Pioneer1

Troy One of the biggest mistakes of reasonable people is assuming that everyone else responds to reason. Most little children and even some adults don't respond to reason or rational, they only respond to pain and pleasure. Which means if they do something socially unacceptable they must get some sort of concrete punishment they can feel rather than simply trying to appeal to their sense of shame....or lack there of. The quality of education as well as the safety of other children shouldn't be compromised for the sake of some ineffective experimental form of discipline that we now know doesn't work and creates little monsters in the class room. My ideal school is one that acts as a "surrogate" that a parent can trust to teach and discipline their children in their temporary absence. This includes properly disciplinine them. We KNOW that most little children need to be spanked from time to time when they misbehave, this isn't rocket science. Better for the teacher to spank them as children than for the police to shoot them down as adults.

I think they should bring back corporal punishment to public schools. Not for learning problems ofcourse, but for disciplinary problems.

Troy I think you misunderstood what I was saying to Delano. I wasn't AGREEING that Blackness is an ideal, style of dress, attitude, or music. I was empathizing with Delano's point of view showing that I understand that this is HIS position before moving forward to offer my own.

Not only is unethical behavior and immorality problems, it appears that many youth don't even KNOW right from wrong anymore. They are confused and have lost their moral compass because they don't have anyone at home or in school guiding them or correcting them. I believe civilization is a process that is not instinctual but must be "taught". Teachers in school don't even correct children on their grammar anymore. They hear them talking like slaves and morons and just smirk and ignore it.

Troy If you notice, this confusion on what roles men and women should assume is more pronounced among the poor and working classes. Among the rich and upper-middle class the traditional roles of men and women are not only alive and well but continually instilled and passed down through generations. I believe gender neutrality is one of the techniques that have been historically used by the upperclasses to keep lower classes in a perpetual state of instability, men and women fighting, and broken families that ensures destitution and poverty. Anika In order for men to assume responsibilities for thier families the women must be willing to ALLOW them to. But then again........ If that man has a history of irresponsibility and ignorance, it's kind of hard to do that. ((Pioneer holds up a hand in protest)) Ahh...but I beg to differ. The good ole boy is a euphemism for WHITE MEN who support eachother in their wrong doings against women and people of color. We were never apart of it, nor were we allowed to be. Now Black men can can be quite sexist, and have been known to abuse and mistreat their women, I'm not denying that. But we weren't the ones sitting around in smoke filled rooms for centuries plotting and planning how to best oppress women of color around the world and exploit them for sex and labor. If Black men didn't get a share of the spoils, why should they get a share the blame?,

One of the things that made me angry during the 2008 presidential race was how Sarah Palin constantly refered to having broken up the "ole boy network" in Alaska when she became the Governor.....and how no one in the media called her the contradiction of being a Republican Conservative who brags about her record on women's rights. The Republican Party ITSELF is the grand ole "good ole boy" party.

I like Michelle Rhee I think she sees the problem as it is and is SINCERE (not just playing political games) in her efforts of trying to improve the quality of education so many children are getting in urban America. I also think the fact that she's Asian American has something to do with this as she doesn't have a vested interest in humiliating Black children or seeing them fail. Besides being a tax-based system which favors the wealthiest families, the problem with most innercity public school districts is in management. You have: a) Too many White people who KNOW what it takes to operate a decent system but drag their feet or flat out refuse to do it because they secretly hope the system fails anyway.; b )Too many sincere but unqualified Black and Brown people who want better schools for their children and try little local programs to make a difference but lack the money, power, and knowledge to improve things on thier own. Ever since Brown vrs Board of Education when the Feds started de-segregating the schools, the right-wing have been trying to destroy the public educational system to maintain inequality in education. Many of the things they used to teach children in middleschool, you now have to go to a technical college and pay to learn. If you notice, since the 50s every year more money and programs are cut as they slowly dismantle the system and promote private schools, charter schools, and alternative schools otherwise known as LEGAL SEGREGATION. M-PACT believes we should do away with the district by district tax-based system anyway and have a nationalized and more STANDARDIZED public educational system. That way all children will have access to the same opportunity of education despite their income or what region they live in.

