you're quite right; my experience in that instance comes from my hometowns of dc and baltimore, where i absolutely had trouble getting a cab; as well as my observations of ("obviously")black men in nyc trying to do same. i watch, always.
Could be Baltimore is less diverse. My mother lived there and I did see a lot less mix. So ethnic people probably would stick out. Also mannerisms, dress, etc might subconsciously help in the identification of an ethnicity.
Again, I am only going by one picture, which many times can be misleading.
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hmmm; to go with generalizations (which i take it you don't like, but they do serve a purpose, in that they cover large populations and trends); my experience in American cities has been that most american jewry are ashkenazi. i have met very few sephardim, unless they are first generation iranian, post shah exiles; or perhaps ethiopian
Actually, most Jews from those countries are not Sephardi. The ones that are migrated there from the Iberian peninsula. Sephardic means Spanish in old Ladino. They are the Latino version of the Germanic Ashkenazi. Sean Paul is part Sephardic and part Asian.
Some famous Sephardic Jews or of Sephardic ancestry are Paula Abdul, Neve Cambell, David Charvet, Emmanuelle Chriqui, me (j/k).
Typical Sephardis
but perhpaps in the midwest or west coast there is an abundance of sephardim i'm unaware of--that's entirely possible. but i meet almost none, and i think it's safe to say that NYC has it's share of jews. (and i am in the entertainment biz, so my world is pretty much limited to jews).
There are plenty, but the entertainment business is dominated by Ashkenazi Jews.
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but i was jewish--at least by their matrilineal laws. didn't matter. lips too thick. skin too yellow. that left one option: black.
i stand by my above assertion.
Again, I don't doubt your experience.
We have posted plenty of other people's experiences like yours here. At the same time, we have posted experiences of people who looked more obviously Afrodescent than you that were asked if they were hispanic, grew up feeling always questioned by their black side, their white side, both, etc. Each experience is unique. We even have some biracials who are very anti-black or anti-white. Some post here but the most extreme (in words) have gotten banned.
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i'll sort of agree with you on that, except that my point was not to suggest that ford and i shared a phenotype; it was to assert that much of white america has not embraced the notion of "biracial," and would simply label ford black (and in fact, they do label him as such) despite the fact that he is obviously mixed. i'm not making a value judgment per se on how mainstream america chooses to identify others, just stating that they do so, and how they do so.
But the fact that he self-identified always as black and came specifically from that community has a lot to do with it. I know people with Harold's exact same phenotype who identify as White or other. Especially in tri-racial isolate populations.
All these guys are members of the Jackson Whites of NY.
Or lets look at some of the leaders of the Lumbees who do not classify themselves as Black, but as Indians.
The first two are related to Heather Locklear also a triracial isolate.
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not to a degree, to an almost certainty. i will not go into the scores of studies (the most recent done by johns hopkins), tracing the progress of black america since the civil rights movement. EVERY minority group with the exception of black men have made economic/educational gains.
Incorrect. Most studies focus on race, not populations. There are plenty of rural appalachian groups and other groups most refer to as "WHite Trash" that have had cyclical, generational problems of poverty that have persisted sinceshareholder and even indentured servitude times.
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black men have actually declined in every indicator since the mid 70's.
A huge distrust in the system since the Tilden-Hayes betrayal and ingrained problems from past abuse are the biggest problem. Evidence for this is the upward mobility of Caribbean and African immigrants in comparison.
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the "plenty" of whites argument is a straw man; all things being equal, whites still have a "benefit" of the doubt which greets them based on appearances only.
If the interviewee is White raised in a White population, for sure. It's called own group bias and exists in all groups. And unfortunately they still are the biggest population in this country by far. Not saying discrimination does not exist as it is quite obvious, but, by and large, they are overcomable, as recent immigrants have shown. What is harder to overcome is mutigenerational poverty and autodefeatism, which is also existent in many Latino and White poor communities.
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we choose to view this differently. this was a play on southern (white) fears of miscegentaion. i can't see how anyone could see it another way; but i respect that some people do.
If it was a fear of miscegenation, why use a cheesy playboy bunny? Why not make it an upscale White woman who doesn't sound like an airhead? Naw, I think they were playing on the party animal aspect.
