Life of a black man in the USA

[Foxfyre]

True. It was her excuse. It was obama's excuse too and it's the excuse used by many people.

How many of these people do you know personally? How many of these people told you that this is how they feel.
Frankly I'm around black folks everyday and not one of them talks like this. I have lived around black folks all my life and hardly do you hear black folks talk like this. Especially very successful ones.
Personally I don't know either of the Obamas but growing up rich and going to lawschool and becoming a lawyer and then a judge. If I complained about that. My mother would slap the hell out of me and then tell me how blessed I am and how thankful I should be. But hey that's just the kinda black folks I have been around all my life.

Ditto. My parents would have done the same. First for being ungrateful, and second for lying.

I think that this poster had been exposed to a very limited number of black people in a real world environment.

That means working parents, family values, structure and discipline.

On the other hand, with very few exceptions, I have been mostly around black people of the caliber that you see yourself. Just folks, trying to make a living and a better life for themselves however they can manage to honorably do that. With such people I find myself pretty much color blind and not thinking about racial differences unless something or somebody reminds me. I wonder sometimes if the black people who have chosen to be in the everybody world of just making a living and a better life for themselves also get to the point of not thinking about racial differences? I never thought to ask a black friend about that.

But that is what we should be shooting for: a world in which skin color is of no more consequence than hair color or eye color. Personally, I think if we had stopped fighting the war to gain equality for all people regardless of race, ethnicity or gender, once that war was won, we would be well on the way to achieving that world. But as long as there are those who intend to personally capitalize on racism--both black and white opportunists--a truly non racist world for us will be impossible to achieve.

 

[hjmick]

I grew up in the 50's and 60's. My parents and grandparents marched in the south during the civil rights movement and took me with them one summer in 1963.

That says it all.

How many summers were there in '63?

Sorry, couldn't help myself...

I realize that small, petty minds usually can't, so no problem, I will humor you.

I was there ONE summer which was IN THE YEAR 1963, during the Civil Rights movement. And prior to that, several summers from 1959 to 1961.

Probably before you were born.


Anymore questions?

Christ, log off and go buy a sense of humor.

What a douche.

 

[squeeze berry]

if black people are just like everyone else, then why make a distinction?

Black people lead a different life?


that is going to open a can of worms

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

Being black in America is not all that bad. I had this conversation with some friends just yesterday. One friend said "It's always a white person that says race isn't an issue" and while sometimes it is, Most of the time it isn't. See I live in a town that is like 90% white. so being white, race most likely isn't an issue.
My friends are my friends they are not black or white, they are just friends.
I like explaining it like this. Race to me is like breathing. It's always there but you don't think about it until it becomes an issue.

Yes I have been discriminated against in the past in housing and employment. I did a few phone interviews back when I first moved here. Over the phone, they loved me and couldn't wait to have me be a part of their company. Then in the face to face things changed. There was one that was really quite funny. The guy was so happy to see me. He walks into the waiting room saying "Mr____, Mr____, Mr____ then he rounds the corner and saw me and the look on his face was priceless. The happy tone was gone and we sat down for him to tell me that the job was taken. I had an employer actually tell me after a phone interview that had he known I was black he would not have hired me and told me that I taught him something judging a person by their race.
I have been pulled over just because I was black. This was just a few years ago. Me and a friend who is black were on our way to work. We got pulled over by an obvious racist. I say that because he was an asshole from the start. I know there are certain you should never be assholes to. The people cooking your food, The people at the bank & the police. This is why I have never had a ticket. Any how he pulled us over because my bud had an OMVI,(He got the OMVI because the legal limit is .08 and he blew a .06. Go figure. .08 would have been DUI) but he could drive to and from work. The officer tells him he shouldn't be driving. He hands the officer a paper from the judge that states he can drive to and from work. The officer says "Sir this paper means nothing to me" The he proceeds to ask about where we are going, drugs, guns and the whole drill. By this time there is a another trooper with a drug dog. They tell us to roll up the windows and stay in the car. They walk the dog around the car. The trooper hits his rag on the window and the dog goes crazy. The officer tells us that the dog alerted to drugs and this gives him probable cause to search the car. They never asked to search.
They put me in one car and my bud in the other car. Now the start to interrogate me and I'm sure him too.
The officer ask me where the drugs are. I tell him "Look man, we are on our way to work. I don't mess with drugs and he don't mess with drugs. There ain't no drugs in that car. I know it, he knows it, you know it and that dog knows it".
So they keep going and going until finally they got all his and my shit all over the side of the road and they are done. Not even so much as a warning couldn't even give us a seat belt violation.
We were so pissed after that that we skipped work and got drunk.


