I am aware that historicly the things in her poem are true, and even though I went to predominatly white schools all my life, we were not taught a rosey view of that time in history. I think the thing that still gets me is the accusation that "ALL" white people are that way, both in the poem, and by a few comments such as "when a few white people show you courtesy..."-and I'm not condeming that person's viewpoint, if that's how she feels, there must be a reason for it. I think I have the most problem with the line in the poem that "nothing has changed". I will agree that there is still a long way to go before everything is equal - not the same, equal- but I also don't think it's fair to say NOTHING has changed.

I have not seen that PSA, but it definatly reminds me of the movie Crash, which I have seen. I know it's more Hollywood then PSA, but it still makes you think. I watched it twice myself and then I made my husband watch it with me (you should have seen his face when Chedle was talking about parking on the lawn!!)

Definately a reasonable hope. Although, there is a difference between noticing it, and looking for something that's just not there. It seems like some of you are just digging through my posts, looking for something to pull out to say - AHA! Look, you're a raceist.

quick hijack (but it kinda works)

I think I may be the only person in the entirety of my sorority who was not altogether impressed by Crash. So much of the movie seemed no more than a caricature - meaning that every single situation was extreme. My problem is not simply in the proportion because Crash represented experiences that are easy to identify with for the people who must suffer them regularly.

My problem with it was that it didn't do much to highlight the severity of the less blatant discrimination and racism that THRIVE in America and penetrate every aspect of society - the things that perpetually undermine progress and effort and are nearly too intangible to be fought in court.

Crash may have been a wake-up call for those who really have no clue and maybe that's all it was intended to be. I'm still waiting for a solid (CURRENT) film about the issues I'm referring to.

/hijack

Translation: I don't want to heal, restore, and reconcile, I wanna be a perpetual victim for the rest of my life, 'cause I got a right to whine and complain and much as I like. SO THERE!

[whine]The white man did this, the white man did that, the white man did the other, us black people are such oppressed victims, no one cares about us, our pain hurts more than [insert ethnicity here]'s pain, whine whine whine, complain complain complain, etc. etc. etc...[/whine]

You choose to ignore me because you know I got a point but you are too proud to admit it. Cut the BS. You don't have a solution because you don't want a solution, nor do you have a solution; you just want to whine.

Do what you like, cry me and everyone else a river about your wounds, I'm going to smh at what we have evolved into in 2006.

Have fun.

Is the poem itself 'whining' though? Or is it just pointing out what was done?

Let's not split hairs, shall we?

I don't understand. :(

Never mind. :(

But isn't that what is happening? Splitting hairs! You have stated that you consider this poem to be "whining" and lacking in constructive solutions because it speaks upon the horrors of the past. Other posters have stated that they do not -- they see her poem as merely a recount of the past, events that should never be forgotten.

When having a dialogue, it's always good to have everyone on the same page with the same understanding.

Furthermore, I know some of us have answered your question but maybe not to your liking. In fact, we've addressed that very question in numerous threads on here (ex. bring inner city schools to the same functioning level as surburban schools, teach parenting skills, more self entrepreneuership, etc.) so really your question isn't anything new. But the topic of this thread is, was, and shall continue to be........

What is making her poem racist and why is it wrong for us (Af Am) to discuss past atrocities (and to take it a step further) but yet it is perfectly fine for other ethnicities to do the same (bring up past horrors hoping that people won't forget that it happened and prayerfully will never be repeated)?

Shoot, you may want to catch up on your reading about what is happening concerning our courtry's immigration policies - you'd be surprised to see how easily it would be to slip back a few years.

I'm confused. We, as African Americans, are supposed to put the atrocities of the past to the wind and reconcile so that we may bask in the glow of harmonious racial relations. We are insulted when we offer our opinions and voice our disgust with the past and our outright disappointment with the present. We're supposed to view the past as something that just happened and gloss over it so that we can "move on" and come "up to par" with the other races while failing to mention that we're so far disadvantaged by our socio-economic status to the point this is almost an impossible feat. We're told we complain too much about the past and that we've been given ample oppurtunity to overcome. However this is where my confusion begins. Please bear in mind that I mean no offense when I pose this question but why don't we require the same things of Jewish people? I don't know about anyone else but I can speak from personal experience when I say these people hold on to the atrocities of the holocaust like an infant holds fast to a security blanket. Why are they not forced to just "reconcile" with the past barbarity done to their people? When they complain, no one utters words and phrases such as "get over it" or "reconcile with the past". In fact, there is more time spent commiserating with them than anything else. Certainly I'm not singuling out people of the Jewish faith however, they have to be the closest group of people whose struggle can even begin to compare to the aboriginal past of African Americans.

