Don't Call me African-American

[U.man]

Except when sharing what they have been told. That's not their opinion but what they have been told by someone, who you would consider qualified.

My intention was to suggest that if you haven't experienced it first hand, your notion of Bigotry is limited. You can have an understanding of it as a behavior, as a belief or in any number of ways. That person does not know how it feels. That doesn't diminish their sincerity in opposing Bigotry (or supporting it, for that matter). Their essential understanding is not first hand. I've had childbirth described to me many times but I have no knowledge of what it feels like. I can imagine how it feels but I can't say I know how it feels. That allows many people to be oblivious to their Bigotry. Consider all the times you've heard someone say (in one way or another) "I have nothing against Jews but you know how they are".

[thoth]

I don't believe that Caucasian folks who fall somewhere in the range between "eggshell" and "so white you're pink" have a personal appreciation of what bigotry feels like. Some have an intellectual understanding of bigotry but none have ever actually experienced it. Bigotry has never been directed at them, ever. So the opinions voiced on the topic by such folks, no matter how well intentioned, is something akin to offering opinions on parenting by people who have no children.

While you might be right about economic and historical discrimination, c'mon this is Philly. Most of the white people on this board live in or near neighborhoods that are not majority white. You really think they've never been discriminated against or insulted because of their race? I've got a bridge to sell you...

Also what does "so white you're pink" mean?

[seand]

White people living in black majority neighborhoods have no doubt experienced bits of personal bias or prejudice that give one some insight into what its like to be on the recieving end of personal prejudice. I know I have. Personal prejudice is absolutely a form of bigotry, no doubt, but its not quite the same sense of wider historical disenfranchisement people like to some up with the word "privelege".

Maybe its not quite apples and oranges but more like apples and asian pears.

[thoth]

White people living in black majority neighborhoods have no doubt experienced bits of personal bias or prejudice that give one some insight into what its like to be on the recieving end of personal prejudice. I know I have. Personal prejudice is absolutely a form of bigotry, no doubt, but its not quite the same sense of wider historical disenfranchisement people like to some up with the word "privelege".

Maybe its not quite apples and oranges but more like apples and asian pears.

I agree, which is why it's silly to say that they have never experienced any form of racism firsthand.

[U.man]

I understand what you're saying but I think there's an order of several magnitudes of difference between being hated by some of your neighbors and what I was alluding to.Yes, that neighbor hating you irrationally is hurtful and you get a few drops of understanding of how it feels. It's not the same in terms of "size". I think most people of color, regardless of ethnicity, would agree with me. You have not ever been discriminated against to the magnitude that I have been. At virtually all of the places you go in your life, you are not a minority and there's no generations old hate "against your type". I don't think being a white person, living on the gentrifying edge of a historically black neighborhood gives you personal experience with the kind of Bigotry I'm talking about. "Most of the white people on this board...." . Really? You've polled 51% of the white folks and they all agree with you? Oh please.

[thoth]

I understand what you're saying but I think there's an order of several magnitudes of difference between being hated by some of your neighbors and what I was alluding to.Yes, that neighbor hating you irrationally is hurtful and you get a few drops of understanding of how it feels. It's not the same in terms of "size". I think most people of color, regardless of ethnicity, would agree with me. You have not ever been discriminated against to the magnitude that I have been. At virtually all of the places you go in your life, you are not a minority and there's no generations old hate "against your type". I don't think being a white person, living on the gentrifying edge of a historically black neighborhood gives you personal experience with the kind of Bigotry I'm talking about. "Most of the white people on this board...." . Really? You've polled 51% of the white folks and they all agree with you? Oh please.

Go reread your own initial statement.

And if you don't believe me, start a thread and ask. Funny accusing me of assumption in a post where you presume to know my race, where I've lived, and what experiences I've had.