I have done phone interviews for apartments then I show up and the apartment was all of a sudden rented.
I have noticed that the older I get the less it happens
But you also have to understand that this is just me. There may be people that have worse experiences than me and better than me. These are just mine.

so the cop was a racist b/c he pulled over your bud that had a OMVI ???

persecution complex on your part

No the cop was a racist because he was a racist and an ass hole from the start. As I said he was an obvious racist. Nothing about the whole situation was about him just doing his job and us respecting that. I've been pulled over by many cops for many different reasons. None of them was like this guy. All he had to do was look at the paper signed by the judge and notarized by the court that states exactly what time he should be driving and where to and this should have been over. Not to mention you read all I said the cop did and you cant see that what he was doing was harassing 2 guys on their way to work..
So after so many times having dealings with white cops for one reason or another. I say 1 was a racist and that's just wrong? You weren't there, You don't know the guy. You don't know me. But just because I say that in my 46 years on this earth I had a run in with one racist cop it's automatically me? Then you say that blacks are the racist?

Being white,what excuse do I use for the asshole cops I encounter?
Because the cops tried the exact same tactic on me and my white buddy. Damn It I want someone to blame!!!!

 

[westwall]

How about asking a Chinese person what it was like when they could be shot in the street like a dog and no one would care. Now, they own vast tracts of this country and the blacks are still whining and begging for handouts. Why?

Blacks in Africa that I had the pleasure to work with were a proud people. Proud of their heritage, proud of their tribes, and proud of their accomplishments. Why are the blacks here so different?

 

[ScienceRocks]

The main problem blacks have to worry about is other blacks...Most of that 5 times per capita(93%) are gunning for them. Sometimes for no reason.

 

[Pheonixops]

A life of not trusting your brothers as cause 93% of 49% of all murders on their own people. Can you imagine that? Doesn't sound too good.

A people that have a culture that advances violence.

I asked for the views of black people, not folks who are racist against black people.

Bravo!

 

[squeeze berry]

A life of not trusting your brothers as cause 93% of 49% of all murders on their own people. Can you imagine that? Doesn't sound too good.

A people that have a culture that advances violence.

I asked for the views of black people, not folks who are racist against black people.

Bravo!

anything you don't like is racist

 

[Pheonixops]

I asked for the views of black people, not folks who are racist against black people.

Bravo!

anything you don't like is racist

That's a silly and inaccurate retort.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Can you show me where I am wrong? CBS reported that.

 

[MaryL]

This is a question for all the black people in this forum.

What's it like to be black in the USA?

Do you feel discrimination? How often?

Did you in the past? Can you tell us about it?

I'm white and have been attacked by blacks. Do you care what that is like? And blacks are by and large a bigger threat to each other, not so much discrimination. How often do blacks feel afraid of each other? How often? OK, I am being a little sarcastic. We as victims, don’t care about the racial bollocks as much as we do truth. I know what it is like to be a VICTIM of crime, and that should be the main focus here.

 

[Zona]

The only good thing about racists and racism is , they are dying off. In my lifetime things are getting better. for everyone. Good.

Yes I have experienced racism in the real world. I was luckily enough to be in the military for 20 years and rarely dealt with it at work. In towns, yes.

 

[katsteve2012]

I got a dose of how some black people feel about being black in America.

I had gone to the enrobing of a black woman DA who had just been appointed as Judge to the local court. After the ceremony the women lawyers took the new judge out for a drink. She had a few, maybe a few too many.

She talked about how hard it was for her to grow up deprived, fighting and struggling for every advancement. She had to go fight through law school, had to go through a grueling application process for the District Attorney's office, and had to grind away there for five years before she was recognized and appointed to the bench. It was all racism, all those years of poverty and want was due to racism.

Doesn't that sound like she was treated unfairly?

The truth is, and everyone knew it because this was a local girl, her mother was a very prominent attorney and her father a surgeon. She was born and raised in a mansion, in a gated community in Palos Verdes Estates. She went to private schools all her life, including the very prestigious Chadwick Academy. She had servants her entire life and never so much as washed a sock. She went to Harvard but came back to be closer to her family and went to law school at Davis. By the time she took the bar, strings had already been pulled for her to get into the DA's office. Yes, she did have to fill out an application. Unlike other District Attorneys who have to slog for decades before a bench appointment, hers came in five years.

What was her gripe?