^^^This right here is what whites don't want to acknowledge. Why? Answer below.

Quote:

Why are they not forced to just "reconcile" with the past barbarity done to their people? When they complain, no one utters words and phrases such as "get over it" or "reconcile with the past". In fact, there is more time spent commiserating with them than anything else.

(The subconscious, sometime conscious, minds of whites)

On the Holocaust

1) The holocaust occurred on "foreign" soil and "foreigners" are evil. But, the crimes committed against African Americans occurred in America...and we're not evil, are we? :(

On the Treatment of African Americans (any time during American history - and, we'll consider history in this case to mean "the past")

1) It is an embarassing piece of history that's over, so let's keep it where it should be...in the past.

2) I want, I want, I want. But, I take no responsibility for anything. I am entitled to what I think I've always received. Responsible for that? Me? Not a chance.

3) It makes me and my ancestors look bad. I am an individual. I don't deserve this!

and lest I leave out white immigrants,

4) My family wasn't even here during all that mess! (I can understand the frustration, but the decision to come to this country brings with it an acceptance of its flaws as well. If you're white, some level of privilege is automatically bestowed. So, to immigrants I will say, if you show up at a friend's house and it's on fire, are you going to stand there and not help put it out?)

These are just a few reasons I came up with off the top of my head.

Originally posted by Rain Man
Translation: I don't want to heal, restore, and reconcile, I wanna be a perpetual victim for the rest of my life, 'cause I got a right to whine and complain and much as I like. SO THERE!

Most victims I know don't want to be a victim. Most vctims want to heal and move on. Sometimes part of the healing process is talking about how you were victimized. Do you feel the same about child abuse victims who gain the courage to speak out?


[whine]The white man did this, the white man did that, the white man did the other, us black people are such oppressed victims, no one cares about us, our pain hurts more than [insert ethnicity here]'s pain, whine whine whine, complain complain complain, etc. etc. etc...[/whine]

Ever hear of 'Jim Crow' laws? One of the most dispiscable (?sp) events that resulted from Hurricane Katrina / New Orleans was when there was documented evidence (shown on 60 Minutes) of White police officers from a small town just west of NO standing on the bridge of 1-10 West with shotguns, shooting into the crowds of Black people that were *walking* to get out since they had no other form of transportation. So, I guess by your logic these Blacks have no reason to whine about their treatment. Why were these police officers shooting at the Blacks? The reason given by the police chief was that he did not want 'those types of people' in his town. American citizens. Oh, in case you don't remember, this incident occured in 2005.


You choose to ignore me because you know I got a point but you are too proud to admit it. Cut the BS. You don't have a solution because you don't want a solution, nor do you have a solution; you just want to whine.

Do what you like, cry me and everyone else a river about your wounds, I'm going to smh at what we have evolved into in 2006.

Have fun.

You are either not aware of this, or maybe you choose not to acknowledge this, but many Africans who were brought to the New World came, not because they wanted to, but they were forced to. They were forced into a lifetime of servitude for which if they tried to escape was punishable by death. Some actually took that risk. Do you also know that the penalty for teaching a Black slave to read was death - death to the slave and the one that taught him how to read. Why? Because when you can read, you can think. Africans were brough to this country to function as cattle, not as intelligent human beings who could make a contribution to the development of this country.

Some of the liberties that you, as a Black man, enjoy today were paid with the price of *our* African American ancestors blood and life. Do you know that you, as a Black man living just 50 short years ago, could be lynched, and there would be no recourse about it? Why? Beacuse the attitude was 'A good nigger is a dead nigger.' Yes, I said the 'N' word, beacuse for many Whites that is all we were. We were not people, we were creatures, animals, that did not warrant any respect or compassion. Fortunatly, not all Whites felt that way, but enough to leave an impression of hate that still lingers today. These are incidents that should not be forgotten.

No one is asking for special treatment. All that is being asked for is equal treatment.

Okay, I need to speak...
 

Alphafrog, I do have to admit you are quite bold in posting in such a forum as this and rather presumptuous in most of your understandings of race relations. That is why folks are resorting to name calling and personal attacks toward you because you are doing what is called an "invocation" of such a "spiritually painful" ordeal in the Afrikan-Centered Diasporic Experience than you cannot fathom the utter pain that you have inflicted.