Delano I hear what you're saying but you're looking at things from a creative and cultural aspect. Black being more of an ideal. A style of dress, attitude, music, and historic struggle. I'm looking at things from a more scientific and regulatory aspect. The word "Black" being far too inaccurate in describing how most of our people look and increasingly how they think. That's the problem. It's leads to more confusion and more people can "play around" with the definition. If ANYBODY with Black ancestry can be called Black..... When we demand more "Black" new anchors on television they can run out and get some nearly White "octaroons" with only an eighth of Black ancestry but pretty much look like other White people and prop them up as "Black". I personally like a more clearly defined society. But then again, I tend to be more left-brained so I love categorizing and classifying anyway.

Anika Three points................. 1. I am sexist. I dont' believe women or men are superior to the other but I do believe that being biologically and even psychologically different both have separate roles to play in society. 2. Dark skinned women of color SHOULD NOT imitate White women in terms of make-up. What looks good on them doesn't necessarily look good on our women and vice versa. Red lipstick and blue eye shadow is for lightskinned women with blue/green eyes. At the risk of sounding gay (I'm homophobic as well)........... Black women of her complexion should wear a darker shade of brown. 3. Finally.... Let us be clear, the "ole boy" network is made up of WHITE men, not all men in general. Black men should never be accused of being in some "good ole boy" group.

Actually, Troy you just helped me to realize something that should have been pretty obvious. As long as the morals and ethics of AfroAmerican men in general remain as they are, increasing their wealth and power probably WOULD lead to the disaster Cynique spoke of in another thread. When I read your statement about how a man who actually has both money and power still couldn't (or wouldn't) properly care for the mother and ONE child he produce from his irresponsible behavior....would giving him more money and power realy produce better results? Give a hardluck fool more money and power and rather than changing his luck, it will likely get them in MORE trouble! When I read your post I could just see some tattooed clowns in braids racing eachother around town in fancy cars getting drunk, high, chasing women and making even more babies. Then using their legal and political power to duck and dodge their responsibilities and engaging in senseless beefs with eachother.

Perhaps your right. It would be a mistake to assume that most men share the same values and ethics I do regarding family responsibilities and wealth distribution. If I had a lot of children and was blessed to accumulate a lot of wealth, I would see it as more money to help me support my children. But I suppose many men are of the mentality that more money means more money for them to spend on themselves and have more fun. .......and more money to hide from the court and avoid thier child support payments.

I don't believe the jokes about her dating George Clooney are particularly pedophilic, but I do think some people are trying to sexualize her even at her age. I've noticed that when she's doing interviews on various television shows or when they had her up for nomination one of the clips of her movie they like to show the most is of her running around in her panties gritting her teeth. Often times there is a racial component to sexual exploitation that makes it easier for a perpetrator to victimize someone of another race because they don't see them as "one of their own". Perhaps when Bubba Joe Six-pack is sitting on his couch watching television and sees little Quvenzhane, he doesn't see his daughter or little niece....he sees a "pretty young thing" that may not be quite as precious as the little girls in HIS family. It's this "they're not the same as us" reasoning behind the old policy television networks used to have of not showing topless White women but would readily show topless African or Indian women living in the jungle or breastfeeding thier children during those famine commercials during the 80s.

Lol @ claims of being "worldly"...... Not sure where I made those claims but if you're referring to my having traveled around North America and briefly Europe, most of the time I was looking for work. I wasn't traveling as some scientist or scholar on a fact finding mission to collect data. However traveling to different places did give me the opportunity to observe different environments and the people in them. Hey..... No need to explain the aggressive nature of your views. Actually I wasn't "griping" about your views of Black men anyway. Infact I share many of them. I was actually sulking a bit outloud over how deep and unanimous the mistrust and resentment of Black men is among many Black women regardless of thier intellect or social status. On a lighter note.............. I keep looking at that picture of the young lady....uh Karin...??....I believe? A woman of her complexion really shouldn't be wearing RED lipstick.