If you read Big Moo's thesis from Princeton, it's right there. Both of them are resentful that they had to do anything at all. The law degree should have been handed over along with the bar license. Working as a lawyer should never have been necessary. Filling out the application should never have been necessary. Going to college shouldn't have been necessary to get the degree. The judge's parents were very rich, but they still had to work for it. It should have just been there for them.

The experience of blacks in the United States is one of frustration that they have to do something, anything. Nothing to express this better than Big Moochelle Obama when her husband was running for president the first time.

I know people are talking about how Barack is the frontrunner. That's a new title for us, because if you recall, Barack has been the underdog, and as far as I'm concerned, will continue to be the underdog until he is sitting in the Oval Office

And it started with raising money

But once he raised all that money, then all of a sudden, money didn't matter. It didn't count. His opponents said well, we're all going to raise money. So the next test was whether or not Barack could build the kind of political organization that can compete

But after it was built, then all of a sudden, organization didn't matter. But we're all going to build a political organization, was what they said. The true test, they said, was now Iowa. Iowa was going to be the measure

then what happened? Iowa wasn't important. All of a sudden, they said well, Iowa's not important because it's just a caucus

we're still living in a nation, and in a time when the bar is set, I talk about this all the time, they set the bar. They say look, if you do these things, you can get to this bar, right? And then you work and you struggle, you do everything that they say, and you think you're getting close to the bar and you're working hard, and you're sacrificing, and then you get to the bar, you're right there, you're reaching out for the bar, you think you have it, and then what happens? They move the bar. They raise it up. They shift it to the left and to the right. It's always just quite out of reach

Michelle Obama's depressing 'Moving The Bar' stump speech

It was inherently unfair that her husband had to do everything every other candidate had to do to be elected president. Why? Why wasn't it just handed to him? As a black man, he should not have had to reach those bars. Those are for other people who aren't entitled. As a black woman the new Judge should not have had to reach all those benchmarks either.

This is the experience of black people in America. It's called the politics of frustration. But it's a frustration born out of an erroneous sense of entitlement.

Lol. So now blacks "are born" with an innate "sense of entitlement"? Some of this boards posters have produced /dreamed up some of the most outlandish theories I have ever heard in near 60 years on this planet.

The newly minted female judge that you describe sounds no different than a Bush, a Kennedy or a Romney or any other individual born into privilege who tried to glorify his or her path to success with self manufactured or percieved obstacles.

All of the above were born and bred in to the same sense of entitlement race not being a factor

Do you know a single black person who started with absolutely nothing and not only "washed their socks" but may have washed the socks of others as well?

How about any blacks who have done well in spite of oppressive and LEGAL systems like Jim Crow? Or genuine hiring polices geared towards their failure or denied access?

Or are your circle of black acquaintances limited to the type tht you described and do they by chance inhabit an insulated ivory tower of a world that you personally live in as well?

Just curious.

Remember Lady Romney telling her story of her and Mitt's beginnings? Like they were just so po, broke and lonely. Give me a break.

Indeed I do. But, I guess if you were born with a solid gold spoon in your mouth, having to accept a silver spoon in its place is traumatic.


I suppose it is all relative...lol.

 

[katsteve2012]

How many summers were there in '63?

Sorry, couldn't help myself...

I realize that small, petty minds usually can't, so no problem, I will humor you.

I was there ONE summer which was IN THE YEAR 1963, during the Civil Rights movement. And prior to that, several summers from 1959 to 1961.

Probably before you were born.


Anymore questions?

Christ, log off and go buy a sense of humor.

What a douche.

I WAS being humorous......in a sarcastic way. Your comment made you fair game. So log off and grow a thicker skin if you want to heckle.

Capeche?

 

[katsteve2012]

Bravo!

anything you don't like is racist

That's a silly and inaccurate retort.

Anything else would be out of character.

 

[hjmick]

I realize that small, petty minds usually can't, so no problem, I will humor you.

I was there ONE summer which was IN THE YEAR 1963, during the Civil Rights movement. And prior to that, several summers from 1959 to 1961.

Probably before you were born.


Anymore questions?

Christ, log off and go buy a sense of humor.

What a douche.

I WAS being humorous......in a sarcastic way. Your comment made you fair game. So log off and grow a thicker skin if you want to heckle.

Capeche?

Apologies. Sometimes sarcasm is lost in print.

 

[katsteve2012]

Christ, log off and go buy a sense of humor.

What a douche.

I WAS being humorous......in a sarcastic way. Your comment made you fair game. So log off and grow a thicker skin if you want to heckle.

Capeche?

Apologies. Sometimes sarcasm is lost in print.

Accepted.... And recirprocated. We all have various ways of expressing humor