How insulting is Colored (vs. African American)

[DrPhil]

Other countries sometimes call it something other than "race," because race is considered a North American construct, but it is all the same general construct and social hierarchy.

You don't have to rely on the selective and limited observations of the people you know who lived in other countries. There is a ton of interesting literature on this that you can check out to satisfy your curiosities.

ETA: People who live in settings in America and overseas where everyone looks alike often claim that there are no racial (and similar) distinctions made between people. Well, of course if you're basing your opinions on such matters solely on what you see, you wouldn't observe anything if 95% of the people in the areas you are in look the same. Even in more diverse settings, a lot of people are waiting for some overt sign of distinctions made between people, usually a form of bigotry. "I've never seen a minority person be mistreated;" "Minorities walk around and they are barely noticed as minorities, so race doesn't matter;" and "we call people by their names and not by their races" are common responses that actually have nothing to do with the topic at hand.

[Xanthus]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

Even in more diverse settings, a lot of people are waiting for some overt sign of distinctions made between people, usually a form of bigotry. "I've never seen a minority person be mistreated;" "Minorities walk around and they are barely noticed as minorities, so race doesn't matter;" and "we call people by their names and not by their races" are common responses that actually have nothing to do with the topic at hand.

This is pretty much what I was getting at.

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by Xanthus

This is pretty much what I was getting at.

I hope not.

[sdeason1]

it seems that some are more interested in history and what names were used in the past eras than those that actually used those names who lived it. one thing needs to be learned, you cannot erase history.

[Senusret I]

Originally Posted by sdeason1

it seems that some are more interested in history and what names were used in the past eras than those that actually used those names who lived it. one thing needs to be learned, you cannot erase history.

It also seems that some are Tom Earp.

[madmax]

Originally Posted by DaemonSeid

I believe part of the issue of why some people take offense to the term "African American" is because of the association to some of the negatives associated with Africans that has been mentally forced upon them over the centuries.

How is the association to negatives mentally forced on you? If somebody could mentally force something upon you they should have mentally forced you to get jobs, take care of your kids and stop breaking the law.

If you would do the right thing the negatives would not exist and you would not be associated with the negatives.

[SydneyK]

Originally Posted by madmax

If I would do the right thing I would not be associated with the negatives.

Fixed that for ya.

[lovespink88]

Originally Posted by madmax

If you would do the right thing the negatives would not exist and you would not be associated with the negatives.

Has anyone ever told you that you REALLY need to get a life? I know, I know, I should just ignore you, but it just blows my mind that a person actually gets a kick out of coming to a fraternity and sorority message board to try to get a rise out of people by making racist comments. It's kinda sad, actually. Why don't you try knitting or something?

ETA: HA!! I just saw a thread (that I had never seen before) in which KSUViolet told him to try knitting as well. I guess great minds think alike

[DrPhil]

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

Unless you know the people behind the usernames, they can be whomever and whatever. Madmax is probably a Black person who is really really really bored. Knitting would be a great idea.

[lovespink88]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

Unless you know the people behind the usernames, they can be whomever and whatever. Madmax is probably a Black person who is really really really bored. Knitting would be a great idea.

Maybe, but that still doesn't change the fact that he/she/it needs to get a hobby.

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by lovespink88

Maybe, but that still doesn't change the fact that he/she/it needs to get a hobby.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

Unless you know the people behind the usernames, they can be whomever and whatever. Madmax is probably a Black person who is really really really bored. Knitting would be a great idea.

[PrettyBoy]

Originally Posted by Tired Black Man

And before I get started, you try this shit with me and I will beat the hell out of you with an extension cord. You hear me?

WTF???

ETA: and why does it have to be an extension cord? If this joker would have said a belt though, I would have been DEAD!!!!

[lovespink88]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

Unless you know the people behind the usernames, they can be whomever and whatever. Madmax is probably a Black person who is really really really bored. Knitting would be a great idea.

Maybe I should have been more specific. I was more so replying to the part where you said "Unless you know the people behind the usernames, they can be whomever and whatever." To me, it sounded as though you were defending him/her/it by saying I was being unfair to judge madmax because I don't know who/what he/she/it really is. I was just agreeing by saying, while that may be true, it still doesn't change the fact that I think he/she/it needs a hobby. Just agreeing.

[madmax]

Originally Posted by lovespink88

Maybe, but that still doesn't change the fact that he/she/it needs to get a hobby.