[U.man]

Read your own posts, bridge seller. Why would a black person make a statement about living on the edge of a majority black neighborhood? I've written nothing that is contradictory. You, on the other hand are so in love with your politically correct self, that you can't handle anything that may challenge your self satisfied world view. "I'm a white guy and I live on the edge of a black neighborhood so I know all about being the subject of bigotry". Really? That is ridiculous. If all the other white folks here are pretentious enough to agree with you then you have a lovely little group think going on. Six thousand views of this thread and they're all rushing to your defense. All the white folks want to trumpet the five minutes of historic prejudice their group experienced in America, yet have zero capacity to have their opinions questioned in the most mild way. I've never even IMPLIED that there's anything negative about not knowing the feeling of the type of bigotry that transcends the black guy who's pissed at you because you're raising the property taxes in his neighborhood. You're just incapable seeing how utterly ludicrous your rationale is. I'm not assuming, you're a white guy. Most likely from an ethnic group that dealt out tons more bigotry than you've experienced. Rave on. I have no interest in buying your bridge but I do have a suggestion about what you can do with it.

[seand]

All the white folks want to trumpet the five minutes of historic prejudice their group experienced in America, yet have zero capacity to have their opinions questioned in the most mild way. I've never even IMPLIED that there's anything negative about not knowing the feeling of the type of bigotry that transcends the black guy who's pissed at you because you're raising the property taxes in his neighborhood.

No generalizing or stereotyping going on here, no sir.

All my life I've been put in a box by people for how I look so therefore its all good to put everybody who looks like X in a single box. "Those people" are all equally clueless, you know. Not like people who look like Z who are naturally never, ever bigoted against people who look like X, Y, P or Q of course. Did I mention how much I hate how smug all those people who like X are?

[Cro Burnham]

as a white person, obviously i have never experienced what a black person (or an asian person, etc.), feels on daily basis being surrounded by a majority of people many of whom have very negative feelings toward them.
on the other hand, i lived the first eighteen years of my life on a block that was (and remains) about 50% black, and i went to 8 years of public schools that were 50%+ black and where the social hierarchy was largely established by black kids and black pop culture. i experienced many instances of being picked on, threatened, or teased because i was white, therefore uncool, "oaky", not athletic enough, nerdily academically oriented, etc. back in the day, it was common for white kids to be mocked for their "white" (i.e., eddie murphy's hilarious exaggerated white) accent. at times, it could be pretty upsetting. i have also spent a fair amount of time in east asia, in places where white men may experience reception ranging from undeserving blind (almost objectifying) adulation to equally undeserved, objectifying ridicule to insulting arrogant dismissal to almost total invisibility. thithese moments might be the closest thing i have experienced that i might imagine is how many blacks can feel in america throughout the day in a mainstream culture dominated by non-black people.

i would NEVER compare the aggregate level of the distress caused me by this to the broad historic racism experienced by non-whites and non-christians, particularly blacks, in the western world.

but i think the attitude "you could never understand" is wrong. many people are capable of using their own experiences to gain deep insight into the experiences of others.

i also believe many (certainly not all or even a majority) blacks use some variant of "it's a black thing you wouldn't understand" to dismiss anything else that anyone has to say that is contrary to what they feel. it's a cop out. more importantly, it serves more to marginalize the issue important to the black person expressing it, because the truth is most others don't really care that much to learn about the issue to begin with, and this style of argumentation just gives the non-black participant all the motivation they need to exit the conversation and disregard the issue at hand.

as more immigrants from non-white, non-black groups become more prominent in america, the more the "you wouldn't understand" approach will marginalize otherwise legitimate expressions that ideally deserve more open conversation. to many people the response is veryy often "it may be black thing i won't understand, but i really don't care - just like i wouldn't expect you to care about "my cultural thing" unless i respectfully discussed with you why you might be interested".

[Cro Burnham]

also, it was mentioned earlier, there is no biological basis for defining race, as most of us know. race is a cultural construct superficially, but by no means exclusively, based on facial features and skin tone.

a historic geneticist would likely point out that there are village clusters in africa where there is a greater range of genetic variation than you will find in entire countries outside of africa. essentially, what i believe this means is that the genetic "distance" present among neighbors in small areas of subsaharan africa is greater than the genetic distance between some of those individuals and individuals of apparently,different race in other continents. but because these african neighbors may "look similar" in terms of skin tone, facial facial features, costume, and deportment, they are the same "race".

biologically, race cannot be defined. i know this is disappointing to racial supremacists of all colors, but it is just a fact.

