Cynique

@Pioneer1 What a ridiculous statement. Where do you get the idea that white people think having sex is the worst thing in the world?? Whites didn't praise their conquerors for pillaging or condemn them for rape, They just ignored both of these atrocities. I guess you think white slave masters should be given a thumb's up because what they were doing to their black female slaves was merciful. SMH This issue is not about race. It is about a female of any age and color having a right to not be sexually taken advantage of by a horny pussy monger. Many girls reach puberty at 12, so according to your standards, this makes them sexually "eligible " for the lust of predators, an attitude which also includes your thinking that black people are more prone to indulge in wanton sex and this is something to boast about. Even in the animal kingdom, the female of the species selects a mate from all the males trying to impress her, and her choice is the one she discerns would be a good sire for her offspring. But not in your world where it's OK for black folks to just indiscriminately indulge their insatiable desire to copulate because this and the resulting babies are what comes natural to them.

Who gives a damn what "Needy Full-of-it" says? He and you give white people too much credit. They can't even sort out their own sexuality. They are the ones who have determined that sexual orientation is present at birth and exists because of how the brain is wired and that this cannot be reversed or altered.

Do you 2 equate advocating acceptance of LGBT people as an attempt to turn straight people into gay ones? The LGBT issue is about inclusion instead of exclusion, about accepting people for who they are and not discriminating against them. It's a humanitarian cause.

@Pioneer1 Your examples didn't live up to your ongoing NOI hyperbole. Kareem Abdul JAbbar was not a product of the NOI. The NOI had no influence on Cassius Clay being a skilled boxer. Black Christian Churches and fraternal organization have always referred to fellow members as brother and sister. Hip-Hop would've come into its own without the NOI. Black Panthers are who popularized the term black is beautiful or did referring to negroes as the black man originate with the NOI. The Million Man March was nothing but a gathering which had no trickle down effect when it came to improving the plight of black men. Better i yawn, than barf which is really what your nauseating blather induces. Having credibility with you is not a goal i have set for myself. It would be a step backward. There's nothing more to say about the Catholic Church's history of child abuse that hasn't already been said by Catholics and others. I put Catholic priests in the same category as Elijah Muhammad, and it goes without saying that they are also lecherous predators. 2 wrongs don't make a right, Dummy. @Chevdove that's pretty much what the situation currently is. LOL Black men are not into idolizing their women, and we sure have earn their respect, something which often amounts to just conceding to them. At this point i don't have any expectations. Black men have to earn my respect before i value theirs. And this varies from situation to situation...

Take this straw man argument and shove it. I never said Malcolm, who was only 8 years my senior, was a father figure to me! That's your distorted BS, portraying me as a being some awe struck youngster because i appreciated him telling it like it was when it came to white treachery, something i made clear was nothing new to me because i'd heard my father say it all before! Your whole concocted scenario is, as usual, off kilter. You seem to think that i just had some kind of an epiphany about Malcolm X and that my opinion of him changed from what it has always been. i was never impressed by how he was duped by Elijah Muhammad and how he swallowed that silly story about how some black scientist created white men. He was never anyone i was interested in becoming a follower of, because his vision of an all-black state was a pie in the sky dream and all of his revolutionary rhetoric was wishful thinking. I still call him Malcolm X just like everybody else because that's who he was to me. His adopted name Malik is just trivia. Malcolm X was an articulate charismatic figure during the black struggle, but not someone i idolized. He was no more manly than a lot of other black men who were civil rights activists. My perspective of him is the same as it has always been. And i am not a child abuse crsader but i am a truth teller and nobody can deny the facts about Elijah Muhammad being a lecherous child molester. And the reason i never considered joining the NOI was that nothing about its leader and its stringent, dreary lifestyle appealed to me. So your rebuttal is a crock of crap. You just made a ranting fool of yourself. Oh, puleeze. I didn't wait 50 years to start praising Malcolm. i did gave him his props when he was alive. I said that back then i appreciated him reprimanding white people. You don't know whether you are coming or going; drowning in your false equivalency arguments. And when did i call him a "real man's man"?? Once again you are misrepresenting me! What i actually said was that i would be arguing with him if he was alive today, and would sarcastically imply that the only men Muslim women needed to be protected from was chauvinistic Muslim men. Hypocrisy, hell. As for you treatise about Elijah Muhammad and the black Muslims having more impact on black America than any other organization, it's just a bunch of half-truths and exaggerations by someone desperate to defend his position. NOI's impact is no greater than any other civil rights or literary or fraternal or musical movement in the black spectrum. And today the NOI is just a residue of the past. BTW, i don't really give a damn why you didn't join the Muslims. Who cares????? Yawn.