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Exactly. So consider, if you will, that all this "ire," of mine, and this as the result of having skin as light as my own. I was not the recipient of the worst of it, but i got enough to know that it wasn't very pleasant. And, my perspective may be much broader than most, for how many people actually got to live among the (hypocritically) tolerant mainstream, as one of them; and among the minority population, as one of them? not many. it is a tricky phenotypic fluke to pull off.
I am in the same boat as you on this one as I can pass as White.
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i must admit that i'm not quite sure what you mean by racism that comes from the "other side." if you mean that i ignore black people's "racism," it's because i do. we need to define our terms. to my mind, (cluttered though it is), black people can't be racist. racism, in the american context, needs to have an institutional component. do blacks in america have the ability to deny whites (or anybody else) housing? jobs? education? no. so black people can be prejudiced, but not, in my polemic estimation, racist. but many will and do disagree with me.
I am one of them. Call institutionalized racism, institutionalized racism. It is not the only kind of racism. And Blacks have discriminated in the job environment in many situations where they became the majority. Especially in many public sectors. Just like the irish did when they became influential in the police. It is not that racism doesn't exist, it is just that it will manifest itself to the degree of power each individual has. The more power the more tht racism will influence others. I have been mugged for looking white, I have had my sister called a race traitor because she was standing next to me in Penn Station. Both these occasions the perpetrators were Black. They had power to make a choice and chose the side of being racist. Period.
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i respectfully disagree on the tiger woods front. myself, and many other americans beleive that tiger woods is a black man.
Beleif does not make it so. He is an African American. But not Black. He is Afrodescent. And Asian decent, predominantly.
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his naacp award is confirmation enough of that to me.
Which is an organization for "colored" people, not just Black.
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but then again, many people say that i am white, because that is the evidence of their eyes, so i dig what you are saying about appearances. and facts are all i deal with, and then i hone them. it's my job.
Well good. On this board the moderators love fact. In fact, if you ever question someone's beleif, in this board you have to back up your claim with quantifiable evidence/data or retract the statement. It makes for interesting debates.
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and salsassin, i sincerely hope that you are not suggesting, by your singular example of a white man abused by the police, that police brutality is color blind? i can't and won't believe that you are saying that. i can't even comment on that part of your post because it is an ad captandum argument you simply can't back up.
Hardly saying all police brutality is color blind as I have seen racist police first hand. But police brutality towards Black people is not always racial, but some times it is just police brutality to someone who happened to be Black.
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and to your point about south asians: yes, many are, i'm sure, discriminated against. but what i am trying to get at is a deeper understanding of what prejudice is, and isn't. i always come back to black and white, because it is the bloody minuet america has been dancing to for 400 years. we still haven't figured it out. EVERY other ethnic minority in america has, by relative contrast, flourished (notice that i said "relatively").
True, and even Caribbean and African ethnicities are flourishing at a higher rate than African Americans. SO it definitely is an issue that needs to be studied.
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my concern is with how racism affects opportunity and class in this culture, not whether it makes someone "feel bad" (i'm not minimizing the feeling bad part, i just think it would be better for a group to be able to eat, even if they felt bad, rather than the other way around).
south asians, with the exception of small parts of the west coast, have generally done very well in america, the vietnamese, bengali and pakistani populations in particular. their rates of college attendance for second generation populations, and rates of incarceration are, respectively, very high and very low. whenever anyone suggests that there is any corellation between discrimination of one group, as opposed to--or in concert with--black americans, i am very, very, concerned. to discount the impact of slavery in this country, and its lasting psychology is intellectually and emotionally dishonest. there is NO analagous example. once you remove the N factor of people who were brought here against their will, and people who chose to come here, you are left with a zero sum.
Again, I would say you need to separate ethnicities a bit more. I beleive rate in Africans and Caribbeans is lower for incarceration with the exception of Jamaica, maybe. Same with many African populations. Ghana and Nigeria have a strong record the last few decades in this country.
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now, having said that, it probably is time black america lost its a priori sense of victimhood and self-fulfilling prophecies; but how that can happen is another story, and one i have neither the intellect or stamina to even broach.
and yes, i agree with you that this is a great place to hear others' view points and have a great discussion.
Fully agreed.
Last edited by Salsassin on Sat 20 Jan 2007 18:35; edited 2 times in total
i'm not quite sure what you mean by racism that comes from the "other side."
