land rich in poetry and traditions; of marvellous andean music and folk traditions, and the home of the "chifa rice", a new cousine of Asian and local influences.
Finally, it is fun we had to communicate in English give the three of us speak Spanish well
Jajajaja. Si pero despues quien mas nos entiende? Aunque hay una persona aqui, qye su nombre comienza con la primera letra de onzalo y su apellido comineza con la primera letra de Wesleyan, que habla babosada y media, y no se como se hico licensiado. El resto, hasta los que contradigo un monton como la senhora Powell, tendran us cosas con las que estoy en desacuerdo, pero muestran su erudicion.
Posted: Fri 11 Nov 2005 14:29 Post subject: The Carrot and the Stick
Franks says:
Quote:
It works both ways. AD chastises Gregory Williams for "falsely" adopting a Black self-identity merely in order to become rich and famous. Sheesh! What better reason is there? I would self-identify as a Martian if it would make me rich and famous.
Actually, I contend that Williams (like other "white blacks" a la Adrian Piper, Judy Scales Trent, etc.) is the victim of a kind of emotional child abuse that teaches you that you are not good enough to claim your Europoean ancestry. His father did this to him when he was a vulnerable child. He not only taught Williams to honor the "One Drop" myth, he put his two elder sons in a position designed to maximize discrimination when he could have easily avoided exposing them to discrimination at all.
The "One Drop" myth has a carrot and stick approach to its victims. First Williams got the "You're not good enough to be white and only fit to be black" because you "blood" is "inferior" approach. As an adult, he received the "carrot" approach. It's much easier to get into good schools and get good jobs through affirmative action because you are competing against "blacks" alone and not with white and other nonblack peers. In the 19th and early 20th century, the "Negro colleges" appeared to be the "carrot" designed to make people content with or resigned to being "better" varieties of "Negroes."
The latest "carrot" is the financial reward for promoting autobiographies that support the ODR. If Williams wrote the same story but ended up identifying as white, do you really think he would have been promoted in the media, with no dissenting views allowed? He would have had to self-publish and sell on the internet.
I would also note that Latinos, Asians, and other groups have traditionally gone for the gold (a white racial classification) without worrying about whether they were "worthy" of the "honor" or whether every single white agreed with their ambitions or not. In other words, they did the opposite of what Anglo "Mulatto Elites" did.
You've probably heard of Andrew Hacker's "Two Nations - Separate and Unequal". Hacker did this exercise in his sociology classes in which he asked his white students to imagine that they were transformed into blacks and to set a compensation price for the social disabilities they would suffer. The average price was one million dollars, according to Hacker. The average upper middle-class "white black" can be persuaded for far less than a cool million, especially when emotional child abuse is combined with the "carrot."
Posted: Fri 11 Nov 2005 16:10 Post subject: Re: Padding the black racial resume
Powell wrote:
I also note that you violate the rules of this forum by challenging the racial identity of another member.
Well technically, many of us, including Frank, have challenged all the racial identities of all members as we have challenged the concept of race tiself. I fully support your Ethnic identity of White. I have never seen you claim that your ancestry was only European either.
I disagree with you on many things, but not on that.
Posted: Fri 11 Nov 2005 16:15 Post subject: Re: The Carrot and the Stick
Powell wrote:
Actually, I contend that Williams (like other "white blacks" a la Adrian Piper, Judy Scales Trent, etc.) is the victim of a kind of emotional child abuse that teaches you that you are not good enough to claim your Europoean ancestry.
Yep, this is where i would disagree with you. While many who do identify as Black might fall in your category, many others do not. Halle berry has her reasons posted in a thread here, So does Danzy Senna
Many are just real proud of the black culture they grew up in. Just like you are proud to identify with the White culture you grew up in.
Posted: Wed 21 Dec 2005 09:55 Post subject: Re: The Carrot and the Stick
Salsassin wrote:
Powell wrote:
Actually, I contend that Williams (like other "white blacks" a la Adrian Piper, Judy Scales Trent, etc.) is the victim of a kind of emotional child abuse that teaches you that you are not good enough to claim your Europoean ancestry.
Yep, this is where i would disagree with you. While many who do identify as Black might fall in your category, many others do not. Halle berry has her reasons posted in a thread here, So does Danzy Senna
[Picture of Danzy Senna omitted.]
Many are just real proud of the black culture they grew up in. Just like you are proud to identify with the White culture you grew up in.
"[J]ust real proud"? Without a doubt we would like it to be so. But I don't see honest pride yet in this cocky tone that Salsassin affects.
The way I read Halley Berry, she seems to intone noble martyrdom to the "cause" of "black" actresses in whose behalf she accepts awards. Like Danzy Senna, Berry seems to emphasize her making a conscious "choice" to be "black." (Clearly implying she had a choice -- which in fact she had.)
Danzy Senna makes herself crystal clear on these points. (a) She is a martyr (i.e., "noble"), because (b) she easily could have chosen to be "non-black." Senna writes describing how she insistently rejected multiracial, and also "white," which she "experienced." (See the quote below.)
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/1998/07/24feature.html
These two ladies share a common interest with Gregory Howard Williams and the many others of their ilk. Their common interest is personally profiting from being loyal "martyr" light-skinned Negroes. If their affected interest was the true best interest of "black" Americans they would work for racial integration. At this time, decades afterward, anyone in their position should know that deconstructing "differences" labeled as "the races" is the meaning of human racial integration. They campaign instead for the opposite. Obviously they are scam-artists -- they're peddling the "One Drop rule."