Troy Trust me bro, In THIS society...money and power often decides what's a "good" or "bad" idea. If you're too stupid to articulate yourself and too broke to influence anyone....your idea is "bad". If you have money and the ability to talk a good game,......your idea is "genius" If Black men had the money to support all of those women and the power over the laws to permit polygamy and power over the media to influence public opinion the way some are doing with same sex marriage, it would only take 15 years before polygamy would be an unquestionably accepted fact of life. Look at the Miss America and Miss Universe pageants. How do you get so many educated young women to get on stage in bikinis and compete with eachother infront of men who are judging them based on their looks??? People with money and influence demand it and it overrides any protest from those who oppose it.

Troy I don't think it's so much that Black standards are low, I think it's 2 things: 1. Black Americans typically have a different values system than White Americans and what is considered scandalous and disgraceful to THEM many not necessarily be to US. Losing a job or getting divorced is enough to make a lot of White men suicidal. How many Black men do you know ready to jump out of a window or shoot themselves after losing thier jobs? 2. So few Black men in this society have both the courage and intelligence to effectively lead and stand up for Black issues that you really hate to throw a brother under the bus for doing something foul and not have another one better with which to replace him. Get rid of Jesse Jackson and besides Tavis Smiley or Al Sharpton who else you got willing to get on television and and articulately fight right wing racist policies? Cynique You know....... I kind of chuckled at it upon first reading this statement last week, but I continued to think about it. This comment really affected me. Especially coming from a woman of your maturity and intelligence. It's nothing personal because you aren't the only one, and that's what's so disappointing. It's one thing to hear some dumb hoodrat come on a talk show or radio show and dog Black men, but when you have intelligent educated Black women of achievement who also express thier lack of trust of Black men and lack of desire to see them in any position of authority....that hits home. Because you KNOW how you feel and how to express yourself and have made your feelings clear. This is disappointing, especially when I go out in society and watch the way White women walk behind, rub the backs of, and hang off the arms of White men who have little to offer them. They seem to see it as their "duty" to support thier men regardless as to whether he deserves it or not. Whether it's good or bad, I often find myself wondering why do so many of OUR women have to be so independant and they get to have sweet little submissive women?

They also play "word association" games on many of these search engines so that when you try to do research on a particular subject and enter the words and terms.....their historical meanings are clouded and pushed back for more contemporary and often silly definitions. For example, you want to do research on the history of Blacks in Ireland and enter "Black Irish"....you get a whole lot of references to beer and ale and have to go 4 or 5 pages deep to find what you're looking for. If you pay the providers enough, they fix it so that your name and product comes up ahead of anything else when you search.

It's for this reason that I often use the term "AfroAmerican" when talking about our people here in the United States, or "AfroLatino" when talking about our people in Latin America. Even if they have no other races in their ancestry, most people of African descent aren't actually "Black" but various shades of Brown. But in my opinion the world "Black" should be reserved for those over a certain threshold, and not every person of African descent. President Obama, Alicia Keys, Miguel and other's who have one White or non-Black parent in my opinion aren't "Black" but they are AfroAmerican meaning Americans of African decent. Actually, although neither of her parents are actually White, I wouldn't consider lightskinned keen featured people like Beyoncé "Black" either. She clearly is of mixed ancestry even if it isn't immediate.

Troy I hope it was as interesting as YOU using the Bible to support your point about the original Egyptians.....lol. Having multiple children by multiple women is most certainly a bad idea if those women don't know about eachother and the children aren't being supported. Cynique I believe I told you before than I'm neither a Christian nor do I hold the Bible (as a whole) as the divinely inspired words of God. But I believe it DOES contain some valuable truths and inspirational themes, therefore it wouldn't be wise to throw the baby out with the bath water. The Bible shows us that the original human beings ate a frutarian diet and lived a long life which got progressively shorter after they adopted a meat eating one. The Bible shows us how to tithe and give charity, which is a very sound economic principle that nearly every self-made wealthy individual practices. The dietary and hygienic practices of the Bible kept the Jewish communities of Europe safe while many of their gentile neighbors were dying of the plague. The Bible contains both good and bad. The same Bible the slave believed in was believed in by the Master too! Last time I checked it didn't attribute any color to mastery or servitude. It's not the Bible or any other religious scripture that makes a person a slave, it's their own ignorance and how they see themselves in this world.