I believe that Jaime was using the word as it is defined in The Rules, paragraph B.4.e. As is says at the top of this screen, members are asked to read the The Rules before posting. The Rules are there precisely to avoid misunderstandings of this kind. David followed The Rules by defining what he meant by "racism" (basically, what I would call hegemonic or institutional racism) thereby avoiding misunderstanding. Jaime also followed The Rules and did not define his usage because he employed the site-standard definition posted in The Rules, paragraph B.4.e, which should also have avoided misunderstanding.
Last edited by fwsweet on Sat 20 Jan 2007 19:58; edited 1 time in total
so black people can be prejudiced, but not, in my polemic estimation, racist. but many will and do disagree with me.
Salsassin wrote:
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I am one of them. Call institutionalized racism, institutionalized racism. It is not the only kind of racism. And Blacks have discriminated in the job environment in many situations where they became the majority. Especially in many public sectors. Just like the irish did when they became influential in the police. It is not that racism doesn't exist, it is just that it will manifest itself to the degree of power each individual has. The more power the more tht racism will influence others. I have been mugged for looking white, I have had my sister called a race traitor because she was standing next to me in Penn Station. Both these occasions the perpetrators were Black. They had power to make a choice and chose the side of being racist. Period.
I am one of them as well. I agree with your summation Salsassin and thank you for mentioning again (I believe Frank had a similar incident happen to him once) what happend to your sister. I can relate to this situation fully. I have on occasion (along with my family) been subjected to differential negative and sometimes even hostile behavior by certain low-income blacks. That being said my husband and I are a united front in the face of racism whatever color it comes in and would fight to the death anyone who ever attempted to harm our children. I believe this no nonsense aura has been sensed by those who've wished us harm (that and we must have a Guardian Angel) because none of the situations we've encountered (and they have thankfully been few but just enough to make me question this "blacks can't be racist" mantra I was fed in college) have ever escalated to physical violence.
Joined: 05 Apr 2006 {Posts: 300 } Location: Chatsworth, CA
Posted: Sat 20 Jan 2007 23:21 Post subject:
I agree with Debra Dickerson's take on the issue.
Privileged people fight to hold on to privilege. Not because they're white (or black) but because they're human, and no one wants to give up power.
The less privilege people have, the more tightly they hold on to what little they've got. So the most outwardly racist people are often those at the bottom rungs of the society. The ethnic Russian gangs that roam the streets of Moscow, beating, robbing, and killing anyone who looks different, especially people of color. The black American gangs who do the same to both foreign born blacks and non blacks in just about every major city in the US. The Latino gangs who periodically murder their black neighbors just for walking down the street here in LA.
Posted: Sat 20 Jan 2007 23:50 Post subject: more to come
wow, some really insightful responses here, some of which i agree with, most of which i (very respectfully ) absolutely disagree with. when my flu subsides a bit, i will post an entirely too long reply, but i want to do the quality of discourse on this page justice, the kind of justice that can't be meted out in a robitussin haze.
best,
d.
p.s.
for those of you with access to the ny times; i have an essay in the "lives" section of the times tomorrow, on what else?.. . race.
This thread was a tangential sub-thread of The Passing of David Matthews in the “Issues for Biracial Americans” forum, and has been split off to here.
Let me express a grandfatherly concern in my role as site administrator. The thread possibly opens some interesting topics regarding inter-group conflict. Among the possibilities are:
Is institutional intergroup hostility more or less harmful (in whatever way) than individual intergroup hostility? Does subtle, even subconscious, disdain of The Other harm society more or less than overt intergroup violence (rape, murder, lynchings, beatings)? Do the ways that groups delineate their differences produce different forms of intergroup hostility? For example, how does gender discrimination differ from interethnic hostility? How is hostility across the U.S. color line different from hostility across socio-economic classes, religions, or nationalities? Are some groups within each category more prone to intergroup hostility than others (Are women more hostile than men? Italians worse than Puerto Ricans? Rich versus poor? Catholics versus Muslims? And, of course--the central topic: Is U.S. White hostility towards U.S. Blacks more or less harmful than vice-versa, taking into account the disparity in their respective institutional component?)
My concern is that this thread could easily degenerate into a semantic debate over the “correct” definition of “racism.” We already know that participants differ in what they mean by the word. And we already know how each person differently defines it. Hence, a purely semantic debate over its meaning would be sterile and pointless. There is no “correct” meaning in this context. It is the referent behind the word that should be of interest. As site administrator, I shall encourage discussion/debate of intergroup hostility and how it is expressed by different groups, especially its institutional versus individual components. As site administrator, I shall discourage arguments over the mere “correct” meaning of a word.