[U.man]

No generalizing or stereotyping going on here, no sir.

All my life I've been put in a box by people for how I look so therefore its all good to put everybody who looks like X in a single box. "Those people" are all equally clueless, you know. Not like people who look like Z who are naturally never, ever bigoted against people who look like X, Y, P or Q of course. Did I mention how much I hate how smug all those people who like X are?

It's regrettable that you were "...put in a box for how you look...". It's a sad commentary on the darkest places of human nature. You may very well have a sense of what the darkest part of bigotry feels like and that's regrettable as well. I've found the the experience indescribably painful and frustrating. I stand by my remark about "white folks". Time and time again, I've heard members of various (white) ethnic groups talk about the prejudice their great grandparents experienced 150 years ago. Those people knew what bigotry feels like. Their great grandchildren have not inherited that knowledge. There's no badge of honor for having experienced full strength bigotry. I'm glad for those that have not. It's admirable that you rode to your friend's defense. Your righteous indignation toward me is misguided and you haven't cared to think about what I actually wrote. If you feel that living at the edge of a black neighborhood and having some of the blacks hating you is the same magnitude of bigotry that Blacks or Jews (just to name two) have endured to this day, I disagree. It's that contention that I'm against. It's a contention that diminishes times that were agony for me. Having experienced it in large doses many times in life I find it outrageous that someone would have the nerve to co-opt the experience on such shallow terms. I'm not smug, I'm F*****G ENRAGED that people who consider themselves (and probably are) good,decent people would argue so vigorously that the two experiences I've described are equal. I wasn't microscopically upset when I wrote my first post but this whole notion that a garden variety white person has and continues to experience the magnitude of bigotry that garden variety Blacks and Jews (to name two) have been subjected to is at best, absurd. I hate pretense and this thread is dripping with it. Oh,by the way Cro, seand, there's no pretense in my anger. Defending these two experiences as equal, a person could find some pretense in that.

[Cro Burnham]

It's regrettable that you were "...put in a box for how you look...". It's a sad commentary on the darkest places of human nature. You may very well have a sense of what the darkest part of bigotry feels like and that's regrettable as well. I've found the the experience indescribably painful and frustrating. I stand by my remark about "white folks". Time and time again, I've heard members of various (white) ethnic groups talk about the prejudice their great grandparents experienced 150 years ago. Those people knew what bigotry feels like. Their great grandchildren have not inherited that knowledge. There's no badge of honor for having experienced full strength bigotry. I'm glad for those that have not. It's admirable that you rode to your friend's defense. Your righteous indignation toward me is misguided and you haven't cared to think about what I actually wrote. If you feel that living at the edge of a black neighborhood and having some of the blacks hating you is the same magnitude of bigotry that Blacks or Jews (just to name two) have endured to this day, I disagree. It's that contention that I'm against. It's a contention that diminishes times that were agony for me. Having experienced it in large doses many times in life I find it outrageous that someone would have the nerve to co-opt the experience on such shallow terms. I'm not smug, I'm F*****G ENRAGED that people who consider themselves (and probably are) good,decent people would argue so vigorously that the two experiences I've described are equal. I wasn't microscopically upset when I wrote my first post but this whole notion that a garden variety white person has and continues to experience the magnitude of bigotry that garden variety Blacks and Jews (to name two) have been subjected to is at best, absurd. I hate pretense and this thread is dripping with it. Oh,by the way Cro, seand, there's no pretense in my anger. Defending these two experiences as equal, a person could find some pretense in that.

I agree it's not really disputable, that almost all white people in America (myself included) have never experienced the pain that many or most black people have because of racism.

