← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · kminta
Thread ID: 4468 | Posts: 6 | Started: 2003-01-16
2003-01-16 01:57 | User Profile
I won't bore any of you by going over the obvious of today's Black American culture and its influence on American society. But I thought I'd share with you a brief essay about what one African-American has observed among his fellow Blacks. While I doubt that this will be the wake-up call that Blacks desperately need, it's a good start at least.
What You See, Is What You Get
By Markus Rice
The images we see of ourselves as black people, are most of the time are negative. Drug dealing , Gangsta rapping, Baby making, Welfare taking people. So that's what we seem to have gotten.
So many young people are missing the boat to success. They are being stagnated by all these negative images they see of themselves,
If a young brother comes to the hood and says what's up I just got my degree, the first thing the his boys say to him is,
Oh you must think you all that huh, you think you better than me now.
But if a brother comes to the same hood and says what's up son? I just got out of Rikers Island. He is treated like a hero.
Why is that?
Our youth is being poisoned by all the negative images they see. Today's culture for young blacks is not a culture of success but of Poverty, Unemployment, Irresponsibility, Crime, and Violence. The music they listen to glorifying violence and other sociopathic behavior. Our youth is bombard with negative stereotypical images all of the time, They see it on t.v. In thier music and in the toys they play with, but most of all they are taught these things at home. It seems that self-victimization has become a cultural legacy for many Blacks and has become the largest barrier to Black progress, Racism notwithstanding. Because that is were most of these stereotypes come from. Blacks have been manipulated by images they see in the media and for years those images have been negative.
I really wonder what a child feels growing up under a constant psychological barrage, nearly all of the time of negativity. No wonder why we have so many young minds damaged with low self-esteem and so much emotional baggage. We need to try to find a way to try and break this tide and restore a feeling of pride in our youth so that they can see there is so much out there for them to get if only they can be shown the right path.
I will finish up with this African proverb:
"It's not what you call me, It's what I answer to."
[url=http://members.tripod.com/logicalthinker/whatyousee.html]http://members.tripod.com/logicalthinker/w...whatyousee.html[/url]
2003-01-16 02:45 | User Profile
Originally posted by kminta@Jan 16 2003, 01:57 ** Our youth is being poisoned by all the negative images they see. Today's culture for young blacks is not a culture of success but of Poverty, Unemployment, Irresponsibility, Crime, and Violence. The music they listen to glorifying violence and other sociopathic behavior. Our youth is bombard with negative stereotypical images all of the time, They see it on t.v. In thier music and in the toys they play with ... **
This applies to white youngsters as well. In fact, much of the problems of blacks that are glorified, are glorified specifically for white youngsters. The media mavens and their henchmen have the complete and utter destruction of "white" culture at the top of their list of things to do. For blacks and mestizos, the behavior is being reinforced, for whites, who generally don't see much of this at home, it's being presented as the way to go, ignore that whitebread, boring lifestyle so many (but not enough) white parents espouse. Ask Murray Rothstein aka Sumner Redstone.
BTW - MTV films is going ahead with a remake of the 1979 (cult classic some call it) film, The Warriors. I can picture all sorts of ridiculous spin(s) put in this one - but listing them in fun would take up too much space. No doubt this film will help try to sell more of the pathologies exhibited by those in the hood.
2003-01-16 03:37 | User Profile
I have the original 'Warriors'. Walter Hill is a damn good director.
MTV will screw it up, ack (as Bill the Cat would say..)
:o
2003-01-16 05:09 | User Profile
Roy Batty: For blacks and mestizos, the behavior is being reinforced, for whites, who generally don't see much of this at home, it's being presented as the way to go, ignore that whitebread, boring lifestyle so many (but not enough) white parents espouse.
NeoNietzsche and I were discussing race on our commute recently. He wanted to know just what the h%ll was WRONG with NYers/New Englanders that they don't recognize racial differences. I thought about it for a while and explained:
I grew up in a small mostly white town on Long Island. There were MAYBE 10 black kids in my school (this was back in the early 60s through late 70s). One (black) girl in high school (who had taken a regular English class and an honors/poetry class with my dad) and I were very good friends, and always joked that we were twin sisters, just she had a tan... The few black kids in our school were CULTURALLY white -- that is, valued what we valued, thought the way we thought, disdained what we disdained. It was a respected and successful school system, that sent most of its kids on to colleges.
Now, obviously, I can't speak to the psychological effects on the few blacks kids of being so few, and yet they all seemed to fit in entirely. I expect, had they met up with more urban blacks, or pretty much ANY modern blacks, they'd be slandered as Oreos or something else mean and disrespectful -- but THEY all went to college and succeeded in this society. No one accused them of 'acting white.'
So, MY experience, and the experience of my white peers, of 'black people' was of these lovely, intelligent, CULTURALLY matching folks, with darker skins. So we ABSOLUTELY believed there WAS no racial difference, it was just skin color. And thus the strength of our commitment to civil rights (I marched for civil rights numerous times as a kid!) Racism HAD to be wrong, because "black people" were wonderful and just like us! So we BELIEVED, because our experience was of people just like us.