The word Kmt means "Black Land". And the Palestine/Syria region north of it was known as the "Red Land". There are still descendants of the original Black Egyptians living in the southern reigions of Egypt today known as Nubians. The ancient Black civilizations of Kmt and Cush (Ethiopia) were among the strongest civilizations on this planet. *Uh....((clasps hands and smiles))...some scholars believe the reason for their downfall was the transition from a Patriarchal society to a more Matriarchal society. But Troy I suggest you and others do some research on the Neteru; the divine beings who according to Egyptian priests like Manetho actually ruled ancient Egypt for thousands of years before even the humans!

I said that the media and the conservatives will try to put a "Black face" on gun violence and try to make it an innercity problem rather than a national problem........ Now look at this story from the Wall Street Journal ⦁ .ABC and NBC Use Blood-Soaked Chicago to Push for Gun Control, Ignore Restrictive Laws http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323949404578314733631574280.html

Troy I'm going to say (post) something that you may find rather disagreeable to digest at first but it's going to be in the back of your mind and you'll remember it everytime you see a Black man in cuffs or behind bars. Based on my observations of having lived in various regions of and traveled to most parts of this great nation......White people DO NOT KNOW how to properly manage Black/Brown people nor do they know how to maintain law and order in Black/Brown communities. The only thing they know how to do is lock-up and warehouse people. Just like they don't know how to properly teach Black/Brown children; and because they can't they often end up frustrated and give up on them which explains the poor grades and high drop out rate of Black and Brown children. But teachers with the proper skills can turn these same illiterate drop outs into geniuses. Infact there's a school somewhere in Chicago founded by a Black woman dedicated to teaching little Black children where 4 and 5 year olds are reading Shakespear! This goes back to my belief that we are living in a society that wasn't designed by or for our success. The violence and crime in the Black community will stop when intelligent positive Black men stand up and decide to end it. Only Black men can properly and effectively handle other Black men because we know eachother like no one else does. We know when a brother is decent but is just stressed out and having a bad day from when a Black man who is just no damn good and needs to be locked up. We know one who just wants to act a fool and get locked up to get a meal and a warm bed because he's too lazy to work from and probably needs a good ass whooping. You mentioned the Nation of Islam in another thread, but they are a prime example of what Black men can do in the community when they collectively put their foot down and decide to. Cynique You can't blame everything on the media, but you must admit that there is clearly a difference in coverage between White victims/perpertraors of violence and Black victims/perpetrators. The mainstream media seems to "humanize" both the victims and perps more when they're White. Usually the White killer's background is examined, his childhood and baby pictures are shown, and his mental health records or addictions are constantly brought up to make him seem like a good person who was just "sick" and didn't get the help he needed. Where as a Black killer is ususally shown in a mugshot with his head all nappy and razor bumps all over his face. The heinousness of his crimes are concentrated on more detail and there usually is no mention of what may have motivated his "senseless" crimes. The only exception to this has been Chris Dorner. The media seems to be uncharacteristically sympathetic to him. Further......, In my opinion the entertainment industry shares some responsibility for the skyrocketing violence in the urban areas these past 30 years for their promotion of gangsta rap.b Look at how they not only allow these rappers to come on television and even sell music that openly brags about shooting, killing, and dope dealing. I'm familiar with freedom of speech but you still can't yell fire in a crowded theater. Why should it be legal to rap or sing about killing somebody?

