Black Think Tank

[DoggyStyle82]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by LiberatedQueen
[B]Actually, they can. My whole family is West Indian, and we all qualify for African American Status after we've been naturalzied. Any AFrican (of whatever color) can claim African American once they achieve American status. What's crazier, in my opinion, is that most North Africans (according to immigration law), and people from what we call the "middle East" are eligible for honorary White status. So they can legally claim that they are of caucasian status.

The key there is that you became "naturalized". I have several West Indian chapter Bruhs who are not American citizens even though they have been here since childhood and they could not get certain scholarships and loans or preference for certain grad programs because they could not claim "African-American" status. Also, technically and genetically, North African Arabs (Middle Easterners) are Semites, who are a subset of the Caucasian genus.

Anyway, as long as Black folks take a myopic viewpoint of the real and larger world (America and its capitalist, libertarian system), we will always view ourselves as crabs in the barrel. To continously measure our success or percieved lack thereof against vague and misleading measurements thrown about by the neo-socialist academics who pass themselves off as the Black Intelligentia, does us a great disfavor.

Jews as a group are successful because they have successfully integrated while maintaing their group identity. They are rich, not because they sell to themselves (not enough of them ) but because they sell to the greater American community of all races.
Asians are successful for the same reasons, a committment to education, self-discipline, and self-sacrifice, all of which are within the dominion of African Americans as individuals and as a race. "We" would view ourselves and our businesses alot better if "we" better reflected those tools of success.

[Steeltrap]

DoggyStyle,

Thank you for your post. That's one reason why I come to GC -- to pick up on intelligent, thought-provoking discourse. I especially appreciated the notes on education and self-discipline. Many of us have those values, and we're holding our own. I worry, however, about those who don't have such values.

ST

[LiberatedQueen]

That is the crazy thing about race and racism. Who is to say one North African qualifies as an Arab, thereby White, and another is not? And if we really want to get technical, we could go way back to the Bible that shows Semites as descendants of Shem and Caucasians as descendants of Japheth. So really, where Arabs come from is a really poor way to determine one's race, especially when we remember that "Arabs" (and I use the term loosely) come in as many colors and religions as do African Americans. And besides, the rule applies to North African countries, not specific groups within those countries.
And I guess I would like to know what you would suggest as an alternative to seeing the situation of Black people for what it is? I know many have a tendency to over focus on the negatives without balancing it w/ the positives. However, the alternative is often to be soo afraid of mentioning the negatives that we bury our heads in the sand.

We must also remember that Jews did not have 400 hundred years of culturally, physical, spiritual genocide to contend with, neither do the Asians. So maintainig ccultural identity was not a problem for them. In our situation, we don't have a consensus as to what our cultural identity should look like. Shoot, we don't even have communities, let alone an identity.

In any event, to shrug off disenheartening information about the status of our community simply because of the negative tone is counter productive. Especially if the one disregarding that info has no alternative to provide.

Were you able to find out where the info on the #12 in GNP thing could be located?

And I guess my question would also be, if we have the ability within us to succeed, why aren't we? What is it about Black skin that causes us to make up nearly 1/2 of those w/ HIV? What is it about Black skin that causes us to comprise overy 1/2 of the national prisonpopulation? What is it about Black skin that makes over 60% of our households headed by single Black women? What is it??? The thing is, Anderson offers very specific, details and contexts for his information. As do many other "neo-socialist academics". When will we stop debating the percentage points of teh statistics and get up and do something? (not directed at anyone in particular, merely rhetorical...but if the shoe fits...)

[QUOTE]Originally posted by DoggyStyle82
[B]

Originally posted by LiberatedQueen
Actually, they can. My whole family is West Indian, and we all qualify for African American Status after we've been naturalzied. Any AFrican (of whatever color) can claim African American once they achieve American status. What's crazier, in my opinion, is that most North Africans (according to immigration law), and people from what we call the "middle East" are eligible for honorary White status. So they can legally claim that they are of caucasian status.

The key there is that you became "naturalized". I have several West Indian chapter Bruhs who are not American citizens even though they have been here since childhood and they could not get certain scholarships and loans or preference for certain grad programs because they could not claim "African-American" status. Also, technically and genetically, North African Arabs (Middle Easterners) are Semites, who are a subset of the Caucasian genus.

Anyway, as long as Black folks take a myopic viewpoint of the real and larger world (America and its capitalist, libertarian system), we will always view ourselves as crabs in the barrel. To continously measure our success or percieved lack thereof against vague and misleading measurements thrown about by the neo-socialist academics who pass themselves off as the Black Intelligentia, does us a great disfavor.

