Cynique

Gee, your "cyber essence" belies this.

What does your sermon on the mount have to do with my saying that looks have nothing to do with whether a person is "smart or dumb, interesting or boring, phony or genuine." Has following your regimen made you good looking and desireable? I doubt it.

Wrong. I feed off of people like you, Pioneer, who think they're infallible. Can't you read? And you're the one who was trying to soothe your wounded pride by treating my remarks as apologetic - which they were not. I was actually humoring you and really enyoying your panic over being publicly exposed for your homophobia.

"Dark" is a very vague term, Legaci. What constitutes darkness? Darker than what? I prefer more specifics especially since African Americans run the gamut from blue-black to high-yellow on the color spectrum. The first thing that came to my mind when I clicked on to your video was that I didn' consider you dark. As a "light-skinned sista", I can attest to the prejudices that females of my color encounter within the race. But I never felt motivated to try and prove myself "black enough". I accepted people the way they were and expected them to do the same to me,and my indifference to skin tone would eventually neutralize hostilities. What I did notice was that white people seemed to be more comfortable with me than "darker" members of my race. I also believe that color-conscious black men are equally focused on how well stacked up females are and that a statuesque, fine brown frame will trump a stocky overweight "red bone". I don't know that colorism will ever go away in America. This would call for the strength of character necessary to reject superficiality, and that's asking a lot for a country whose population wallows in phoniess Africa should've been more ruthless and ingenious and the European marauders wouldn't have emerged victorious. Then, white western standards wouldn't have prevailed. I don't know where these vicious thugs who make up the gangs that terrorize the inner cities got their aggressive genes from.

Troy as I said before, all of this industry jargon is greek to me. If I am typical, this may have some impact on whatever it is you're complaining about. AOL is my carrier and anytime I want to find out something, I just key the subject into its search blank which is "google enhanced". This takes me to a page full of links on the subject I am seeking info about, and the links include those to Wikipedia and Ask.com. On my AOL homepage, the Huffingtono Post is the main source that draws you in with teasers about the latest news in every field. But I hate going there because, for whatever reason, my computer freezes up and stalls once I am finally able to get to any given page which is rife with pop ups and ad videos. It's a frustrating hassle, and one of the reasons why I am getting my news less and less on line. For me, it's too much trouble. The internet has started to overwhelm me with its overload of everything and the browser problems that plague me. When I want to reach this site, I just key in AALBC Forums which gets me to a page exclusively dedicated to subjects about AALBC. I then click on the "join the conversation" link which brings me here.

True dat. "So shall it be, so has it ever been."

If folks are going to post in a forum whose brand is “controversy“, they would do well to develop tough skin because, at some point, they will be rubbed the wrong way. As a veteran of the “ad hominem” wars, I have adopted a policy of “not-dishing-out-anything-I-can’t-take”. So, bring it on! The only time I play the age card is when a person proclaims as “new” something that is “old”, thereby giving me the satisfaction of getting into my “been-there-done-that” mode. Yes, I often do make personal attacks on people during the course of arguments. I've decided that this is because an individual gradually becomes the personification of his argument, and if I reject his contentions, then I tend to focus on the things about him that lead him to make these contentions. And I do sustain my share of slings and arrows. True, you and I don’t agree on everything, Troy, but in the course of disagreeing, we don’t resort to insults. Dare I say this is because we belong to a "mutual admiration society". Plus, I'm gratified that you've provided me with this cyber bridge to hide under and project my best imitation of a troll, lying in wait, ready to harass the Billy Goat gruffs that cross over. Delano, I give both Troy and you credit for how you resolved your differences. Troy offered a straight forward apology and you responded with a simple "OK". Great. Contrast this to how things went down when Pioneer demanded an apology from me. My response was to acknowledge that he was entitled to his opinions and his - was to gloatingly interpret this as an apology, forgiving me for my sins by bestowing a "thank you" on me before taking his bows...