I see no reason to believe that AA's could not commit acts of racism. Many feel that racism is exclusively "white". I knew somebody who felt this way...she said that only white people could be racist because they hold the power. This person has questionable views on many things, however.
I feel that, yes, blacks can be as racist as anyone...the only caveat is that it goes unnoticed when you compare it to how white-on-black racism/crime is discussed.
I see no reason to believe that AA's could not commit acts of racism. Many feel that racism is exclusively "white". I knew somebody who felt this way...she said that only white people could be racist because they hold the power. This person has questionable views on many things, however.
It's my belief that this new-fangled definition of racism is a dodge. It's invoked to excuse similar behavior by people from groups deemed victimized. Seriously, how much power does some low-income white loser who joins a white supremacist organization have? In prisons where white racist groups thrive (often out of necessity) they have much less power (defined as influence in the prison system) than other races, but they are still motivated to commit acts of violence based on racial animus and are still seen as racist.
pianoplayer111 wrote:
I feel that, yes, blacks can be as racist as anyone...the only caveat is that it goes unnoticed when you compare it to how white-on-black racism/crime is discussed.
True and goes unnoticed in other areas and between non-white groups as well. I live near and work in Washington DC. Here the predominantly black police force has/had a serious issue with police brutality within the Latino (Central American) community here. All of the police officers in these cases were black, but their racism and abuse of power is ignored in some quarters because they are black and do not have power (whatever that means). I've come across arguments from activists and others that abusive and racist behavior exhibited by black police officers here toward Hispanics, which includes racist behavior toward Hispanic police recruits, is really the fault of whites. As I heard one person put it whites had established a culture of white male dominance. So ultimately, whites are responsible for their own misbehavior and everyone else's.
I don't know...I don't want to veer off topic here but I've been pondering an issue lately. You notice how black-on-white crime is rarely covered in the media, but the reverse sparks controversy? And I notice that when missing persons are involved, the minority victims don't receive as much airplay.
I don't know...I don't want to veer off topic here but I've been pondering an issue lately. You notice how black-on-white crime is rarely covered in the media, but the reverse sparks controversy? And I notice that when missing persons are involved, the minority victims don't receive as much airplay.
Joined: 02 Feb 2007 {Posts: 255 } Location: California
Posted: Sun 09 Sep 2007 23:26 Post subject:
A definition of racism:
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""the predication of decisions and policies on considerations of race for the purpose of subordinating a racial group and maintaining control over that group."
Source: Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton, Black Power: the Politics of Liberation in America, pp. 3.
Can blacks be 'racist' according to this definition? In theory, yes. As a practical consideration, probably not.
""the predication of decisions and policies on considerations of race for the purpose of subordinating a racial group and maintaining control over that group."
Source: Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton, Black Power: the Politics of Liberation in America, pp. 3.
Can blacks be 'racist' according to this definition? In theory, yes. As a practical consideration, probably not.
Considering Stokely Carmichael is not a linguist, nor is that the definition of racism in any dictionary, not really concerned.
Joined: 02 Feb 2007 {Posts: 255 } Location: California
Posted: Sun 09 Sep 2007 23:40 Post subject:
Salsassin wrote:
High School Teacher wrote:
A definition of racism:
Quote:
""the predication of decisions and policies on considerations of race for the purpose of subordinating a racial group and maintaining control over that group."
Source: Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton, Black Power: the Politics of Liberation in America, pp. 3.
Can blacks be 'racist' according to this definition? In theory, yes. As a practical consideration, probably not.
Considering Stokely Carmichael is not a linguist, nor is that the definition of racism in any dictionary, not really concerned.
I understand. Dictionaries come in handy when you want simplicity . . . even at the cost of accuracy.
Dictionaries come in handy when you want simplicity . . . even at the cost of accuracy.
"Accuracy" is meaningless in this context. Peer-reviewed college-level dictionaries tell how a word actually is used, not how it should be used. This topic is now locked per rule 3.7. How the word "racism" is actually used in the U.S. vernacular is a legitimate topic. But the next person who argues that any definition is more "correct" or "accurate" than any other in any forum will be immediately suspended without warning.
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This person has questionable views on many things, however.
