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Cynique

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Everything posted by Cynique

  1. Yes, there are groups who are united in bringing down a historical enemy in revenge for the past. That's the motivation of the Islamic Jehad against Christianity, and variations of this theme permeated the mindset of militants who considered "whitey" their foe. And. one person's truth can be another person's falsehood. You call for greater "autonomy" and "solidarity", words which bring "automatons" with a "sheep mentality" to my mind. Leaders never want dissidents in their ranks because they dilute the power that eventually corrupts those in charge.
  2. While "going on and on" about MLK, you neglected to mention that it was A. Phillip Randolph who organized the 1963 March on Washington, which was originally a demonstration for "jobs and freedom", not a showcase for King's oratorical skills.
  3. Or is what unites us necessarily good for the collective. It all depends. Life is too full of variables to totally embrace a philosophy that is the mantra of those who are seeking revenge for the past. Determining what's good for the common collective is a slippery slope when defined by paternalistic, self-serving leaders, as illustrated by the German people during HItler's era. Many roads lead to a goal; those who prefer a lock-step cookie-cutter approach have tunnel vision and are lacking in flexibility.
  4. I'd venture to say that, over the centuries, black people have been lynched and beaten to death as much as they've been shot. Save your pouting for that. It's not like white people don't kill each other, their weapon of choice more likely to be a gun, especially during Prohibition. White people don't really care if Blacks shoot each other up, which is what they are doing in Chicago, so they are no more concerned about Blacks having guns than Whites. Illinois has stricter gun control laws than most states.
  5. We are the yin to each other's yang, WaterStar. Together we become a single entity that, if nothing else, - makes things interesting,
  6. OK. Chicago, the third largest city in America and arguably still one of the more segregated ones, has a city college named after Malcolm X which means this is not a private school but a public taxpayer-funded one. I dare say that just as you will find streets named after MLK all over America, you will also find all kinds of little centers and schools and societies containing the name Malcolm X, and "demonized" is hardly the word to characterize white indifference to this situation. And I can truly say that I've never met a black person who bad-mouthed Malcolm X. Like I said, white Americans forgave the blabber-mouthed Muhammad Ali for his embracing the teachings of Elijah Muhammad and for being a draft dodger and for scolding the white race while being color-conscious, himself, preferring light-skinned women, and also for calling Joe Fraizer a "monkey" and, as I see it, they do not begrudge Malcom X his politics, shrugging rather than scowling over them. Also the recent Pulitzer prize winning biography of Malcolm is out there, available for anyone who wants a more in depth look at this man. The Black Panthers advocated "bringin-down-this-mutha revolution" but their infra-structure left a lot to be desired what with how misygonistic and drug-prone the members were. Just ask Katheen Cleaver. Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver both ended up the pathetic victims of their own erratic shortcomings. Co-founder Bobby Seale joined "The Establishment" and seems to look back on his Panther days with amusement. Angela Davis is as much a fashionista as she is a college professor, still identifying herself as a Communist while enjoying the fruits of Capitalism. Bobby Rush, the Minister of Defense in the Illinois Black Panther Party is now a pious preacher in addition to being an Illinois congressman who handed Barack Obama a stunning defeat when he ran against him for this office. And, incidentaly, the late Illinois Black Panther Party chairman, Fred Hampton, has a swimming pool named after him in his and my hometown, where outside a bust of him is perched with a plaque honoring his efforts to have this facility installed. Yes, the Panthers initiated free breakfasts progams for young school children, and defied the uniformed pigs, and had great slogans like "all power to the people" and projected very impressive images with their black berets and raised fists, but their chief accomplishment was panicking J. Edgar Hoover who took them a lot more seriously than the brothers in the street who knew that all of their posturing would be no match for America's firepower. Today they are remembered as being "cool" hotheads but who, for all their efforts, never eliminated racial profiling. Everybody gives lip-service to the importance of history but this is the "right now" age which espouses the idea that dwelling on the past has its place in a classroom, but the arena of the real world is where life in the present has to be confronted. So, WaterStar, once again our views are different, but the window of life has many panes, and I'd be the first to agree with you about language, having previously reminded that it's what transcends language that can be the best communcator because actions often speak louder than words.
