Black Skin Privilege

[yidnar]

slavery was a horrible practice most peoples throughout history fell victim to ,but how can there ever be peace when one group of people hold another group of people responsible for acts committed before either were ever born ?? resentment from one group breeds resentment from the other group . America fought a brutal bloody war to put an end to slavery !! i did not participate in slavery nor did i fight in the war to end slavery !! and the fact that today i believe slavery is an abomination absolves me of any guilt !! if you want to hold someone today guilty for things that happened in the past hold the people that still believe in,defend, and practice said atrocities today . what i mean is if i believe in carrying on the practicing of something my ancestors practice good or bad i am directly linked to the past traditions practiced ...so the people that still believe in and practice slavery today have a closer link to slave owners in the past than i do ...ie...certain muslim groups have a connection to slavery in Americas past because they still practice it today no matter what part of the world they come from.

 

[Saigon]

Meathead -

Can you explain why you claim

I find your expectations of guilt unreasonable

after I have explained 3 times that I do not think guilt is necessary?

At times it seems you are hell bent on moral righteousness, even if you need to contrive the reason for it.

Much as with your volleyball analogy, I don't think guilt is the appropriate response - but I do think players making mistakes need to be aware of what the mistakes were, and be coached through them. This is how we ensure mistakes are not made in future.

In bothers me to see posters on this board claiming slavery was good and not be shouted down by other, especially Conservative posters, because it suggests few of us are willing to stand up against lunatic extremism when we see it.

 

[Saigon]

Why do you have this assumption that Americans are unaware of slavery? I mean really? Are you kidding?

I'd say most Americans are probably very well aware of the issue, wouldn't you?

 

[Meathead]

Why do you have this assumption that Americans are unaware of slavery? I mean really? Are you kidding?

I'd say most Americans are probably very well aware of the issue, wouldn't you?

I'd say you've appointed yourself to be white America's conscience. What you fail to grasp is that it is an emotion and, like love or hate, you cannot inflict it on others. No one is saying you cannot feel guilty because you are white, but then you cannot demand it of others. Go do some self-flagellating, penance, see a shrink or squirm in front of you computer; whatever is works for you. But ffs, stop being a pretentious prick!

 

[Saigon]

Meathead -

Again, I listed something like 10 countries as being involved - 8 of them are in Europe. This issue is every bit as much a European issue as an American one.

It's always good to READ THE THREAD before responding.

 

[Meathead]

I'm not sorry that young white Americans have to sit and squirm on their school chairs as they hear that their forefathers not only lynched innocent people - they took pictures and sold them as postcards.

Sorry, anyway you turn it you think guilt by young white Americans for things they never did and probably none of their ancestors did is a good thing. That's what I call guilt mongering and those are your own word.

Trust me, we have enough race pimps in the US. We don't need them imported.

 

[Saigon]

Meathead -

I totally stand by my initial statement.

I do think the experience of learning about the lower points of our history is discomforting for many people, and I think there is a lot to be gained from that discomfort. It's how we learn.

Just this week we have seen posters denying that Hitler was right wing - this shows us the impact of not teaching history properly, and not allowing students to get close enough to history to feel it.

 

[Wicked Jester]

Historical slavery was ultimately a good thing and very necessary for human progression.

This is actually a comment that I think all of us, as members of this board, might feel in some way responsible for.

The fact that we see comments like this and don't comment on them is extraordinary. The silence becomes a kind of tacit consent.

Next time any white person on this board asks why black people hate them so much - this post might be a good place to start.

Nooooo, what it shows, is that you're too damn dense, and stuck in your pompous, bullshit ways, to have the ability to understand the context of the post.

 

[Saigon]

WJ -

OK, so by which context is slavery a good and necessary thing?

 

[Wicked Jester]

WJ -

OK, so by which context is slavery a good and necessary thing?

Being the academic you claim yourself to be, how about you look long and hard at that post, and see if you can figure out the context?

Maybe you should take the time and sleep on it.....Mull it over in your mind for awhile....Analyze it word by word.

