Race

[Segep]

Damn fine post, Java. I can't think of anything to add.

 

[Dave]

One thing I've constantly noticed, and even in this thread it seems to be true, is that when a black man has pride in his heritage he is encouraged in this, but when a white man has racial pride, he is grouped in with the klan. It just doesn't seem right to me.

 

[vyo476]

One thing I've constantly noticed, and even in this thread it seems to be true, is that when a black man has pride in his heritage he is encouraged in this, but when a white man has racial pride, he is grouped in with the klan. It just doesn't seem right to me.

This how I've always looked at it: as a race, black people have been oppressed for centuries. They take pride in the fact that their ancestors overcame that oppression. As the oppression was based in race, so is the pride - it's a common heritage.

On the flipside, what have white people done as a race? We've done plenty as secularists or as people of religion - we have plenty of historical common heritage to take pride in. However, what have white people done historically, together, identifying as white people? Mostly the pride we have in where we came from centers around groups of people saying, "We are Americans," or "We are Jewish." There aren't many from throughout history who proclaimed "We are white" and then did something to be truly proud of.

That's how I've always looked at the matter. I have plenty of pride in my ancestors for a number of reasons. None of them have to do with race.

 

[JavaBlack]

...

One thing I've constantly noticed, and even in this thread it seems to be true, is that when a black man has pride in his heritage he is encouraged in this, but when a white man has racial pride, he is grouped in with the klan. It just doesn't seem right to me.

In a way, I agree... but not quite.
It's not just that blacks have been oppressed that leads to this, though that is part of it.
It is also that blacks in America, having been torn from their tribal links, enslaved, then segregated, have formed a culture that is only referred to as black (I'm not talking about ghetto gang culture either- black culture is more akin to poor southerner culture; think soul food, Baptist churches, dancing, and community).
Black pride, in this form, is more like Irish pride or Italian pride or Jewish pride... Black has become an ethnicity as much as a color. That's why some people with black skin are not considered so much part of black culture.

White pride is an abomination. It is formed by individuals who don't feel they are marked by ethnicity or race... so they make up some vague connection to a white ethnicity... an ethnicity that does not exist in any way.
And, like I said before, it's counterproductive to being true individuals. Ideally people would get over their little ethnic prides and have American pride or human pride, or better yet pride in their own works and personality.
But white pride is a lot more disturbing than the other ethnic prides because it is a completely artificial construction. Other ethnicities have history behind them and formed naturally. White pride is a conscious attempt by a (strangely) jealous majority group to create a dominant ethnicity.

 

[Dave]

In a way, I agree... but not quite.
It's not just that blacks have been oppressed that leads to this, though that is part of it.
It is also that blacks in America, having been torn from their tribal links, enslaved, then segregated, have formed a culture that is only referred to as black (I'm not talking about ghetto gang culture either- black culture is more akin to poor southerner culture; think soul food, Baptist churches, dancing, and community).
Black pride, in this form, is more like Irish pride or Italian pride or Jewish pride... Black has become an ethnicity as much as a color. That's why some people with black skin are not considered so much part of black culture.

White pride is an abomination. It is formed by individuals who don't feel they are marked by ethnicity or race... so they make up some vague connection to a white ethnicity... an ethnicity that does not exist in any way.
And, like I said before, it's counterproductive to being true individuals. Ideally people would get over their little ethnic prides and have American pride or human pride, or better yet pride in their own works and personality.
But white pride is a lot more disturbing than the other ethnic prides because it is a completely artificial construction. Other ethnicities have history behind them and formed naturally. White pride is a conscious attempt by a (strangely) jealous majority group to create a dominant ethnicity.

This is exactly what I am talking about. You equate all white pride with what the klan calls white pride. That simply isn't the case, and I find it pretty racist to make such an assumption.

 

[9sublime]

White people have done some great things, we have invented some amazing things, as we have the advantage of being post-industrial revolution unlike Africa and much of South America and Asia. However, whites have commited attrocities in Africa, North and South America, Asia and Europe; genocide, extortion etc.

 

[JavaBlack]

///

This is exactly what I am talking about. You equate all white pride with what the klan calls white pride. That simply isn't the case, and I find it pretty racist to make such an assumption.