Is this young man aware that Zora is a well known black writer, a colorful figure who came into her own during the Harlem Renassiance? A TV movie based on this book came out in 2005. It starred Halle Berry and Michael Ealy.

@Mel HopkinsOK, in Chicago, there's an organization referred as The Assembly, which annually hosts a kind of mini-pan hellenic gathering during the Christmas holiday season and some people loosely call it "boule". All of this is too "chi-chi" for my taste but my in-laws were on the fringes of it. Just out of curiosity i checked the definition of the word "boule" which i assumed was "French" in its origins. It is, and one of its 3 definition is: "Boule In cities of ancient Greece, the boule was a council of citizens appointed to run daily affairs of the city." So, that makes sense. @Del Melvin's son Mario has an equally impressive resume that rivals his father's.

According to my late husband who was a Mason, this exclusion dates back centuries when Free Masons, who are a secret organization, banned Catholics from membership because it was felt that they might divulge their secrets to the Pope if asked to do so. Later Catholics formed their own version of the Masons and they are known as the Knights of Columbus. I have no idea My query was in regard to the observation about black men no longer hanging out together and bonding. It was also said that this was especially true among the upper echelon of blacks. So, i was wondering if hanging out in local American Legion and VFW halls or being teammates in bowling leagues , is an example of non-elite black dudes still gathering in groups. Are you talking about Melvin Van Peebles or his son, Mario?

@ChevdoveWell, when you announce in a public venue how you intend to raise your kids, and what you say is offensive to a minority group, you should be prepared to be censured by the people who have hired you for a job. It is comparable to the announced host for the Oscars being white and him vowing that if his daughter married a black guy, he would put her out the house. Nobody is suing Kevin about what he said and had Kevin honored the Academy's request for him to apologize again, he'd still be emceeing the show. Welcome to the 2018 world of political correctness.

Things have probably changed since my exposure to black fraternities, but it used to be that one of their selling points in recruiting pledges was the promise that in the post-college world, you would be forever connected all over the country with your frat brothers who, once that secret handshake was exchanged, would "pull you along" if they had any clout or authority. On the campus of the U. of I. a friendly rivalry existed between the fraternities. and the members of these organizations were very tight and loyal to the brotherhood, many forming life-long friendships. But that was over 50 years ago. Boule was made up almost exclusively of fraternities and sororities, and their conventions at one time were networking events. But that was 25 or so years ago. Black Masonic membership has fallen way off, many lodges becoming inactive but at one time it was the same with them. All of that may well be different now because society has changed in the millennial world. But i would agree that women are and always have been more interested in meeting and greeting and organizing. Currently, in my hometown, in the midst of the non-elite, there is an American Legion Hall and a VFW one, where vets hangout and play cards, shoot pool, drink and hold social events. There are also local bowling leagues where men and women teams compete weekly as well as socialize. What can be deduced from this?

I'm always suspicious of male homophobes. i'm among those who wonder if these guys hate gay men because the latter make them question their own manhood. There was a time when men didn't wear cologne because it was considered for sissies. Now male cologne is a staple in a man's accessories. i'm surprised nobody considered how street gangs are made up of males seeking a bonding experience and how their members tend to hang out together and embrace each other.

Political correctness is becoming as stifling as those it targets. It is totally shutting down comedy and satire, forbidding people to laugh at the foibles of the human condition. But this was inevitable as the pendulum swings from one extreme to the other, and times change.