  7. I disagree that Malcolm is demonized here in America. Certainly Black people have never abandoned him. About 10 years ago, all the young brothers were even wearing caps with "M" for Malcolm on them. We still love Malcolm and are familiar with his legacy. I continue to be amazed how White America has overlooked Muhammad Ali's checkered past and taken him to their bosom. And in my interactions, White people, in general, are a little vague about Malcolm, not seeming to have particularly hostile opinions if they have any at all. White historians don't villainize him and acknowledge that he broadened his perspective after his visit to Mecca. Maybe they don't aggrandize him, but do credit him with being a significant figure in the black struggle. Louis Farrakhan is another story. He is disliked and feared by whites, especially Jews. Here in Chicago, however, he recently unleashed his Fruit of Islam brigade on the streets of Chicago in hopes that their presence would combat all of the killings that are going on in the black neighborhoods, and both the police chief and the mayor welcomed his help, almost groveling at his feet. I wonder if the different slant we seem to have on things has something to do with our living in differents parts of the country, WaterStar. I know, I know, racism is just more subtle in the North but this often allowed Blacks to slip in through the back door. And altho you deny a generation gap, we seem to be a couple of decades apart with you being more focused on the past. I know my black experience is different from a lot of people's because I lived in a bubble for about 5 years, completely removed from what was going on elsewhere as the the civil rights storm clouds began to gather in the early1950s. I resided in a quiet little interracial town where blacks and whites were very comfortable in their separate encaves, neither group feeling the need to challenge the status quo. I've always attended integrated schools, and I've never had a black teacher... I tell people all the time, that when I attended the overwhelmingly white University of Illinois, while Rosa Parks was being shunted to the back of the bus, I was living in a newly-integrated dorm, where we black coeds voluntarily chose to hang together, and when we all sat at the same table in the dining hall, we were waited on by white waiters and waitresses with twangy southern Illinois accents, and who never seemed to have a problem with serving us uppity niggras. Of course this was the calm before the storm, and things were different later when the nilitancy of the 1960s exploded on the scene. Just some thoughts you might want to comment on.
  8. Guns motivate people, people don't motivate guns. Guns put ideas on people's minds. A gun possesses a person as much as a person possesses a gun. Young people, especially, are mesmerized and fascinated by guns, and their first impulse is to pull its trigger. When a person looks at a vase or a frying pan, they see a flower holder or a cooking utensil, not the weapons these objects can become. When a person sees a gun, it's all about injuring or killing. A shooter may or may not be innocent. But a gun is always guilty. When it comes to religion, it isn't too much of a stretch to consider the old adage which declares that: "the pathway to hell is paved with good intentions."
  9. Gun control, movie censorship, increased security - none of this will prevent a psychopath from going off the deep end. These narcissistic people are great at deception, - disarming and impressing others with their intelligence and guile. But they cannot deal with rejection and blame society when their ego is deflated. Needless to say they are dysfunctional personalities and, worst of all, possess no consciences. According to reports, the Colorado shooter despite being an outstanding student in college, was falling short in med school, and dropped out. Sounds like he couldn't cope with the idea of not being as smart as he perceived himself to be and decided do something to get an indifferent world to give him the attention he felt he deserved. Psychopaths and sociopaths circulate throughout the general population, and they will kill.