But I think it's wrong to say "you just could never understand". The analogy you made before - that it would be like trying to tell someone how to parent when you never had a baby - to be honest, and I am father, I pretty much reject it. Prior to my having become a parent, I saw/met/knew/was friends with/was related to many many people whose parenting skills I regarded as greatly needing improvement. If I made a comment or suggestion, occasionally I was told, "if you've never had a kid, you just don't know what you're talking about". Funny thing, when I became a parent, most of the opinions I had from before still held. I still think those other people ****ed up their kids, and I would never do what they did.

My point is, almost all people human beings have experienced incredible sadness and suffering of one kind or another. Their suffering may not have had anything to with racism, but may very well have had to do with deep injustice or utter helplessness in the face of brute force. Deep pain is deep pain, I think, regardless of the cause. Human beings who are thoughtful and have some common sense often can empathize with others about experiences they've never experienced directly or with such intensity in a particular context. I think you are wrong to suggest it's not possible. I also think it's pointless, because if no one else can ever have a clue about what you went through, then why should they be expected to care about what you went through? They will never sympathize about or seek to understand that which is impossible for them to grasp. I think, with such an attitude, you cut yourself off from many people who want to understand more about your experience. Maybe you don't care at all, which is perfectly fine. My personal feeling is that generally it is for the good to be able to try to find ways to share experiences and increase mutual understanding.

[MarketStEl]

Cro Burnham: I never much cared for the trope "it's a black thing - you wouldn't understand." I agree that people who have never experienced something can understand and do empathize with others who have.

But there are also people who go on to claim that their experiences with [x] are equal to those others' experiences with [x+y]. In way too many cases, they are not.

I generally reject the definition of racism as "prejudice plus power" often bandied about on the academic Left, but can't say there's nothing to it. Generally speaking, if a white person moves into a black neighborhood and experiences hostility or rude treatment from the residents, there is an option available to them that usually eliminates the problem completely: move to a non-black neighborhood. For most of us, not even moving to a black neighborhood eliminates the problem completely, for the disdain we experience sometimes seems to permeate the entire society.

[Cro Burnham]

But there are also people who go on to claim that their experiences with [x] are equal to those others' experiences with [x+y]. In way too many cases, they are not.

. . . Generally speaking, if a white person moves into a black neighborhood and experiences hostility or rude treatment from the residents, there is an option available to them that usually eliminates the problem completely: move to a non-black neighborhood. For most of us, not even moving to a black neighborhood eliminates the problem completely, for the disdain we experience sometimes seems to permeate the entire society.

i would never argue with either of these statements. on the first, all i would say is that i think its possible for one to empathize without saying one has had equal experience.

on the latter, the only small exception i might point out is when the person is of such limitrd resources perhaps they really can't move. but i agree it's still different.

[seand]

No generalizing or stereotyping going on here, no sir.

All my life I've been put in a box by people for how I look so therefore its all good to put everybody who looks like X in a single box. "Those people" are all equally clueless, you know. Not like people who look like Z who are naturally never, ever bigoted against people who look like X, Y, P or Q of course. Did I mention how much I hate how smug all those people who like X are?

It's regrettable that you were "...put in a box for how you look...". It's a sad commentary on the darkest places of human nature. You may very well have a sense of what the darkest part of bigotry feels like and that's regrettable as well. I've found the the experience indescribably painful and frustrating. I stand by my remark about "white folks". Time and time again, I've heard members of various (white) ethnic groups talk about the prejudice their great grandparents experienced 150 years ago. Those people knew what bigotry feels like. Their great grandchildren have not inherited that knowledge. There's no badge of honor for having experienced full strength bigotry. I'm glad for those that have not. It's admirable that you rode to your friend's defense. Your righteous indignation toward me is misguided and you haven't cared to think about what I actually wrote. If you feel that living at the edge of a black neighborhood and having some of the blacks hating you is the same magnitude of bigotry that Blacks or Jews (just to name two) have endured to this day, I disagree. It's that contention that I'm against. It's a contention that diminishes times that were agony for me. Having experienced it in large doses many times in life I find it outrageous that someone would have the nerve to co-opt the experience on such shallow terms. I'm not smug, I'm F*****G ENRAGED that people who consider themselves (and probably are) good,decent people would argue so vigorously that the two experiences I've described are equal. I wasn't microscopically upset when I wrote my first post but this whole notion that a garden variety white person has and continues to experience the magnitude of bigotry that garden variety Blacks and Jews (to name two) have been subjected to is at best, absurd. I hate pretense and this thread is dripping with it. Oh,by the way Cro, seand, there's no pretense in my anger. Defending these two experiences as equal, a person could find some pretense in that.