I'll be happy to point out the context, but i'd rather see if you have the ability to take off the academic blinders, and figure it out for yourself....If, by tomorrow, or whenever you're back on this thread, you say you don't get it, i'll be happy to enlighten you.

Ya' see, you remind of one of our neighbors, who is a "professor", at one of the Universities here in Southern California. We interact with he and his wife all the time, at BBQ's, kids sporting events, etc., etc., and we get involved in serious discussions, involving a wide range of topics....One thing he has learned, and gets frustrated by, is the fact that i'm not one of his students. I'm just your average, everyday american, with nothing more than a Culinary Arts degree to claim as "higher education, who has packed a hell of a lot of living in my 49 years of life, and will not bow down to his pompous, know it all bullshit, and have actually educated he, far more than he has ever educated me.

So, once again, if you find you cannot ultimately come to a conclusion on the actual context of the post, after taking serious time to actually analyze it, I will be happy to respectfully point it out to you.....You have my word.

 

[Saigon]

WJ -

Nothing wrong having a culinary arts degree, man. I call it that a fairly significant achievement, myself.

I read Katz's comment when he posted it and read it again now - if there is a context in which slavery was either good or necessary, it's lost on me.

The fact that people make money off of something doesn't make it good - otherwise we'd both be selling smack on street corners.

 

[PoliticalChic]

More than 200 anti —lynching bills were introduced in congress in the first part of the century and the House of Representatives passed anti-lynching bills three times. However, the legislation was repeatedly blocked by [Democrat] Senators from the South and almost 5,000 people -— mostly African-Americans — were lynched between 1882 and 1968."
Senate Apologizes For Not Enacting Anti-Lynching Legislation, A Look at Journalist and Anti-Lynching Crusader Ida B. Wells

Yes, that's true, and it is to the eternal shame of the Democrats that they did so little to end lynchings. I'd have thought the party might have issued an apology as well.

It's amazing to think that it was not until the Freedom Riders in 1961 that some southern states desegregated bus stations. I suspect many of our posters here were alive during that era - but still don't feel the white people have anything to feel guilty about.

"... white people have anything to feel guilty about."?????

What is wrong with you????
Racial blood-guilt???

You'd need another brain just to be a half-wit.


At least you absolved us yellow folk.

 

[Saigon]

P. Chic -

Do you think people who did commit lynchings should feel guilty about that?

Let's start with that and move outwards.

 

[Meathead]

P. Chic -

Do you think people who did commit lynchings should feel guilty about that?

Let's start with that and move outwards.

You seem to think that all lynchings were a kind of a let's-go-hang-a-****** things. There were a lot of hangings of whites, Mexicans and Chinese and almost all were some form of frontier justice for some kind of crime and, believe it or not, some if not most of those were guilty. I am certainly not trying to justify the practice, but you seem to have some kind of schoolchild understanding of the topic, ie all lynchings were of innocent blacks. That is simply not true.

 

[Saigon]

Meathead -

Have you noticed how often you respond not to what I post - but to what you imagine someone might post?

You seem to think that all lynchings were a kind of a let's-go-hang-a-****** things.

In what post number of mine do you see this?

 

[Meathead]

P. Chic -

Do you think people who did commit lynchings should feel guilty about that?

Let's start with that and move outwards.

You seem to think that all lynchings were a kind of a let's-go-hang-a-****** things. There were a lot of hangings of whites, Mexicans and Chinese and almost all were some form of frontier justice for some kind of crime and, believe it or not, some if not most of those were guilty. I am certainly not trying to justify the practice, but you seem to have some kind of schoolchild understanding of the topic, ie all lynchings were of innocent blacks. That is simply not true.

Meathead -

Have you noticed how often you respond not to what I post - but to what you imagine someone might post?

You seem to think that all lynchings were a kind of a let's-go-hang-a-****** things.

In what post number of mine do you see this?

Between your expected guilt of little white kids to those lynching feeling guilty, there is little left to the imagination. It tells me you are as simple and misinformed as those little children you would love to see squirming in their seats. Seriously, we don't need ignorant and vindictive foreign race pimps. We have plenty of our own.