Jews as a group are successful because they have successfully integrated while maintaing their group identity. They are rich, not because they sell to themselves (not enough of them ) but because they sell to the greater American community of all races.
Asians are successful for the same reasons, a committment to education, self-discipline, and self-sacrifice, all of which are within the dominion of African Americans as individuals and as a race. "We" would view ourselves and our businesses alot better if "we" better reflected those tools of success.

[DoggyStyle82]

Liberated Queen:

True liberation is knowing when you are free. My mind was freed long ago and my ass followed thusly.

A "true Arab" is white (like the Prophet Muhammad was, Yassir Arafat, King Hussein of Jordan, the House of Saud, the royal family of Saudi Arabia) The confusion is when you see men like Anwar Sadat who is the son of and Arab and one of his Sudanese (Black) slave/concubines or the Saudi ambassador to the U.N. who is the son of the king and his Sudanese slave/concubine.

Jews have not been persecuted? They have about 5000 years worth of persecution that they never forget to tell you about. That little thing called the holocaust was an irritation

The answer to your questions as to why all of those negative statistics? Ask yourself why you don't fit into any of those categories. HIV? Do you have indiscriminate sex with homosexuals, unprotected sex with drug addicts, promiscuous sex with numerous people without knowing their sexual history? Seems to me to be completely in ones control to avoid HIV. Maybe there is a little white fairy sprinkling AIDS dust over our communities.

Prison population? Sammy Davis said it best while introducing Barretta "don't do the crime if you can't do the time". Yeah, I know, all those brothers are innocent and "the man set them up".

Oh yeah, all those babies that constitute that %70 illegitimacy rate were fathered by the white devil I guess and not some sorry ass thug/playa/wannabe pimp, no responsibility taking sorry excuse for a real Black Man!!

To fight the evil that is institutionalized racism, the unequal justice, racial profiling, individual racism, and other inequities of the greater white society, we cannot diminish our accomplishments as a GREAT RACE of people by defining ourselves by negative parameters that obscure the greatness that is Africans in America. If we continuously define ourselves by the least of us, the least is all we will ever be.

"If it is to be, it is up to me"

[LiberatedQueen]

I see your point. As for me, I cannot truly feel as though I am free if I represent a race that is still enslaved. Thank God people like Harriet Tubman and Moses did not feel that their individual freedom was all that mattered.

I won't further address the issue of whether or not Arabs are white. My point was, that it DOES NOT MATTER which color you are. If you are a citizen of particular north African countries, then you qualify for HONORARY (which in and of itself is problematic) caucasian status, whether you are as light as Scarlett O'hara, or as dark skinned as you can be. . So who constitues a true Arab is a discussion that is of little import.

I never said Jews weren't persecuted. We all know this is not the case. But Jew(ish) people have always maintained their cultural identity. The holocaust (and I'm not comparing pain here) was one of the more diabolical events in human history--but it left the collective mind of Jew(ish) people in tact, some would argue even stronger than ever. Slavery of Africans nearly (some might say totally) abolished the African mind. That's not to say that when our ancestors got on those ships that they saw themselves as the same...merely, they knew who they were and valued it. The fact is African (black) communities did not suffer from what we suffer from now, before slavery. Period.

If you truly, TRULY believe that Black people occupy the lowest wrung of every segment, of every measure, of every socioeconomic ladder, simply because they make bad choices...well, I don't know what to say to that except to suggest a few books. You may want to read Yurugu first, because I think that is the saddest commentary or explanation I have ever read.