Now, I personally have no problem with this 7-year olds poem after reading it to its entirety. And I must say if this young lady did write those things, she is very smart. She is almost savant to relay that kind of information. It is very reminiscent to the old poetry of Ntozake Shange, Nikki Giovanni, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, June Jordan with a mix of Dr. Frances Cress Welsing and Marimba Ani. Most of these poets I have mentioned are Poet Laureates in their credentials, so I think what this young lady wrote is rather powerful. And if you understand what poetry is about, it is about thought provocation and the power of change. That is why African enslaved anscestors literally had their throats slit before lynching because of their power of words. That is why MLK has been martyrized. And why Malcolm X will soon be too.

Most folks think your thinking is inadvertantly white supremacist. The issue is pervasiveness of hatred and how deeply rooted it is in the American, dare I say Europeon soceity:



Remember most African Americans suffer racist conditions from times of their first breath. I know, I did myself, 6 weeks after I was born... So I think some of us are well adept to recognize the difference between why we did not get the job due to lack of skills versus race. What you are saying to us is that there is a "level playing field". That is how most folks are intepreting it.

So are you saying that there are more black folks you can shake a stick at? Or what? See the inequity and inequality of your connotative comparisons? That just hurts to the core.

That is just trivializing what many African Americans endure on a daily basis. We are dealing with a disproportionate amount of members of our society involved in the justice system. Yes, some of them deservedly so, but there are some that have had a bad shake at life. Should we just tell them to "deal" with the cards that life dealt to them? Can you look at an African American child and have the heart to say that to them, yourself? Because that is what is coming across to us that constantly deal with this reality on a daily basis.

The interesting fact of this young lady's poem is that it is making you actually think and say what you say in that fashion. So in essence, it worked. Her incantations stopped and made you react, put you on the defensive because now you have something you "feel" you need to "own up to". If you did not feel that way, you would not be here debating with us... Even as cyclic as it sounds, really, most of what I read from all these pages on this one topic is defensive.

Interesting is what I got to say from a 7 year old...

I'm for the pony...

Lemme break it down to y'all further...
 

Just by the title with the "U" places in the "hip hop" generation category that her contemporaries can relate to--immediately making the connection. Reasoning behind using "nationalism" rather than "supremacy" is interesting. I would need more investigation on this poet and other poetry she has written. But I suspect that she used "nationalism" rather than "supremacy" because she want to "minimize the power" or it could be the reverse...

The fact that we as a "nation" now are witnessing a harnessing of "bondage" against certain groups of people for whatever we fathom their crimes to be does not make it proper or right. I think what she is relaying to folks is that currently, we ourselves are in "bondage" just like in the movie, The Matrix. It casts that imagery to me. The use of pirates and vampires immediately calls up to mind all these TV shows and movies that are popular. These kids like that stuff and more folks are surgically modifying themselves or clothing themselves to look like these fictitious characters. Then this little girl takes Columbus, Morgan and Darwin the pinnacle of discovery both scientific and explorative, just like an "alien character would be capable of doing" to "drink blook of animals", connoting a weird cannabalistic ritual then cover it up into a tomb of "steel", then lie about with "tricks" and "deceit". How is this different from what our government is doing today? Where was Saddam found again??? Or steel could be a manifestation of the TV box, to sell an idea like on an infomercial that is inherently deceitful...

She states nothing has changed because our streets are still ravaged by violence because we have been miseducated--like in Carter G. Woodson's "Miseducation of the Negro". She uses "Hegro", because she is playing into folks "stereotype" that all black men are for are to play basketball or football and they've got to be big, just like a Big John or ox, but all that leaves us in on our knees. The reason why she uses the "2" rather than the "to" and makes it one word--"knees2grow"--that may be out of this "mire" of a muddied sinkhole we are in, we can grow out of our knees. And without remorse, we had lands in Africa--freely given away, just like a vampire who can freely take it...

The biggest part of the natural resources of Africa was the gold and information was passed by the griot or storytellers who were wisemen and women. The women were taken along with the men. The "weak" because they could not protect the women and they watched how a black man maintains a black family--an Afrikan-Centered Family to something more europeanized.

Amazing is all I got to say... Like whoa :eek:... Hits the nail on the head...

From the start of our involvement with America those of Afrikan Diasporic Experience that have accepted know this information. Most of our children seem like they do not if you watch the rap music. But this young lady give me hope that some of them still do know about it and points it out by simply saying, "take a look at our streets..."

She references so much to her generation. It is amazing to me the imagery she uses to make that connection. I am just blown away by the intelligensia of her... Maybe she has that "old soul" connection--called utammaroho... The Universe does not forget, it responds... The day of reckoning will be upon us...

Very well said SigmaDiva & AKA Monet....

Exactly...

It's even less than "not much." It's nothing.