Are you afraid of the truth?

Breaking the Silence
By HENRY LOUIS GATES JR.

Published: August 1, 2004


Go into any inner-city neighborhood," Barack Obama said in his keynote address to the Democratic National Convention, "and folks will tell you that government alone can't teach kids to learn. They know that parents have to parent, that children can't achieve unless we raise their expectations and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white." In a speech filled with rousing applause lines, it was a line that many black Democratic delegates found especially galvanizing. Not just because they agreed, but because it was a home truth they'd seldom heard a politician say out loud.

Why has it been so difficult for black leaders to say such things in public, without being pilloried for "blaming the victim"? Why the huge flap over Bill Cosby's insistence that black teenagers do their homework, stay in school, master standard English and stop having babies? Any black person who frequents a barbershop or beauty parlor in the inner city knows that Mr. Cosby was only echoing sentiments widely shared in the black community.

"If our people studied calculus like we studied basketball," my father, age 91, once remarked as we drove past a packed inner-city basketball court at midnight, "we'd be running M.I.T." When my brother and I were growing up in the 50's, our parents convinced us that the "blackest" thing that we could be was a doctor or a lawyer. We admired Hank Aaron and Willie Mays, but our real heroes were people like Thurgood Marshall, Dr. Benjamin Mays and Mary McLeod Bethune.

Yet in too many black neighborhoods today, academic achievement has actually come to be stigmatized. "We are just not the same people anymore," says the mayor of Memphis, Dr. Willie W. Herenton. "We are worse off than we were before Brown v. Board," says Dr. James Comer, a child psychiatrist at Yale. "And a large part of the reason for this is that we have abandoned our own black traditional core values, values that sustained us through slavery and Jim Crow segregation."

Making it, as Mr. Obama told me, "requires diligent effort and deferred gratification. Everybody sitting around their kitchen table knows that."

"Americans suffer from anti-intellectualism, starting in the White House," Mr. Obama went on. "Our people can least afford to be anti-intellectual." Too many of our children have come to believe that it's easier to become a black professional athlete than a doctor or lawyer. Reality check: according to the 2000 census, there were more than 31,000 black physicians and surgeons, 33,000 black lawyers and 5,000 black dentists. Guess how many black athletes are playing professional basketball, football and baseball combined. About 1,400. In fact, there are more board-certified black cardiologists than there are black professional basketball players. "We talk about leaving no child behind," says Dena Wallerson, a sociologist at Connecticut College. "The reality is that we are allowing our own children to be left behind." Nearly a third of black children are born into poverty. The question is: why?

Scholars such as my Harvard colleague William Julius Wilson say that the causes of black poverty are both structural and behavioral. Think of structural causes as "the devil made me do it," and behavioral causes as "the devil is in me." Structural causes are faceless systemic forces, like the disappearance of jobs. Behavioral causes are self-destructive life choices and personal habits. To break the conspiracy of silence, we have to address both of these factors.

"A lot of us," Mr. Obama argues, "hesitate to discuss these things in public because we think that if we do so it lets the larger society off the hook. We're stuck in an either/or mentality - that the problem is either societal or it's cultural."

It's important to talk about life chances - about the constricted set of opportunities that poverty brings. But to treat black people as if they're helpless rag dolls swept up and buffeted by vast social trends - as if they had no say in the shaping of their lives - is a supreme act of condescension. Only 50 percent of all black children graduate from high school; an estimated 64 percent of black teenage girls will become pregnant. (Black children raised by female "householders" are five times as likely to live in poverty as those raised by married couples.) Are white racists forcing black teenagers to drop out of school or to have babies?

Mr. Cosby got a lot of flak for complaining about children who couldn't speak standard English. Yet it isn't a derogation of the black vernacular - a marvelously rich and inventive tongue - to point out that there's a language of the marketplace, too, and learning to speak that language has generally been a precondition for economic success, whoever you are. When we let black youth become monolingual, we've limited their imaginative and economic possibilities.

These issues can be ticklish, no question, but they're badly served by silence or squeamishness. Mr. Obama showed how to get the balance right. We've got to create as many opportunities as we can for the worst-off - and "make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life." But values matter, too. We can't talk about the choices people have without talking about the choices people make.

Reaad the rest at http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/01/op...1gates.html?hp

[KSUViolet06]

What is with this article?

Do you have it on "speed post?"

You need a hobby.

Crochet much?