Then I grew up and went away, first to college -- again, mostly white. (It was financial -- all we could afford for me was an upstate state college... mostly white.) I STILL remember (and was baffled and hurt by it) when I was the only white girl on the junior varsity cheerleading team. We were practicing once, and the boyfriend of one of the girls was sitting at the sidelines and said some horrid sexual things to me. (I've blanked 'em, so I don't remember what.) But I thought there must be something really unbalanced and sick about that guy. (And my experience with them ended quickly because the squad fell apart after the second game.)
Next, I joined the Navy. NOW began my education!! Still, most of the black guys I met were smart enough to get by, polite (but then, I was an officer and they were enlisted: were I not so naive, I'd've attributed it not to innate politeness (cultural similarity), as I did, but to the perogatives of rank...) Still I began to see that black people were NOT white folks with darker skin!
Next came 16 years in Washington state -- a rather white state (or, I guess, it was) -- and the places I worked and the areas I lived in were mostly white. So, my (limited? distorted?) knowledge of black CULTURE came from TV and reading. From crime statistics and information from teachers and police friends. And it became clear on TV that things blacks found funny, or good, or interesting, or bad DIFFERED dramatically from what white folks thought! And that blacks had different behavioral standards and expectations and choices and desires.
Finally, here I have been, in and near Atlanta GA for 6 years. I am AGHAST! I am horrified and astonished! I am frightened and armed! The cultural differences are appalling! The things that are valued and deprecated, the things that are acceptable or supported or expected by the black culture has turned me racist! I am a complete separatist! I'm all for reparations if it also requires repatriation!
And I struggle a LOT with it, because my older sister married a black man (a Jamaican (classical) violin player and hopeful novelist) who is educated and funny and sweet and they have a great son, who is smart and computer savvy... and yet I am against miscegenation. (And, yet, my sister and her black husband are Ghandian pacifists and blame everything wrong with the country on (white) racism, and see everything from his/their victimhood. And YES I feel terrible that he is mistreated because of what his 'brothers' have accustomed most white people to expect. I may sympathize that it sears his soul to have a white woman cross the street away from him, but I am STILL going to ALWAYS be twice (or is it ten times?) as on guard with an approaching black male...
Hey, if blacks can sue CocaCola for "institutional racism," then why can't white sue blacks for institutional crime? Why should whites struggle to address subconscious racism, when blacks are NOT struggling against subconscious acceptance and support of criminals?I would feel a LOT better about blacks if they WERE interested in 'acting white.' You know, learning (and exhibiting) educational and ethical and moral standards such as have made this country!!
2003-01-16 14:25 | User Profile
Originally posted by Roy Batty@Jan 15 2003, 21:45 ** BTW - MTV films is going ahead with a remake of the 1979 (cult classic some call it) film, The Warriors. ÃÂ I can picture all sorts of ridiculous spin(s) put in this one - but listing them in fun would take up too much space. ÃÂ No doubt this film will help try to sell more of the pathologies exhibited by those in the hood. **
Roy, thanks for that information. I've watched "The Warriors" at least 100x, and I remember seeing the movie in 1979 at a drive-in with my dad, my brother, and two friends. I still live in NYC, so I get quite nostalgic seeing the old graffitti subway cars and a run-down Coney Island. I'm not sure HOW the movie could be remade within our current times. While things seem to be worse now than in '79, there are no roaming gangs as depicted in "Warriors" in NYC, freely roaming the streets en masse, there are no more subway car art galleries, and much of Coney Island has changed. But anyway....... The Warriors were quite a mulit-cultural gang, although the de facto leader was a White guy(that will change in the new one!). They were the loveable good guys. Luther's gang The Rogues("come out and play-ee-yay") were the all-evil white gang. The 100% black gang The Riffs ended up being the Saviors of The Warriors. Also, The Orphans were a wimpy White gang, and The Furies were a White gang wielding baseball bats. The only thing that was Un-PC were The Lizzies- the all girl gang that got beat up by the Warriors..... "the chicks are packed, the chicks are packed!" As I see it, MTV doesn't really have to change much of the film to achieve Political Correctness. JMO.
2003-01-16 15:19 | User Profile
Back in South Africa, things go well if there is a strong chief, or head man, or whatever.
The problem there, as here, is that parents don't discipline their kids like Asians and Europeans, so the Blacks are never frustrated until they get out in the world, and then they can't control their desires. In a tribal situation, you can get the men together and beat people for unacceptable behavior, but in the West, or in an urban African environment, you can't.
Basically, for the urban Black, they engage in anything they want because there is no self discipline. If they are horny, they have sex. If they want to get wasted, they get wasted. They also have no financial discipline. If they have money and want something, they spend it.
There is no cure at all in the short term. None at all. Only Social and personal Christianity. And the possiblility of immediate and harsh punishment for things like adultry aren't even on the radar. It can only get very, very much worse except for divine intervention.