Ascribed "blackness" -- involuntary -- the action of the hypodescent/ODR frustrates true "black" pride. Rejecting this ascribed racial "black" state, for "white blacks," elicits accusations of "passing," "running away ..."; and accepting "black" for them always will be questioned whether voluntary? It plainly is a stigma. What else explains these "selfless martyr" tones?
Barack Obama, similarly, to Halle Berry, sells himself in the hypodescent "black" robes of ascribed identity. There are no Black Codes, no Jim Crow laws to overcome. Consequently the "anti-racism" they are peddling is part of solidifying the "black" caste by its endogamous "color line." (The "line" still "taint"-enforced, they would have us believe. What else might the ODR be?) A "rule" is not "free choice," is not "pride."
Danzy Senna goes further. She satirically damns violators of the hypodescent/ODR in her writing. Describing her "choice" ("Now that we don't have to anymore, we choose to,") she invokes a straw "political strong arm of the multiracial movement, affectionately known as the Mulatto Nation"; she characterizes these (i.e, her own kind) in disparaging terms of "messy hair" and "mixed breeds." Senna showed her contempt for multiracial as any sort of bridge. She ridiculed this "middle road," multiracial, and also the once desirable fractional identities of Mulatto and Quadroon. The uniting principals of "black" identity which I read by these "droppers" are only victimization, grievance, and blaming other people. The African "blood" common to being "black" unites negatively, as pariah, those ODR-expelled from other castes. Laws have not enforced this pariah-expulsion for 38 years. It perpetuates as self-despising "black pride" that Salsassin touts.
Danzy Senna stereotyped "whites" as mostly racists.
Danzy Senna wrote:
I used to spy on white people, blend into their crowd, let them think I was one of them, and then listen as they talked in smug disdain about black folks. It wasn't something I had to search out. And most white people, I found, no matter how much they preach MLK's dream, are just as obsessed with color and difference as the rest of us. They just talk about it in more coded terms. Around white folks, I never had to bring up race. They brought it up for me, and I listened, my skin tingling slightly, my stomach twisting in anger, as they revealed their true feelings about colored folks. Then I would spring it on them, tell them who I really was, and watch, in a kind of pained glee, as their faces went from eggshell white, to rose pink, to hot mama crimson, to The Color Purple. Afterward, I would report back to headquarters, where my friends would laugh and holler about how I was an undercover Negro.
There had been moments in my life when I had not asserted my black identity. I hadn't "passed" in the traditional sense of the word, but in a more subtle way, by simply mumbling that I was mixed. Then the white people in my midst seemed to forget whom they were talking to, and countless times I was a silent witness to candid racism. When I would remind them that my father was black, they would laugh and say, "But you're different." That was somewhere I never wanted to return. There was danger in this muddy middle stance. A danger of disappearing. Of being swallowed whole by the great white whale. I had seen the arctic belly of the beast and didn't plan on returning.
Clearly, nothing about Senna's characterization of "racist whites," or "muddiness" in being near "the arctic ... beast" was meant to close any rift. It was inflammatory. As with so much nowadays that passes for "anti-racism" Senna's piece was not-very-subtle incitement to "anti-white" animosity. All this has nothing to do with "real proud" of African resemblance or heritage.
George
Posted: Thu 22 Dec 2005 15:34 Post subject: Re: The Carrot and the Stick
winwinkel wrote:
Clearly, nothing about Senna's characterization of "racist whites," or "muddiness" in being near "the arctic ... beast" was meant to close any rift. It was inflammatory. As with so much nowadays that passes for "anti-racism" Senna's piece was not-very-subtle incitement to "anti-white" animosity. All this has nothing to do with "real proud" of African resemblance or heritage.
This is where I split from the idea of "African-American is just another ethnicity." I have no problem with people self-identifying with any ethnic group. Even though I personally consider such identity politics a bit silly, I have learned that some people are so proud their chosen ethnicity that they become enraged at any imagined criticsm of their group. And yet I am willing to tolerate even this level of irrational discourtesy.
Where I draw the line is when people insist that overt hatred and contempt of others is a fundamental part of their ethnicity. That you cannot by a true enthic "X" unless you verbally attack those who you see as "Y" at every opportunity. The above quotes, if reversed, would brand the speaker as a virulent White supremacist--a throwback to the era of lynchings. That such speech is excused by guilt-ridden liberals is understandable given the history of African Americans. But I find it disgusting and do not tolerate it in my presence.
Posted: Thu 22 Dec 2005 22:12 Post subject: Re: The Carrot and the Stick
fwsweet wrote:
This is where I split from the idea of "African-American is just another ethnicity." I have no problem with people self-identifying with any ethnic group. Even though I personally consider such identity politics a bit silly, I have learned that some people are so proud their chosen ethnicity that they become enraged at any imagined criticsm of their group. And yet I am willing to tolerate even this level of irrational discourtesy.
See, i don't equate the ethnicity as a mandatory attachment to the racism. I think tons of Christians are prejudiced as hell in their religious views considering all non-christians are going to hell, but that doesn't mean i beleive Christianity can not remain without that virulence.
Quote:
Where I draw the line is when people insist that overt hatred and contempt of others is a fundamental part of their ethnicity. That you cannot by a true enthic "X" unless you verbally attack those who you see as "Y" at every opportunity. The above quotes, if reversed, would brand the speaker as a virulent White supremacist--a throwback to the era of lynchings. That such speech is excused by guilt-ridden liberals is understandable given the history of African Americans. But I find it disgusting and do not tolerate it in my presence.
'
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