Tell me. if the NOI was so great why weren't you motivated to join it? Why did you, instead, remain a member of the vast majority of black Americans, - millions and millions of people who this provincial organization had no influence on. You don't even exhibit any signs that your affinity for the NOI made you an exemplary non-Muslim. You are, instead, someone who spends his time scraping the bottom of the barrel looking for excuses for lechers, and proselytizing pseudo African concepts that originate in the jungle of your imagination. Specifically, what major socio-economic change can you point to today that can be attributed to this minor little sect this is a blip in the black radar and was headed up by a religious charlatan who thought he was entitled to sleep with and impregnate innocent young girls and who arranged the murder of his most eloquent and devoted spokesman?

We are coming from 2 different places. i am talking about semantics, and you are talking about sociology. i can embrace word purity without rejecting moral relativism.

@Troy Repugnant behavior meant the same thing during slavery as it does now. That's why the Civil War was fought. Northerners thought slavery was repugnant, and slaveholders did not use the word repugnant to describe slavery because they would have to admit how owning slaves tainted their integrity, - not because back then repugnant and integrity meant something different. You expect me to see where you're coming from, so you should do likewise, when you implore me to acknowledge the distinction you are making. Words are something we always clash about so, i'll just leave it at that. @ all of you who refuted my remark about black folks always being at odds: I hate to keep bringing up what it is that inspires my cynicism about black folks always being at odds, but how long i've been around is what influences my reason for saying this. The dialogue on this thread is one that i have been hearing for over 50 years and is a conversation that has changed very little. So pardon me if i'm not impressed with this exchange of ideas as being a sign of better things to come. What this thread mostly amounted to was a typical conversation between 4 black men shooting the breeze about a perennial subject they never tire of. What can always be distilled from these conversations is a yearning for black unity, the lack of which can conceivably be attributed to blacks always being at odds. But, carry on. Doing so is probably therapeutic. @NubianFellow I’m in agreement. Sometimes, I wonder if those traditions are true African or from the Colonized African. There have been so many perverted folks who have enter the African countries with their “bibles” ... it makes me wonder how people who once lived in nature - turned on what’s natural I also agree. I have always thought the African diaspora in American cobbled together what they wanted to emulate about the Motherland. We should do what comes natural to us in this country, and simply defer to what our DNA instinctively spawns.

No, they are not. Look at how divided the American culture is and aways has been. NOTHING is "universal" when it comes to people.  @Troy Give an example of how the word "integrity" has been corrupted. The definition of the word has not changed. There are enough words out there to describe specific traits and this makes it unnecessary to distort the meaning of one word and apply it to something or someone that doesn't fit its definition. The meanings of certain words are intrinsic. And there are things that are universal when it comes to people! A smile and laughter indicate the same thing universally, and so does frowning and crying. Verbal communication via language is also universal as is walking up right. This disagreement between you and me, represents the tone of this whole thread because each poster sees the world through their own lens. All opinions are fixed and one person's truth is another's delusion Black folks seem forever destined to be at odds and this is because they are rarely in control of their environment be it physical or political and this makes it difficult to formulate solutions except in the sphere of their skulls. Such is life.

Well, certain of you conveniently ignore what i said about the book written about King by his closest confidante, the Reverend Ralph Abernathy, in which many of the rumors were confirmed. i, myself, saw a play about 10 years ago based on King's affair with a young women, which if it hadn't been accurate could've been the subject of a suit by his heirs. And it never was. I don't profess to know about any homosexual activity. When you seek the truth, it is not always what we want to hear, especially if it is about our heroes. Pioneer also seems to completely disregard how JFK's involvement with Marilyn Monroe was sensationalized, to the extent of even advancing the idea that that he was involved in her death, which his accusers say was murder, not suicide. As for King, as far as i am concerned, his greatest asset was that he was not self-aggrandizing. it was never about him when it came to the movement, it was about his urging black folks to keep their eyes on the prize. Or did he originally seek leadership. He was chosen for it because of the obvious qualifications he displayed as a relatively unknown preacher. What he did in private was not something i was ever eager to cast stones about. Since his wife seemed OK with it, and he was doing a good job of advancing the black cause, i gave him a pass. His legacy speaks for itself because it involves his being instrumental in the passage of civil rights legislation. Some historians say that had he not been assassinated, his star would've faded as the days of civil disobedience fell from favor. As it was, his death made him a martyr. The same with Malcom X. So be it. About the term, "illegitimate", it had to originate somewhere, and it makes sense that that place was in courts of law where it is routinely used.