  10. I have refrained from entering this discussion, becase it's a subject I know very little about since I am what might be called "old school". I'm a library person dating back to my childhood and I love the ambience of the library experience. I'm a regular visitor at my local library and any book I think I want to read, I go there and if it's not on the shelves, they will either order it or put me on the waiting list if it's checked out. They tell me that I'm their type of client, because I help keep them abreast of what's hot and what people want to read, something the hired help there apparently is no longer up on themselves what with only one of them actually being a professional librarian, thanks to the decline in city revenues that created a budget crunch, not to mention a fall-off in patrons. Any way I have a confession to make. If I like a book I've checked out from the library and want a copy for my personal collection, I will wait for it to come out in paperback then go on-line and purchase a "used" copy of it. I'm really not proud of my chicanery in light of all I've read here. But I'm a bargain hunter, and like I said, - old habits die hard. But I submit that I atoned for my transgression by never charging more than $5.00 for my books at books fairs, later even giving away any left-overs. That's because profit was never my motive and I never had dreams of getting rich from penning a blockbuster bestseller. I wrote for my love of the craft and I always felt that people were doing me a favor by reading my novels and lord knows I was doing many of them a favor by attempting to complete the high priced self-published poorly-written monstrocities that were pawned off on me. My other confession is that I read as many books by white authors as I do by black ones, and, lately, more nonfiction than fiction. But I just thought I'd add another point of view to this thread.
  11. Troy, I would like to hear your thoughts on this post mostly because I called myself analysing and attempting critical thinking when I wrote it. I did a lot of pondering before I came up with my conclusions.
  12. Yes, things do go through cycles and in circles. Yesterday's rose colored glasses become today's bi-focals. Yesterday's brainstorms become today's de ja vue. Time brings change. The more things change, the more they become the same. Everything that's old, becomes new. There's nothing new under the sun. The truth will set you free. The truth hurts. Take your pick. Unless today's younger generation looks ahead instead of down at their IPads, unless they face the future instead of FaceBook, unless they articulate instead of text or tweet, I can't imagine them even knowing the difference between relevance and irrelevance. Of course in a super-charged world, this probably won't matter to battery-powered humanoids.
  13. I was there from the beginning. I saw Malcolm and MLK evolve. Their hey day was my hey day. I kept up with them, agreeing and sometimes disagreeing with them.
  14. Well, I guess we have to limit our concern about those poor dehumanized enslaved Africans to the "field negroes". They seem to be the only ones that fair-skinned, red-haired Malcolm X has any use for. Nice eulogy, Ossie. As well it should be. Speak well of the dead. If you can't say something good about them, don't say anything at all.
  15. Well, we can tell from the terminology used in this little anecdotal tale that the author is a disciple of WaterStar's. The race card is the counterpart of "racist". Black folks call any person who gives any inkling of being biased a "racist", just like white people attempt to invalidate black people's argument by accusing them of playing the race card. Whatever. Situations differ from location to location in different areas of the country. If people choose to go live around white people, then their white playmates may or may not discriminate against them at the school they both attend. And black youngsters are not above abandoning their white playmates or discriminating by race themselves. That's the chance you take when you live in an integrated environment. If a kid in the upper grades at a mixed race school wants to hang out with white kids, the black kids sometimes shun or snub that black kid. There are a lot of different scenarios. All the public schools in my area have a racial make-up of Blacks and Hispanics and a smattering of Whites. The kids pretty much-co-exist. They tolerate those of another ethnicity, but they gravitate toward their own kind and hook up with little cliques within their own grouping. Integration had its chance and faltered altho I'm told that on the West Coast all you see are mixed couples. And this is not an uncommon sight around Chicago. So the sexes do still interact. I've yet to hear how the race problem can be fixed in this country, but the younger generation seems to compensate by enjoying their social lives. When it comes to the work place, it may or may not be the same ol same ol. Around here, Blacks make out very well at the utility companies and the Post Office. Private industry, not so good.