Ofcourse there's poverty all over the planet and there is violence in most of these places! You go to some parts of Asia and Central America where people are living in dire poverty and people fight and kill eachother to such an extent it makes the gangwars in Los Angeles look like a child's game of cops-n-robbers. Violence is so pervasive in some parts of the world that they see dead bodies laying in the street and people ignore them. So it's not just an American or AfroAmerican problem. The media CHOOSES to call the violence in the innercity senseless....as if the millions slaughtered in Vietnam or Bosnia made sense. Violence is violence regardless of the reason. But my point is gun violence is a problem all over America, not just Black neighborhoods. I stayed in the Pacific Northwest for years and one of the reasons I first moved there was trying to get away from a mostly Black crime ridden Detroit. To my suprise I found pockets of all White neighborhoods scattered all along the coast and in the mountains where poor and mentally ill White people in trailer parks and raggedy houses were drunk and high on meth blowing eachother away. But because this doesn't get national coverage like Black violence often does, I didn't know about it until I actually moved to the Pacific Northwest. I don't have a problem with people focusing on Black violence if they're going to offer SOLUTIONS to the problem. But to just point out every single murder Black people committed or every 36 hours you come up with some videos off of Youtube showing Black folks beating eachother out of their clothes to me is almost like racist propaganda like what was done to the Jews by the Nazis. My other concern is while the President may sincerely be concerned with reducing gun violence all over America....... Because of the organized pushback he and other Democrats have been getting from right-wing groups like the NRA, he may decide to concentrate the majority of his focus on a group that he figure wouldn't give him so much resistance which would be innercity Black youth. This in turn would distort the problem to where you're focusing on just symptoms rather than the causes of the problem itself. You can see the focus shifting already....... Instead of focusing on gun control, treating mental illnesses/addictions, and reducing poverty........ which would have broadbased effectiveness in every community in America. They're starting to focus on innercity gangs and whether or not to introduce random pat-down search laws or armed guards in schools which are Band-Aid solutions.

Cynique In other words......You are suprised that a Black man has a mind analytical enough to examine and separate various sexual relationships and then determine which ones are beneficial and which ones are malignant to a well balanced family and community. Dreams of a patriarchal black culture of trifling studs and breeders??? Lady you certainly have an active imagination....LOL. But as far as men who haven't earned the right to be leaders.....you're preaching to the pastor. I've been saying for years that being a man in and of itself doesn't qualify one to led a community or even a family for that matter. You must have the morals, intelligence, and character to not only command but earn respect and love from the men, women, and children under your responsibility. You won't get that (or keep it long even if someone gives it to you) if you're a morally debased idiot with no selfcontrol or sense of justice. Troy Why can't I hold both of those positions?They don't oppose eachother, they're just different points on the same issue. Jesse Jackson has been a valuable asset to the Black community and a strong fighter for civil rights for over 40 years. Should we grab a broom and chase him into the woods for his moral indiscretions while people like Newt Gingrich (who actually cheated on and left his wife while she was on her sick bed) and Strom Thurmond enjoy the benefit an amnesiac society that ceremonially ignores their adulterous affairs? Jesse's good outweighs his bad in my opinion. I suppose a man in a state of drug induced mania walking up and down the street butt naked may not be embarrassed, however whether he has sense enough to realize it or not he IS in an embarrassing situation ((Pioneer shakes a fork at Troy while eating a plate full of greasy soul food)) 1)Whether or not you BELIEVE that other races (not just Whites) look at the behavior of individual Black people not only in the media but in real life as well life and then make judgements about us as a whole based on those observation, is irrelevant. The fact is.....THEY DO. 2)Whether or not you BELIEVE that the judgements these other races make concerning our people actually matters and is important, is also irrelevant. The fact is.....IT IS. Just like the family of a President or any other important official is briefed not to do anything that may potentially embarrass him or the office they hold. The image our people portray as individual add to the collective image the world sees of us and if the preponderance of those images are negative then the world will see Black people collectively in a negative light. Why is that important you may ask?? As Black people we don't live on this planet by ourselves, nor do we even live independantly like the Chinese. Most Black people world wide currently rely on OTHER people for our food, clothing, shelter, medicine, employment, ect....and as long as we do, it would be WISE to consider our behavior, image, and how others perceive us both as individuals and collectively.

Need I appreciate your insightful posts. I'm learning quite a bit.

Pan-Africanism is a myth that SHOULD be a reality.