Although "illegitimate" and "bastard" may be insensitive words, they are legal terms that apply to children born out of wedlock. It's not like these words are just random labels slapped on children. They are used during courts cases involving heirs and inheritance.

i meant the definition of the word is constant. Has it changed? If people don't conform to that definition for whatever reason that doesn't mean the meaning of the word has changed. It just means that the word doesn't apply to that person and another word should be used in reference to that person. i could make the argument that a woman who is described as being "short" in stature doesn't change the meaning of the word "short" just because she puts on high heel shoes and becomes tall. Integrity means being honest. So if a woman is honest about her reason for wanting an abortion, her integrity is in tact because she is not being a deceitful liar. @Troy On November 30th on another post you said to Pioneer: "As far as this trivial debate about the your failure to recognize that Help and Assist are synonymous is nothing more than that - trivial. What I find surprising is that after all these years you will never change your stance on any issue -- even when you are demonstrably wrong, like now.The question you really be considering is why? Why are you so rigid?" On December 4th you said to Del: "Pioneer always answer questions. He is not so much concerned about winning -- thought he can be less rigid and more willing to change his position with new and better information..." @TroyThe word "integrity" certainly wouldn't apply to your 2 different opinions. I think "inconsistency" would be the appropriate word to define your waffling, or maybe even "expediency" since you decided to side with Pioneer when disagreeing with Del.

All well and good as long as the man in question doesn't think that just because he has a skill or has done something famous that this gives him a license to be a philanderer if he's married, or a perverted sexual predator if he's single, or any these combination of these offenses. What we're talking about is behavior in a personal relationship between a man and woman, not you and an auto mechanic. The point is that men should not think they deserve blind respect just because they have expertise in some area. And, once again, until a man can tolerate promiscuous behavior in his significant other who has a talent or skill, then he needs to stfu. The traits that constitute integrity are universal and constant, and will always be about doing the honorable thing - except to a slippery creep like you, apparently.

@Pioneer1 Del, hell. MLK's extra-curricula activities were circulating when he was alive. I happened to have been around during King's era when all of the stories were current, and they did not totally emanate from J. Edgar Hoover's report although it was fairly accurate, especially the part about King and Joan Baez, the famous white folk singer. But the most damning of all, was the book written after King's death by MLK's trusted right hand man, Ralph Abernathy, in which references were made to King's affairs, a book for which Abernathy took a lot of heat. As for Coretta, she was a faithful partner who relished her position as the wife of America's premiere black Moses and then widow of its martyred black Messiah, and she chose not to besmirch her husband who she undoubtedly loved.

Men??? Hummmm. Black folks are magnanimously forgiving when it comes to their preachers. I don't even know if not practicing what he preached applies to MLK because he never preached about anything other than racial harmony. He wasn't really a sanctimonious or self-righteous leader. He was a flawed man who drank, smoked and womanized. Moreover, he didn't seek a leadership role in the civil rights struggle. The role was thrust upon him and he was equal to the task because he was a great orator, a good political strategist and very charismatic. It has been said about him that he was at the right place at the right time during a revolution whose moment had come. But, quiet as it's kept, integration wasn't the cure-all for racism that King dreamed it would be. His legacy is untarnished, however, in spite of his lapses because, in the final analysis, America didn't change him; he changed it.