  16. Here's my take. Before you assess religion you have to consider its origins. Scientist theorize that our brains are wired to be in awe of the unknown and that there are indications that a “god gene” exists. Anthropologists declare that, indeed, belief in a higher power has always been present in the human condition and this is what gave rise to myth and idolatry. From this It can be deduced that religion is something that comes natural to humans. It is organic. It was not originally a tool, but became one when man decided to manipulate it. Guns and the bullets that are their components are manufactured items specifically created for the sole purpose of inflicting damage, not only to people but to objects. A loaded gun is a latent danger. It doesn’t have to be wielded by a person. It can fall from where it has been placed and can accidently discharge a bullet that does harm to some person or thing. Circumstances do not transform a gun. Even when it inflicts damage on a threat, it is doing something bad to this target because it will either kill or maime or destroy it. The NRA likes to exonerate guns with its double talk about people killing people, not guns.but this is just a smokescreen to cloud its ulterior motives. Even an unloaded gun is a killing waiting to happen. Religion per se is not harmful because it is generic. The harm came in when it splintered into name brands, - denominations that are inherently harmful because intrinsic in each one is the idea that my belief is more valid than yours. And implicit in this belief is the idea that in the eyes of the god who is the supreme honcho, I am more worthy than you. And to enforce this idea I have and will become bellergerent. All of which is why religion too often does more harm than good.
  17. I agree, Writergirl. I would just add that language constricts because it is abstract. It's what transcends language that bears watching because like the old cliche says, "actions speak louder than words". Malcolm X is about yesterday. His death elevated him to martyr status but he is not above being questioned today about some of his ideas and actions of yesterday. The same with Martin Luther King. Hero worship is a double-edged sword. There's nothing more liberating than for a person to think for himself, drawing his conclusion and learning from his own experiences because one person's treasure is another one's garbage. People of color in America are no more interested in marching in lockstep with and being dictated to by other blacks than they are in having white people call the plays. It behooves those who want to focus on the present to realize that this is indeed a new day and nobody is obligated to shoulder the burden of their race. "United we stand" can just be another way of saying "misery loves company". This is the age of self-absorption. Reality is a bitch, but it trumps delusions.
  18. Does being called a "negro" diminish a person's humanity or just cause them to roll their eyes in amusement because it's outdated? Slaves would've probably been pleasantly surprised to be called "negro" by their masters as opposed to niggah or darky. Is being called an "African American" supposed to assuage being called a negro? I think white people calling Blacks "African Americans" is a tad patronizing; like they're trying to humor us. I prefer the term "black", too, Writergirl, as seemingly do most slave descendants today because, thanks to Malcolm X, embracing this word took the stigma out of the color "black"; And, of course, the word negro is derived from the Spanish word for black. African-American is almost a tongue twister and is like an artificial construct. The United Negro College fund is secure enough in its identity to have never changed its name. Ditto the National Association For the Advancement of Colored People. And nobody could the trill the word "negro" like Martin Luther King. I could see if this prolonged discussion was about calling grown black males "boys: instead of "men", because these 2 words have separate definitions. But objectively interpreting synonyms is a gray area.
  19. Clarence Thomas is kind of an enigma. If you didn't know his backstory, and you were sitting next to him in a bar, just shooting the shit, you probably have no problem with him. I always got the impression that he wasn't that different from the average black man, right down to wanting to tap Anita Hill's ass. He was also an opportunist. He is shunned by most of his race, but he is able to insulate himself because of his wealth and privilege. "What does it profit a man to gain the world, if he loses his soul?" I don't think Cousin Tommy cares; except maybe once in a while...
  20. It is about asking the right questions, isn't it? And very often the answer is hidden in the question. Very Zen. Ingenuity is really called for to salvage order from "chaos". This is what separates the visionaries from the myopics. If nothing else, it will be "interesting" to see where the future will take us.