 

[Unkotare]

P. Chic -

Do you think people who did commit lynchings should feel guilty about that?

Let's start with that and move outwards.

You seem to think that all lynchings were a kind of a let's-go-hang-a-****** things. There were a lot of hangings of whites, Mexicans and Chinese and almost all were some form of frontier justice for some kind of crime and, believe it or not, some if not most of those were guilty. I am certainly not trying to justify the practice, but you seem to have some kind of schoolchild understanding of the topic, ie all lynchings were of innocent blacks. That is simply not true.

There was an instance in Mississippi in the 1920s of a white man being lynched by a white mob for the brutal killing of a black man. Just a point of fact, nothing more.

 

[Againsheila]

More than 200 anti —lynching bills were introduced in congress in the first part of the century and the House of Representatives passed anti-lynching bills three times. However, the legislation was repeatedly blocked by [Democrat] Senators from the South and almost 5,000 people -— mostly African-Americans — were lynched between 1882 and 1968."
Senate Apologizes For Not Enacting Anti-Lynching Legislation, A Look at Journalist and Anti-Lynching Crusader Ida B. Wells

Yes, that's true, and it is to the eternal shame of the Democrats that they did so little to end lynchings. I'd have thought the party might have issued an apology as well.

It's amazing to think that it was not until the Freedom Riders in 1961 that some southern states desegregated bus stations. I suspect many of our posters here were alive during that era - but still don't feel the white people have anything to feel guilty about.

"... white people have anything to feel guilty about."?????

What is wrong with you????
Racial blood-guilt???

You'd need another brain just to be a half-wit.


At least you absolved us yellow folk.

I was 5 years old in 1961. I lived in the north. Never saw a black anywhere. How am I to blame for segregation in the south? I have some relatives and friends who marched with Martin Luther King Jr (all white). There were a bunch of white college students that went down there to help stop the Jim Crow laws and they were killed. Should they or their relatives feel guilty too? How about all the whites that helped end the Jim Crow laws? Should they feel guilty? Remember, blacks make up less than 13% of our population, do you really think they would have ended the Jim Crow laws and eventually elected a black president without the help of whites? Yet you want us to be ashamed simply because of the color of our skin? Did you even listen to Martin Luther King Jr's speech?

The above is directed at Saigon, not PoliticalChic

Still waiting for an answer.

 

[Saigon]

Meathead -

Between your expected guilt of little white kids to those lynching feeling guilty, there is little left to the imagination.

There shoulsn't be - not after I explained three times that I don't think anyone need feel guilty.

 

[Saigon]

I was 5 years old in 1961. I lived in the north. Never saw a black anywhere. How am I to blame for segregation in the south? I have some relatives and friends who marched with Martin Luther King Jr (all white). There were a bunch of white college students that went down there to help stop the Jim Crow laws and they were killed. Should they or their relatives feel guilty too? How about all the whites that helped end the Jim Crow laws? Should they feel guilty? Remember, blacks make up less than 13% of our population, do you really think they would have ended the Jim Crow laws and eventually elected a black president without the help of whites? Yet you want us to be ashamed simply because of the color of our skin? Did you even listen to Martin Luther King Jr's speech?

The above is directed at Saigon, not PoliticalChic

Still waiting for an answer.

Still waiting for an answer....were I supposed to have answered this before you posted it?

Once again - I DO NOT think anyone need feel guilty. That is NOT what I am talking about. Nor do I think anyone should be ASHAMED.

It's about responsibility - not guilt - and its interesting to see that not everone knows the difference.

By responsiblity I mean that every person in America should be aware of slavery, be aware that it happened in the US, and should teach their children that it happened without trying to cast blame on anyone else. Forget the excuses and 'not me' statements we see on this thread, people should be willing to stand up and say that white American people did buy and sell black slaves like livestock, and that this was morally unacceptable.

To my mind a country can not celebrate its victories or lay claim to its successes without also acknolwedging its failings and its mistakes.