It's ironic that black Americans have acquired power in one area, using the impact of words to hold white America hostage. Reaching back into their African ancestry, taking a page out of our witch doctor playbook, black Americans have invoked their mojos and rendered certain utterances taboo. We have muffled the media by making these words or phrases off-limits, and have shackled public figures with the chains of political correctness. As a result, it is risky and career-threatening for a white person to call a black man a "boy", or to refer to Blacks as "you people" or call them "colored" or "negroes" and above all "NIGGERS". Atonement can take many forms, y'all. Mexicans refer to the debilating diarrhea that incapacitates the influx of foreign tourists to their land as "Montezuma's Revenge", a punishment meted out by the ghost of this great magnanimous leader who was brought down by the cruel invading Spanish conquistadors. Words are weapons. Shit happens. Payback is as bitch. Life is funny.

Well, Troy, in the court room the insanity defense is a very thin one and loses more than it wins because the thinking of the judge and jury in the majority of cases is that the accused knew what he/she was doing, had no qualms about doing it and - wasn't crazy. There are, indeed, sane people who think others deserve to die, and they kill them. Battered wives who finally work up the nerve to kill their husbands don't think that taking the life of the person abusing them is wrong. People who claim to kill in self defense and plead justifiable homicide, don't think killing their assailant is wrong, and they usually win their cases. State governments don't think capital punishment is wrong. Drive-by shooters don't think they're doing wrong if they hit who they're aiming at. Accused killers may acknowledge that "in the eyes of the law", a murder may be legally wrong, but deep down inside they may not think they did anything wrong. We really can't say what goes on in people's minds. Some have said that after murdering a nemesis, they felt relieved, and even glad. You can't dictate to people what is wrong without asking "wrong for whom"? Invoking morality, is an exercise in futility because morality is just a word and people don't necessary feel the need to conform to the standards and definitions of others. Folks want to play the morality card when it suits them. The famed existentialist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche has some very profoundly interesting to things to say on the subject of man and superman and who has to abide by "rules".

Who cares is right? Paula is not an aberration. She's a product of her culture, a character right out of the box office hit,"The Help" and The Food Network may experience a backlash for firing somebody whose fan base is made up of a large following of people cut from the same cloth as her. Black folks ain't even that shook up because their use of the words peckerwood, cracker, hunky and nigga is just as common in their private environment. Miz Ann has apologized and been humbled and certainly learned her lesson and she'll be back. Blacks do need to get their priorities together and be more disgusted about racism in the senate than racism in the kitchen.

Just for the sake of argument, Troy, there are sane people who don't think killing is wrong. In war it is considered collateral damage, a tactic to improve chances of victory. Do people think killing someone who they wish dead is wrong? Not always. The reason they don't do it is because they don't want to go to jail. Murders occur everyday, comitted by ordinary people who want somebody out of the way, and think they can get away with it. Laws had to be established to keep people from killing each other. Punishment is the deterrent. Not conscience. Your moral code is a personal one and a commendable one. But people with a sense of entitlement think they are above others and dont give a damn about "rights". Is there such a thing as knowing something is wrong? Or is it a case of being told it is "wrong". "Man's inhumanity to man" has never phased out. It has just been repressed.