If we knew who we were, and valued it, then we might not be in this situation. Black people, with few exception, have been taught to hate, HATE themselves. We have a 400 year culture of slavery that reinforces that hate. We have music that reinforces that hate by promoting the pimps up, hoes down mentality. We have churches that promote that hate by refusing to have pictures of a Black Jesus on the wall. We have an education system that reinforces that hate by focusing on teh positives of European culture and at the same time only mentioning the enslavement of black people. We have black families that reinforce it by telling their children not to play in the sun for fear of tanning, or tearing apart our hair because it is "bad". Unlike the children of Isreal, Black folk have never had a "wilderness" period where the slave mentality could die out.
Of course many black people have indiscriminate sexual encounters. How can you not when for 400 years, the ONLY way to prove your worth as a Black man was to be a good breeder? Do we think that the emancipation proclamation did away with a slave mentality and culture? Of course Black men (many) don't know how to be fathers. We have a 400 year culture (read, generational curse. this is after all, a spiritual battle) that forbade father hood. Did that simply go away? Do we not still suffer from that?
Of course Black folk fill up the prison system. When we understand that the first local government funded systems of policing in this country were slave patrols, do we honestly think that that element of police culture has disappeared after 400 years of reinforcement? When we KNOW (not infer, not theorize about, but KNOW) that after slavery was technically illegal, and millions of Black people were displaced with nothing but their feet to walk on, that the laws in nearly EVERY SLAVE STATE were practically instantly changed to make things like homelessness, or vagrancy a crime, and we see that nearly immediately Black people filled up jail cells, and we know that the percentages of us in jail have never gone down since then...do we really feel like Black folks just commit more crimes?
When we know from studies performed by both HBCU's and MW institutions of higher learning can prove, YES PROVE, that Blacks receive jail time and whites get fines or less time for the EXACT same crimes all ACROSS THE COUNTRY, can we really feel safe thinking Blacks are criminals?
To recognize where one must, MUST improve is not to take away anything from the greatness of one's past, present and future. If you see the acknowledgement of the challenges we face, as an inablity to recognize the greatness of our people, then I would have to say that that is limited, linear thinking. One must always acknowledge who they ARE--the good, the bad, and the potential. We must subscribe to the spirit of SANKOFA--which basically means that in order to move forward, one must, MUST examine one's past. As one who tries my hardest to not limit myself to Eurocentric linear thought (not that I always succeed), I try to see the balance between recognizing both.

If you (or anyone) could let me know where to get that info on Black folks taking up the #12 spot for GNP, I would truly appreciate it.

Originally posted by DoggyStyle82
Liberated Queen:

True liberation is knowing when you are free. My mind was freed long ago and my ass followed thusly.

Jews have not been persecuted? They have about 5000 years worth of persecution that they never forget to tell you about. That little thing called the holocaust was an irritation

The answer to your questions as to why all of those negative statistics? Ask yourself why you don't fit into any of those categories. HIV? Do you have indiscriminate sex with homosexuals, unprotected sex with drug addicts, promiscuous sex with numerous people without knowing their sexual history? Seems to me to be completely in ones control to avoid HIV. Maybe there is a little white fairy sprinkling AIDS dust over our communities.

Prison population? Sammy Davis said it best while introducing Barretta "don't do the crime if you can't do the time". Yeah, I know, all those brothers are innocent and "the man set them up".

Oh yeah, all those babies that constitute that %70 illegitimacy rate were fathered by the white devil I guess and not some sorry ass thug/playa/wannabe pimp, no responsibility taking sorry excuse for a real Black Man!!

To fight the evil that is institutionalized racism, the unequal justice, racial profiling, individual racism, and other inequities of the greater white society, we cannot diminish our accomplishments as a GREAT RACE of people by defining ourselves by negative parameters that obscure the greatness that is Africans in America. If we continuously define ourselves by the least of us, the least is all we will ever be.

"If it is to be, it is up to me"

[PrettyPetite]

Originally posted by DoggyStyle82
Crimsontide4

An white immigrant from Africa cannot be considered an African American. That designation is strictly for American born Blacks. Black Immigrants from the Caribean and Africa cannot even use that designation unless they were born here.

I really have to disagree with you here. Most of my relatives are from the Caribbean, and some are NOT naturalized citizens(they have green cards), yet they STILL have used the term African-American on school/government/work forms, and 2 of them have received scholarships that were geared towards African Americans. Even my best friend, who's been here since '84, but is not a US citizen, received a scholarship designated for African Americans.

Maybe it matters where you are geographically (I don't know, I am just throwing that out there)...Maybe some people confuse African-American with Black.

Just some thoughts.

[mccoyred]

Folks, I just love this discussion. Deep thinking is always good reading and conversation. I do want to give some additional info/clarification on a few issues though.


-Many, if not most, forms where race/ethnicity is requested state "white/caucasian/or european not of Hispanic origin" and "black/african-american not of Hispanic origin" so there is not a distinction.

-Blacks comprise the majority of the prison population due to several factors:

1) the law enforcement community tends to scrutinize Blacks moreso than whites for the same activity (ie racial profiling)

2) if the case is prosecuted, Blacks tend to have higher conviction rates

3) if convicted, Blacks recieve harsher sentences (ie probation vs 1 jailtime or death penalty vs life or lesser prison time

4) Blacks are convicted for more violent (rape, robbery, murder) vs nonviolent (embezzelment, fraud, tax evasion) offenses which often carry mandatory jail time

5) unequal sentencing laws (see crack vs cocaine issue)


-As far as individuals making poor choices, this is where role models play a major role (pun intended) in how we act and think. We as American Blacks were not always at the bottom of the barrel, our situation has worsened since the sixties. Many of our role models have sold out (literally or figuratively) and the community as a whole has suffered.