I was being sarcastic restating a couple of the perspectives you were taking in an exagerated manner. Every person has been judged by various things about them and just about everyone has judged by others. I was speaking through an exagerated version of the position you were taking. The "I" in the above post was not literally me.

From reading the things you are posting, noone has diminished the unique quality of various forms of bigotries you might have experienced but its rather startling the way you shift without blinking from "you probably have not experienced something the same as me" to something that sounds an awful lot "all you white ****s are the same and completely clueless" without blinking. Its rather rude and its amazing that the irony of that move is not apparent to you.

[seand]

But there are also people who go on to claim that their experiences with [x] are equal to those others' experiences with [x+y]. In way too many cases, they are not.

I generally reject the definition of racism as "prejudice plus power" often bandied about on the academic Left, but can't say there's nothing to it. Generally speaking, if a white person moves into a black neighborhood and experiences hostility or rude treatment from the residents, there is an option available to them that usually eliminates the problem completely: move to a non-black neighborhood. For most of us, not even moving to a black neighborhood eliminates the problem completely, for the disdain we experience sometimes seems to permeate the entire society.

Everything here I agree with 100%. I'm just amused with U.man unblinkingly shifting from "I seriously doubt you have experienced anything that is qualitatively the same kind of discrimination I've seen" to "all you white people are the same and have 'zero capacity' to understand what real racism is" and not seeing anything the least bit ironic with that switch.

I'm sure lots of us (myself included) carry a big blind spot around about many things. Saying all white people have an inherent "zero capacity" to undertand bigotry basically shuts down the conversation and is self-defeating. If your skin color makes you permanantly inherently unable to ever understand bigotry the end point of that logic is that bigotry will always be the same and never change. And thats not true. Things do change and they do get better, mostly because people do try to understand and work to change things.

[seand]

By the way how did this conversation go from a discussion of the merits and pitfalls of the various terms people use to self-describe to "white people have zero understanding of what its like to be truly disciriminatied against"? I'm also not really getting that shift.

The talk was more less about "labels" of various kinds and whether they always work as intended and why people sometimes decide that the currently popular label isn't working for them. How did we get here?

[MarketStEl]

Everything here I agree with 100%. I'm just amused with U.man unblinkingly shifting from "I seriously doubt you have experienced anything that is qualitatively the same kind of discrimination I've seen" to "all you white people are the same and have 'zero capacity' to understand what real racism is" and not seeing anything the least bit ironic with that switch.

I'm sure lots of us (myself included) carry a big blind spot around about many things. Saying all white people have an inherent "zero capacity" to undertand bigotry basically shuts down the conversation and is self-defeating. If your skin color makes you permanantly inherently unable to ever understand bigotry the end point of that logic is that bigotry will always be the same and never change. And thats not true. Things do change and they do get better, mostly because people do try to understand and work to change things.

Amen, brother.

Moving back to the original subject of this discussion: It seems that new terms get promoted for stigmatized groups by their members and advocates because existing terms are seen as perpetuating the stigma or otherwise demeaning. The problem is that often, what happens is that the stigma simply gets transferred to the new term (consider the adoption of "that's so gay" as a pejoriative phrase by some teens a few years back).

That hasn't seemed to happen with "African-American" yet, at least not from what I can tell, perhaps because the term deliberately and consciously sought to place the descendants of the slaves into the great American ethnic melting pot/mosaic. I considered that development an advance and still do, so I have no problem using the term interchangeably with "black." Of course, it's far from perfect. It ignores the varied ethnic distinctions among the peoples of Africa, but unfortunately, that cannot be corrected, for the white slavers and colonizers ignored them from the start and thus broke the chain of continuity among those peoples once they arrived here. Moreover, as immigration from Africa has risen since 1990 or thereabouts, it forces us to reconsider the meaning of the term, for the experience of the African immigrants differs markedly from that of the slave descendants - the immigrants already fit into that mosaic. And besides, as wiseacres like to point out, including here, the term also encompasses Afrikaners who emigrate from Cape Town or Johannesburg.