Is it asking too much for women to expect men to have good character and integrity? There's no excuse for accomplished husbands choosing to let their penises supplant their brains especially since no man cherishes an accomplished wife who engages in promiscuous behavior. An extra-marital affair can be forgiven but ongoing perversion and predatory harassment are not cancelled out by public acclaim. Bill Clinton will always be condemned for his shenanigans with Monica Lewinsky, and Donald Trump for his lewd behavior in spite of both having achieved the office of the presidency; and rightfully so. Esteemed married men should be role models worthy of being emulated, not sneaky pussy-mongers. There have to be standards. And it's perfect;y legitimate for a woman to not like a renowned man who was unfaithful to her, something he would likewise resent if she cheated on him. (Anybody who criticizes such a woman is totally lacking in insight.) Unfortunately, the double standard is alive and well as ego-centric men routinely meander through life adhering to the "don't do as i do, do as i say do" code. Elijah Muhammad was an unscrupulous lecher and nothing can erase that blot from the meager contributions he made to the world-at-large. Yes, "doggish" tendencies are in a man's DNA but for a husband to have the discipline and good judgment and moral compass to rise above lust by considering its negative possibilities, is an accomplishment that truly inspires admiration. Of course, people are free to behave anyway they want, but they shouldn't demand to be respected when their indiscretions come to light.

Discovering that Elijah Muhammad had a harem of young girls, many of whom he impregnated, was what drove Malcolm to leave the NOI and start his own sect. I personally knew a girl in my hometown who was fathered by Elijah Muhammad and was later adopted by a local minister of the Church of God and Christ, and his wife. Also, according to Malcolm's biography by Alex Haley, Malcolm was a pimp in his days before he went to prison and converted to Islam. Of course, Alex has proved to not always tell the truth in his books. Recently there have been reports that in 2010 Farrakhan became interested in Scientology and began to explore its concepts and encourage followers to study the disciplines of Dianetics in order to become coverts and learn the "auditing" procedures utilized to recruit and monitor others. i also read where Farrakhan has converted to Christianity, accepting Jesus Christ as his savior. I read about the Muslims and Dianetics in Wikipedia, which of course, draws criticism from certain people on this board. But i have always found well researched information there, and since the living people and the heirs of the dead people it profiles have an option to challenge and correct information about themselves or their works, i assume that what i read there is as good a source as any for information. As far as what i believe about black men automatically defending their women, i don't think doing so is a priority of theirs or something they do as a custom. Individual ones may do so in the course of protecting their families, the same way they would do if it came to their car or any property they valued. It's not something i dwell on. i remember a while back when one night my husband and i were awakened by a noise that made him wonder if someone was trying to break in. He immediately got up with the intention to go down stairs and see. i protested, asking him what did he think he could do? He continued out the room, saying he didn't know but would think of something when he got there. While i had my hand on the phone, i think he grabbed an object before he made it down the stairs where it proved to be a false alarm. So i guess "situational ethics" can trigger impulses.

@Pioneer1you can continue to subjectively cast the words "help" and "assist" in scenarios selected by you but, objectively, when they stand alone, the dictionary classifies them as interchangeable synonyms. You are not an etymologist or a semanticist or an authority on the English language. and you cite no source but yourself for what you are claiming You are simply someone who wants to impose his self-styled definitions on people and organizations that do and are doing as much if not more than the NOI. verb: help 1.make it easier for (someone) to do something by offering one's services or resources:"she helped him find a buyer"synonyms:assist, aid, help out, lend a hand to, lend a helping hand to, ... more antonyms:hinder 2.serve someone with (food or drink):"she helped herself to a cookie" noun :help 1.the action of helping someone to do something; assistance:"I asked for help from my neighbors"synonyms:assistance, aid, a helping hand, support, succor, ... more antonyms:hindrance verb; assist 1.help (someone), typically by doing a share of the work:"a senior academic would assist him in his work"synonyms:help, aid, abet, lend a (helping) hand to, give assistance to, ... more antonyms:hinder noun: assist 1.an act of helping, typically by providing money:"the budget must have an assist from tax policies"