[GRhinoUK]

I think the main problem lies in the fact that society at large is very calss and race oriented. It's the same reaosn we've been arguing over the best thing to do for "our people" for more than a hundred years. It's the same reason we have yet to come up with an answer.

Blacks have been expected to be one homogenous group that are like minded and share the same experiences and goals. That couldn't be further from the truth. I had to go through quite a few knocks to learn that, but I did. That's why discussions like this both bother the hell out of me and draw me in. There is no "black experience" other than the general results of being black in an upper class white society. (Anyone who disagrees that being black in America places you at a disadvantage is either a fool, a liar, or naive.) It took me a long time to realize there was nothing wrong with me if I happened to have more in common with the white person on my left than I did the black person on my right. I spent a long time not being "black enough" but during that time, I never heard of one white person not being "white enough" or an asian not being "asian enough." It wasn't until recently I while was going over a paper I had written for an African American history course that it really hit me: blacks are no more homogenous or unified than any other race, but we've spent a long time being told that we should be.

No one guilts an upperclass white for not uplifting lower class whites or from trying to seperate themselves form that negative aspect of the white community. If a black does the same thing, it's only helping keep us down. Choosing to associate outside of your assigned group is rarely loooked upon as badly by whites as it is by members of minority groups. Why? Because no one is telling them they're supposed to look out for each other.

Like I said earlier, more than a hundred years and the issues are almost still the same. Unfortunately the only way to really fix this problem would be to bring about a near impossible shift in attitudes and preceptions that affects every person in this country. The sooner people realize there is really nothing that holds anyone together other than artificial significance arbitrarily assigned to different genetic phenotypes, the sooner everyone can go about fixing their real problems.