I could say more but I have to go now.

[DoggyStyle82]

Liberated Queen:

You can cry and scream about 400 years and it won't change a thing. Free your mind. Books are for learning and life is for living. I know who I am and I know about the effects of slavery and Jim Crow. That is a crutch that we can't afford to lean on and make excuses off of anymore. In the words of my favorite line from my favorite movie Glory when Morgan Freeman was speaking to Denzel "It time that we ante up and kick in like men dammit, like men!!!. Being a member of the MANHOOD frat has definitely taught me to be the Master of My Fate and the Captain of My Soul, white man be damned. You are intimating that we are too stupid to break that cycle. As for that GNP thing, check out the website for Jesse Jackson's Wall Street Project

MCCOY RED:

True indeed, those are all reasons why we are more heavily incarcerated, the biggest mitigating factor that those in question are guilty irregardless of the circumstances you outlined. Again, knowing the deck is stacked against you, why chose the easiest and most wrong avenue.


Pretty Petite:

That happens often because many people don't delineate Black folks, we are all Black to them so they don't bother checking.

[LiberatedQueen]

Originally posted by DoggyStyle82
Liberated Queen:

You can cry and scream about 400 years and it won't change a thing. Free your mind. Books are for learning and life is for living. I know who I am and I know about the effects of slavery and Jim Crow. That is a crutch that we can't afford to lean on and make excuses off of anymore. In the words of my favorite line from my favorite movie Glory when Morgan Freeman was speaking to Denzel "It time that we ante up and kick in like men dammit, like men!!!. Being a member of the MANHOOD frat has definitely taught me to be the Master of My Fate and the Captain of My Soul, white man be damned. You are intimating that we are too stupid to break that cycle. As for that GNP thing, check out the website for Jesse Jackson's Wall Street Project

That's funny, this whole conversation started with someone providing information from a Black Think Tank, and some very well researched books, and you indicated that to listen to books written by "neo-academic" somthing or other Black people was foolish. Who has time to cry and scream? I'm so busy putting action to my words and beliefs that crying and screaming will have to be saved for another generation.
I agree with you completely. At this point we must take responsibility for our community. Can we truly expect to look to white society, the very society that enslaved us, to help us find our freedom? Absolutely not.
But can we chart our course if we don't know the direction from which we came? Well anyone who has studied travel, or taken a hiking trip or anything like that will tell you that is a foolish thing to do. You must orient yourself and get a true picture, or idea of what direction you came from. That is the basic principle of Sankofa. The sankofa principle is taken from the Akan culture of Ghana. The symbol is of a bird w/ an egg on its back, flying or walking in one direction while looking back in the direction from which it came. The point is that the bird is constantly looking to its past, the essence from which it came (essence is represented by the egg) in order to chart its path to the future.
I work in social services and am en route to get my law degree. I am fully aware of the fact that the one thing that serves to unify social workers and others who work in the services that deal directly w/ our people, is that the methods we have available to us now are NOT WORKING. THey are only designed to cure the symptom, but not address the disease.
You can pass out a million condoms to inner city kids, and that may help the symptom of sexual transmitted diseases. But that won't aid in curing the disease, which comes from a slave culture that has never been addressed. So the kids may use condoms a few times, but since their culture is one that tells boys "you are good for breeding and not much else", then the longterm picture is very dim. You can fund a million post-jail rehab programs, but if we don't stop to ask why Black people fill up the prisons in the first place, then we're handicapping ourselves. Shoot, if the international community can ask these questions (and many more) about the horrific state of the Black community in this country, why is it soo difficult to get Black folks here to ask the same questions? I really hate the fact that so many other cultures and people all around the globe are so aware of the problems we face and the fact that we are in a really f*&ked up situation, and are truly FIGHTING FOR US, and Black folks who "make it" are often times so busy "making it" that we would rather continue to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the pain our of our children than to risk our good jobs to do something that will really help the situation. Donating money is good. Being a big brother or sister is great. But you can't just use band-aids for someone who is dying of a heart attack. We must do something more.
I don't know if you've ever heard of generational curses, but the slave culture and mentality is definitely one of them. Put it to you like this, if white communitites were suffering from what black communities are dying from, then everything in our curriculums, churches and government, would be centered around discussions and cures for the problem. But black people have been oppressed for sooo long that to us, and those around us, it is the norm. If God is real, then we do not have to live like this.