I have some thoughts and opinions on this subject. To me, it's not like morality is a component of the Big Bang. It evolved later as a human survival tool, and has a lot to do with what best benefits the perpetuation of civilization, Morality is fraught with subjectivity and has to be taught and maintained. If an alien from Mars came to earth, there would be universal things that earthlings forbid that aliens might not bat an eye at. Good and bad are relative, and they are not intrinsic. Morality is in the eye of the beholder and can be determined by a peer group. Pedophiles are doing what comes naturally to them. So a community of pedophiles would not think their attraction to children is immoral. The same goes for homosexuals. If siblings were raised in an isolated enviroment, they'd engage in incest if nobody told them not to. (In-breeding was how tribes came into being.) When it comes to "war", all bets are off. The Crusades killed millions in the name of religion. Islam and Christianity both thought they were on moral missions. World War II is referred to as the "good" war, a war in which America dropped the atomic bomb on 2 Japanese islands and killed a hundred thousand innocent Japanese civilians in order to send a message to their military forces to surrender. This was an action which the generals tried to sanitize by claiming that killing thousands saved the lives of thousands more. The British forces annihilated the beautiful historical city of Dresden in Germany, wiping its population out, and doing this was a simple act of revenge. But the Allied forces were considered the good "moral" guys defending freedom, which for Black G.I.'s was something they did not fully enjoy at home. 911 was in the true "smote thy enemies" tradition of religion. The guys who did it didn't think they were doing wrong, or they wouldn't have done it. America thought the act of terrorism was wrong because they felt victimized. The same day 2 thousand people were killed at the twin towers, scores of people all over America were killed in accidents. Shit happens. Just ask Osama bin Ladin. And there is such a thing as amorality. - a lack of morals which is how humans are born. Little kids are very self absorbed and cruel. They have to have their natural behavior curbed and modfied by adults. Improving yourself can result in making the world a better or worse place. Value judgments have to be made. The Robin Hood effect can come into play. If I rob a bank and use the money to buy myself a fine new house and help my debt-riddled children, then I would have not only improved my circumstances but I will have raised my self approval because I risked going to jail in order to help my children. If I never got caught for this "crime", I would experience further self-approval because I improved my ingenuity when it came to acquiring money. The bank would be the loser, - but banks are not exactly institutions that deserve sympathy. For me, personally, the ultimate act of self improvement would be to acknowledge that robbing a bank was dishonest and, that in the future, I will be more scrupulous.

Orignal post erased and reposted elsewhere.

Over the years, the internet has clued me as to how significant a person's essence is. Time and time again in various venues, I have interacted with strangers identified solely by a screen name and represented only by an avatar. Such encounters verify that how individuals look in person has nothing to do with whether they are smart or dumb, boring or interesting, phony or genuine. It's all about the inner spirit that transcends the physical and comes across. Of course beauty is only skin deep, but it takes your eyes a while to acquire x-ray vision. In the process you might just become a better looking person; literally.

Waaaay back during my youthful excursion into the college scene, me and my small clique of high school girlfriends decided we would attend the U of Illinois. We were persuaded to pass up a chance to be among the first black coeds to integrate womens' housing on this campus and, instead, we accepted an invitation from another friend to take up residence at the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority house which was anxious to fill up its rooms in order to stay float. As an aside, during this time, this chapter(Gamma) was the only black one in the entire country to actually have a sorority house. The rest of the AKA chapters and other black sororities had to make-do with whatever living quarters and accomodations they could find for meetings and activities. In contrast to the large palatial mansions that were occupied by the white sororites, the home of the AKAs was a 3-story ramshackle old frame house, with just adequate facilities. If you weren't already an AKA member(soror), in order to live here, you had to join what was called the "Ivy Leaf" interest group. After being a member of this club for a year, and if your grades were passing, you could then be upgraded to the rank of "pledge", after which you would go through a intense interval that culminated in the hell week designed to degrade and break you down in order to make you over in the image of womanhood that this organization represented. Once you got through this ordeal, you were ready to be lifted up and initiated into the sorority. The year I spent in these Spartan circumstances was interesting, to say the least, mostly because "Ivies", as we were called, were expected to be humble and submissive, to perform menial chores, and to regard our "big sisters" as the role models we wanted to emulate. Unfortunately, I was not inspired to embrace this attitude and at the end of the year I was told that I would not be invited back and would undoubtedly fare better living elsewhere. Elsewhere turned out to be one of the large luxurious women's dormitories, that included maid service and being served by waiters and watresses in the spacious dining room. The encounters and adventures I experienced in the dorm's diverse setting during a transistional time in America's racial relations taught me lessons that benefited me throughout my life. Years, later I ran into one of my ex-big sisters and we recalled this incident. She chuckled and told me that a couple of the sorors had actually admired my spunk and rebellousness. But it was a unanimous decision to kick me out because I didn't fit the mold... The Kappas and Alphas and "Qs" also had chapters and houses on the U. of Illinois campus at this time. Then, there were those who skipped the frats and referred to themselves as "GDIs" - god damned independents. They were always the most interesting guys; edgy and free-spirited. But, yeah, the Kappas had the best parties!