  21. Welllllll, WaterStar, since this subject continues to be an ongoing one, I would contend that those who promote using "enslaved Africans" rather than "slaves" have an agenda, - an agenda which resonates with the idea of controlling people by telling them how their thought processes should work. But black people are free to regard their ancestors any way they choose. Who is to suggest that they are ill-advised for not making a distinction about something they regard as trivial. Self-appointed revisionists are just that: self-appointed. For instance, black people today have different sentiments in regard to house slaves and yard ones and field ones. Who has the right to tell them which ones they should approve or disapprove of the most? What about the slaves who betrayed those who tried to escape? What about the ones that were the enforcers for the overseers? Worse yet, what about their tribesmen who sold them into slavery? If anything, the range of their behavior is the best testament to transplanted AFricans being human, because they were capable of human foibles and flaws, individuals who chose their own way of coping with their fate, doing whatever it took to make things easier for themselves. Not all of them were long-suffering heroes, singing spirituals. To me it does not impact one way or another on the injustices these plantation laborers experienced, by dwelling on the question of whether or not a person who is "enslaved" by others becomes a "slave". As I previously contended, we don't know how these people thought of themselves but they certainly knew they weren't animals. And so do we. These involuntary immigrants developed their own culture and own terms and whatever they called themselves or however they regarded their status didn't contribute to their being emancipated. When these people were liberated 400 years after their forefathers landed on these shores, what was the difference between them no longer being "slaves" and their no longer being "enslaved"? Did they give a damn? I think not.
  22. I actually do like Colin and Condi because they are moderates, maybe even Independents masquerading as Republicans. I appreciate your being fair in not judging Black maveriks, Troy. One of the hardest things I find to do is to be objective enough to respect conservative black Republicans; especially the young hot shots who always strike me as striving too hard to "act white".They actually repel me because it's like they are trying to escape their blackness, rather than diversify the Republican party. It's true that at first MLK met with resistance from southern black leaders who didn't want to rock the boat because they were the ones who would be the targets of white retaliation. Up North, we just adored Dr. King from the start because he was so eloquent and on point and most of all because we had the luxury of agreeing with him without participating in his activism. Malcolm X didn't meet with that much resistance among blacks because we liked the way he rubbed white peoples noses in their shit, and because he never advised us to turn the other cheek or embrace nonviolence. The Black Panthers never enjoyed widespread acceptance, because they were too radical. Revolution was great as the subject of fiery rhetoric, but nobody ever really believed that we could overthrow the government, even at local levels. Urban police forces had no trouble with fighting fire with fire and would shoot you down in the street or your bed as was the case with Panther leader, Fred Hampton, all of this with the approval of J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI.
  23. Did I accuse you of having my $3,000 dollars? You, of all people, making inferences about something I never said by framing it in the phrase "figuratively speaking ". OK, WaterStar, I'm done. Quibbling about the merits of using the adjective "enslaved" as opposed to the noun "slave" is an abstract exercise in futility, especially since I wouldn't presume to know how the "people" in question thought of themselves. My point remains that it goes without saying that the progeny of Africa captives are well aware that they are descended from human beings who were victims of the slave trade. Everybody is sympathetic toward these involuntary laborers and debating about which word better describes their servitude strikes me as redundant. But, I have to remind myself, that you are a teacher and this influences your approach to things. BTW, my named being attached to this site affords me no special privileges or obligations. I'm actually too lethargic to come up with things to discuss, and I'm sure Troy appreciates you and boitumelo supplying material to spark my contrariness. I do have to admit that I ain't had this much fun since my marathon sparrings with Kola Boof! I think you and her would probably get along quite well.
  24. Well, boitumelo, the average person isn't as vigilant and as concerned as we like to think they are when it comes to indecent behavior; they tend to not want to get involved, or start any trouble, preferring to mind their own business and look the other way. In fact, whistle blowers are often held in contempt and viewed as "snitches. The people hushing up scandelous behavior in high profile cases, are reacting in a typical manner. It's a standing joke about scout masters having a thing for young boys, and lesbian gym teachers, hanging around girls' showers. Nobody ever gives this lechery a second thought. A sad commentary on our society. Seems like the family of Robert Champion should be able to sue FAMU, however.
  25. Black Russian, huh? And here all this time I thought that was the name of a drink. I never knew any Blacks fought on the side of "the crown" during the Revolutionary war. Just goes to show, you're never too old to learn something new. Thanks for the interesting info included in your post. BTW, Vlad, have you impaled anybody lately???
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