I love when people have nothing to say so they write "And moving on".

You are truly a gem.

-Rudey

I was silently reading and enjoying the discourse and resulting debate. I think everything's pretty much been clarified (and chastised when necessary) but I just have a couple of things in response to you. :)

Be careful with the use of the term "they." I know that "we" has been used throughout this thread but incorporating "they" can increase the level of antagonism when there should be none.

Also, people can easily confuse what it means to be affected personally. Many of our parents were college students during the Civil Rights Era so we've heard stories. However, we should never assume that everyone has benefitted from stories of oppression and triumph, associated with slavery and postslavery, directly passed down from generation to generation. Some blacks can only read about it. There are also blacks who will claim to have never felt or experienced anything "personally." These individuals will completely miss the point that being able to relate to or understand something is about indirect/vicarious experience as well as direct experience.

To address something brought up by HUkingPIKE, being about to relate or identify with something isn't synonymous with a dependence or reliance on that thing. It is his dual identity that makes him feel compelled to come in here and post what he did. No one was talking about racism being to blame for everything and blacks using race as a crutch. Matter of fact, this thread wasn't even about racism until some people started throwing around the term a couple of pages ago. I understand that his post was a general assessment of the issue as he perceived it. But his post reminded me of a "peace keeper"/moderator approach similar to that of an "articulate credit to his race who is different than the rest."

Me too.

I'm glad you think so...but wait...as a matter of fact I dont' really care;)

Keep responding to me and saying you don't care and want to move on.

It's clear you do care and don't want to move on.

-Rudey
--Additionally, I'm waiting for you to answer the question I asked about getting something handed to me.

Well, more ignorant one, ladygreek was obviously speaking from a Jewish American standpoint. Jewish Americans tend to have "white skin" which goes back to their history in this country. You can check the immigration and racial and ethnic assimilation research for that.

In addition, if people are talking about the Jewish Holocaust (which is what was being discussed) and not other sources of Jewish oppression across the globe, those sufferers were generally not Hispanic Jews, Ethiopian Jews, or Middle Eastern Jews. Context people, context.

Pardon me if this has already been said:

There's actually a "joke' associated with this that I heard when I was in elementary school.

What has 6 legs and goes "hodedoe?" Three black men running to catch the elevator.

If "hodydoe" has the same history that "moteesir" has then someone please clue me in. If it does not then I wonder if it was Conard's attempt at connecting slave talk to postslavery inarticulation.

Some.

Sephardic Jews. They have dark skin since their descendants come from North Africa, Spain and the Mediterranean. Although they're not as big in the US as the Ashkenazi Jews (which come from Eastern Europe), there are still many of us here. I'm half Sephardic and Ashkenazi so I have a lighter olive skin tone but my mother's whole family is Sephardic and living in the US. People mistake that side of my family all the time for being either Middle Eastern or Mexican.

Going to a PWI or being articulate has nothing to do with anything because most of us share those two things in common.

Whether you are black or white doesn't change my opinion of how silly it is to compliment (particularly college educated) people on their ability to be articulate. However, whether you are black or white may change what is embedded in your comment or how people generally feel when they hear/read it.

Exactly.

Yes. As was mentioned earlier, many American and European Jews also belong to groups that must wear identifying clothing and hairstyles, so they are not able to pass.

I've never understood why this matters, though. I'm "white" enough to pass for a non-Jew, but I refuse to, because I will not reject who I am for any reason. If I am discriminated against because of my heritage, the fact that I could theoretically deny my identity, change my name, get baptized, and thus try to avoid the discrimination doesn't matter. I'd die before I'd do that, and a lot of us have.

Actually there is a large portion of Sephardic Jews in America (itself a small population). There has been a Sephardic presence in America for centuries including some who died during the Revolutionary war. :) Most of the early American Jews were Sephardic.

-Rudey

Surely Rudey knows the difference between "articulate" as an adjective and "articulate" as a verb.

Surely Rudey knows that the the second quote is a social commentary that supports our point and not his.

Surely Rudey knows that the third quote also supports our point and not his. The fact that people feel they have to highlight articulation is not a coincidence. It is extremely deliberate and often used when the person is perceived to defy a particular stereotype. How you perceive the stereotype and its defiance is a matter of social context.

The descriptive of "articulate" has not always been used to convey the message that a person is tremendously clear and concise in his/her message. It was, and still is, used when someone is just able to speak a basic sentence void of slang, broken English or any stereotypical communication techniques.

Are you positive about that?