I have no desire to stop broadening the subject of a thread, giving it the added depth of exposing the person behind the words, Pioneer. This is an especially interesting exercise when I compare you and harry brown. Ol harry locks in the Capital keys, gives his little report, expresses his familiar opinions and he's done. He feels no need to inflate his image, to be condescending, to psycho analyse and apparently doesn't give a damn if people blow him off. Arguing ain't his thing. Me, I feed on what others say, always looking for an opening to imply that what someone asserts is "not necessarily so". As Troy once noted, this makes for good "theater", presumably because of how people react when their entrenched view are challenged. Arguing is my thing.

Apologizing, hell. I didn't absolve you from being duplicitous, Pioneer. And, in all honesty, my gesture was an attempt to escape the danger of acquiring a reputation for driving posters away from this board. But I should've known that you wouldn't abandon a platform that provides a showcase for your relentless pontificating. Oh, well. Yawnnnn.

When are you, Pioneer, going to make yourself a better person by divesting yourself of the egocentric assumptions that people who make observations that you agree with, have been influenced by you? All the above statements I made were my pre-conceived notions and they weren't "learned" from you. The only thing I've learned from you is that some people will go to any lengths to feed their need to always be right; especially when they're wrong.

There has been an undercurrent from the past about what happened way back when to the thriving black community in Oklahoma and how cruelly and inhumane the Native Americans in this territory were dealt with by the U.S. Government, - voices murmuring that the swath of tornadoes that just recently devastated this state are the ghosts of revenge. But revenge is a double-edged sword and black people are still struggling with the ghosts of white southern resentment against the emancipation of the slaves whose present day descendants are mired in the residue of slavery that oozes with irresponsible low-life behavior.

Self-improvement has certainly run amok when it comes to plastic surgery and weight obsession. Once perfection intrudes into the equation, then people get carried away. Obviously it's important to strive to make yourself a better person but, of course it depends on what constitutes "better." "This above, all, to thine ownself be true, and it shall follow as the night the day that thou can'st not then be false to any man." Whatever.

Grouping people by their similarities rather than their differences has its advantages, especially when it comes to politics and advertising targets. Black people may differ in many aspects but they predictably gravitate toward Democrats and Independants. Black people may have different tastes but have physical and biological similarities that lead them to prefer certain products. Hispanics may abound with differences but, accents aside, they all speak Spanish. The masses tend to segregate themselves. bonding with those with whom they can identify. In America we have yet to acquire a commonality of integrity that inspires us to judge people solely as individuals.

In males, pedophilia is supposedly an innate affliction that has no cure expect possibly castration. Changing flaws that would improve one have to fall within certain parameters. Some flaws are an integral part of our make-up, like those that characterize psychopaths and sociopaths. People should be commended, however, for recognizing and acknowledging the changes that would make them better. If Pioneer hadn't moved on(?), I'd be interested in his input about whether or not homosexuals would be better persons if they changed. Change always involves ambiguity and ambivalence. Guess that's why the "serenity prayer" is such a popular mantra. SERENITY PRAYER God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. That other old adage about "what doesn't kill you will make you stronger" may apply when one is forced into making a correction.

Delano recently started a thread, asking others what they were consistently doing to make themselves better people. I couldn't answer this and, for some reason, this bothered me. So I am motivated to take this opportunity to make myself a better person by rising above the sarcasm and cynicism that come so natural to me. Because Pioneer is entitled to all the beliefs he holds that run contrary to mine, and because he means well, I will now display the emoticon which I neglected to add at the end of the preceding post.

Me, too, Delano; I've pretty much congealed into the inertia of simply being who I am, - which is probably more bad than good. Such is life...

Provocative question, Delano, particularly so, since I can't come up with an answer. Tell us what you are doing to improve yourself, so I can be inspired to search my soul for an answer...