It's soo normal for us to be terrorized that we don't even pray about the condition of Black people in the church. We're so busy waiting on Jesus to come back, so that we'll be free by and by, that we fail to realize the power of God has been given to us! If we're supposed to be full of the power of God, then what is the problem? It's sooo normal for the churches to be full of women and 3 old men, that we don't even recognize that there is a problem. If God is real, then we do not have to live like this. It's sooo common to see brothers (of EVERY ECONOMIC STATUS) being harrassed by cops, we don't even do anything until 15 black kids have been killed. If God is real, then we do not have to live like this.
If you truly believe you are free, and that slavery is not an issue for you, then I would hope you are doing more than just holding on to your "freedom papers". I would hope we all are actually. If we continue to not view our past as intimately related to our ability to succeed, then our very HUMANITY is at risk . Whether you want to believe the numbers or not, don't you think there is a reason as to why nearly every, EVERY black community, from Maine to Utah looks like a war zone? Why nearly all of our communities from ALASKA (where Blacks make up less than 4% of the population but over 40% of the prison population) to Ann Arbor are full of death, depression, and negative energy? If God is real then WE DO NOT HAVE TO LIVE LIKE THIS.
I'm glad that you have been able to find such a good organization to help you define yourself. Unfortunately since Black men and women make up less than 5% nationwide of college students (not even counting those who actually graduate, and the numbers are so low they are scary), chances are that not many other Black men (relative to the eligible population) will have that same opportunity. In fact in cities like New York, and in states like Illinois, for every SINGLE black person who gets any form of a degree (that includes bachelors, masters, ph.d, j.d, etc. anything beyond high school) there are at LEAST 2 Black people going to jail? WE CANNOT BEAT ODDS LIKE THAT WITH METHODS LIKE THE ONES WE ARE USING.
Carter G. Woodson, who I believe is one of your frat brothers, wrote The Miseducation of The Negro. In that book he deals with a lot of the issues we've talked about here. In fact, the book is almost scary because he describes our current situation to a T, but the book was written in the thirties. But obviously, we still haven't learned, because 70 years later we are worse off now than we were then.
I'm glad you have your freedom papers. But thank God, Moses and Harriet went back into slavery (their "past") to bring others to freedom also. We're not too stupid to break the cycle. We created the pyramids, and the first civilizations. Stupidity is not in our genetic make up.

[DoggyStyle82]

I see the essence of our disagreement. I can't argue with your point of view because you deal with the underclass for a living, therefore, the prism in which you view our culture is that of the underclass. I can't change your reality and, in fact, I honor your struggle as a "doctor" so to speak in the triage unit that is the underclass.

I on the other hand prefer to work with "the at-risk" or those that aren't too far gone in their lives of irreversible pathologies. My thoughts and ideas of who we are and what we can be are not biased by what you seem to face daily. The Black folks that I know are strugglers, overcomers, fighters, people who have faith in God rather than doubt Him. The Black people that I know that were raised in my Black neighborhood (the same that you decry) are doctors, lawyers, and business owners, not "statistics". They tithe at Black churches, honor their parents, act as good role models, have not forgotten their culture. What makes them different than the person that of their own FREE WILL, decided on a life of crime, drugs, alcohol, whore-mongering, baby-making, hustling, etc?. We were faced with the same racisim, police brutality, sub-par segregated schools, indifferent teachers.

I find it strange that you decry the God that has provided us strength and refuge but would ask us to partake in a futile exercise in pseudo-intellectualism like Sankofa. This same Sankofa that was practiced by the Akan people, the Ashanti, whose slave trading empire was so great and vast that it was coveted by the British?

Whether you are an recent immigrant or 5th generation descendant of slaves, the formula for success is the same, a respect for self, family, God of your choice, education, community, accompanied by a strong work ethic.

[CrimsonTide4]

bump TTT

[Bamboozled]

Thanks, CT4. What a nice way to tell me to SEARCH! LOL.

[Confucius]

Originally posted by LiberatedQueen
What's crazier, in my opinion, is that most North Africans (according to immigration law), and people from what we call the "middle East" are eligible for honorary White status. So they can legally claim that they are of caucasian status.

That is crazy! I wonder how many of middle eastern people took this option of caucasian status?

And I wonder if this "honorary status" has helped them to avoid Bush's war on terrorism (if you know what I mean)?

[CrimsonTide4]

Originally posted by Bamboozled
Thanks, CT4. What a nice way to tell me to SEARCH! LOL.

LOL, no problem. I just saw what it was and remembered that we had done this last year before you came.

Carry on.