[U.man]

I was being sarcastic restating a couple of the perspectives you were taking in an exagerated manner. Every person has been judged by various things about them and just about everyone has judged by others. I was speaking through an exagerated version of the position you were taking. The "I" in the above post was not literally me.

From reading the things you are posting, noone has diminished the unique quality of various forms of bigotries you might have experienced but its rather startling the way you shift without blinking from "you probably have not experienced something the same as me" to something that sounds an awful lot "all you white ****s are the same and completely clueless" without blinking. Its rather rude and its amazing that the irony of that move is not apparent to you.

The conversation took a mild turn, I think, because I made a regrettably snarky remark about skin tones. MarketSt, thanks for you eloquent contribution to this...spirited discussion.Cro, I never said, that white people have never experienced bigotry. I said the comparison between what was offered as an experience of bigotry was magnitudes smaller than what I've experienced. The notion of them being equivalent experiences was being defended vigorously which I found offensive. To the 99th percent, the racial or cultural bigotry that white Americans have been subject to is vastly different than what Black, Jewish, Latino (and other) Americans have experienced. It's a trivial point but I was astounded at how hard folks would argue about what is a simple true-ism to me. I didn't make the observation to diminish anyone and I think I chose my words carefully not to do so.Seand, nothing I've written is anywhere near saying "...all you white ****s are the same and completely clueless". That ls absolutely your own impression not at all related to anything I've written. While I'm not a mental health professional and I don't play one on TV, it is my own, valueless opinion that you've done nothing but distort or exaggerate my words because you are a very silly person.

[sharkey]

[QUOTE=MarketStEl;509283]Which is why I am comfortable with "queer," to the slight dismay of some friends of mine who remember it as a pejorative exclusively.

As for the main topic: I miss William Safire!

The more I go through all this, the more I believe it's the 'white' (read: Teutonic and their relatives mainly) people who have the real problem, and the problem is this: They went through history, stomping all over the other peoples of the world because they were 'superior,' then when the messy reality of human complexity set in, had to figure out ways to make that belief reality. The 'nonwhite' immigrants from southern and eastern Europe figured out what was what soon after their arrival in the United States and, thanks to the way the white folks had constructed that edifice of superiority, figured out that the way out of the conundrum was to become white themselves - something they could do and the descendants of slaves never could.

The handwringing over terminology is both symptom of and attempted cure for a problem it's really incapable of solving: We, the most despised of all the various American ethnicities, have for several centuries spent much time and effort asserting our claim to equal brotherhood in the American family. Every time we appear on the threshold of obtaining that, something comes along that moves the goalposts again. The promotion of African-American"* as a term of reference is both a symbol of the progress made and the problem that doesn't go away: the progress is embodied in the fact that the term signals our transformation in many ways into just another American ethnic group, while the wailing - and the sniping back as evidenced here - both reflect the fact that we still aren't, neither in our own eyes or in the eyes of our detractors.

*If it hadn't been for that stomping, who knows? We might today speak of Yoruban-Americans, Ibo-Americans, Xhosan-Americans and so on. As one wag once said, those European "nation-states" were merely tribes with organized governments and armies.[/QUOTE

Using military power to "stomp over" other peoples is not a trait limited to European tribes. There were empires created in the Americas and Africa by dominant tribes, and Asia has had just as much war and subjugation as any other part of the world. As far as one race subjugating another, I will conced that it was more often White armies beating down non-Whites than the other way around, but was this because of a particular malice or just because European societies had generally more advanced military technology and therefore more success? Also, remember that parts of Europe were invaded and conquered and controlled for hundreds of years by the Moors, so it has not always been Europeans controlling nonEuropeans.