Name one other kind of "white pride".
How can you have pride in being white other than just having pride that you are not any other color. There simply is no specific shared white history. There is no white ethnicity.
You could have British pride, even Anglo-Saxon pride I suppose... if you're proud of your British Isle roots... but white pride is ridiculous.

 

[Dave]

Name one other kind of "white pride".
How can you have pride in being white other than just having pride that you are not any other color. There simply is no specific shared white history. There is no white ethnicity.
You could have British pride, even Anglo-Saxon pride I suppose... if you're proud of your British Isle roots... but white pride is ridiculous.

There is the same form of white pride as there is black pride. You could just as easily say that it's fine for a black man to have Zulu pride, or Swazi pride, but by your logic black pride should be ridiculous.

 

[Dave]

White people have done some great things, we have invented some amazing things, as we have the advantage of being post-industrial revolution unlike Africa and much of South America and Asia. However, whites have commited attrocities in Africa, North and South America, Asia and Europe; genocide, extortion etc.

Plenty of other races have done the exact same things.

 

[Segep]

There is the same form of white pride as there is black pride. You could just as easily say that it's fine for a black man to have Zulu pride, or Swazi pride, but by your logic black pride should be ridiculous.
__________________

I'll be damned you've got a point there.



How about this? Black pride is a tool to overcome the oppression from the dominant society. Since the dominant society inherently favors whites, white pride is simply....pointless.

 

[JavaBlack]

There is the same form of white pride as there is black pride. You could just as easily say that it's fine for a black man to have Zulu pride, or Swazi pride, but by your logic black pride should be ridiculous.

I believe I've already said that all such forms of pride are ridiculous. But white pride does indeed take the cake.
We're having a semantics issue... I agree that the term "black pride" is problematic because the name denotes a race rather than an ethnicity. But we know damn well... it does refer to an ethnicity. The thing we call "black culture" for lack of a better term (never mind that there is a major generation gap existing in "black culture").
No white pride group has a shared culture. Not one. Whites are defined as individuals, not as a group... and what shared culture we have is American culture... which includes a lot of nonwhites. In addition unlike most blacks in America, most of us have some passed down knowledge concerning our ancestry. Most blacks cannot determine what country their ancestors were bought from.

Now let me reiterate... All such prides are stupid. But they are not all the same. Minority group pride is actually useful up to a point in earning equal rights... Once most equality is legislated however, they become counterproductive. And it is not as stupid to take pride in an ethnic shared culture as it is to take pride in a skin color.

But if you think there is a white culture... by all means explain to me what the hell it is that is mostly exclusive and universal about white culture. What exactly do we have in common? I'm waiting.

 

[Dave]

I believe I've already said that all such forms of pride are ridiculous. But white pride does indeed take the cake.
We're having a semantics issue... I agree that the term "black pride" is problematic because the name denotes a race rather than an ethnicity. But we know damn well... it does refer to an ethnicity. The thing we call "black culture" for lack of a better term (never mind that there is a major generation gap existing in "black culture").
No white pride group has a shared culture. Not one. Whites are defined as individuals, not as a group... and what shared culture we have is American culture... which includes a lot of nonwhites. In addition unlike most blacks in America, most of us have some passed down knowledge concerning our ancestry. Most blacks cannot determine what country their ancestors were bought from.

Now let me reiterate... All such prides are stupid. But they are not all the same. Minority group pride is actually useful up to a point in earning equal rights... Once most equality is legislated however, they become counterproductive. And it is not as stupid to take pride in an ethnic shared culture as it is to take pride in a skin color.

But if you think there is a white culture... by all means explain to me what the hell it is that is mostly exclusive and universal about white culture. What exactly do we have in common? I'm waiting.

Black culture is no more a single culture than white culture, yet you somehow see it as being higher up on the food chain for some odd reason. Black culture in New Orleans is completely different from black culture in Texas. Detroit has it own form of black culture, as does New York, and Washington D.C.

As for gaining equal rights, dont make me laugh. The Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam set back the civil rights movement by years, if not decades, by fostering hatred for other races. You can't single out whites as the worst when its clear that plenty of other races do the exact same things. The white race is simply par for the course.

 

[JavaBlack]

...

Black culture is no more a single culture than white culture, yet you somehow see it as being higher up on the food chain for some odd reason. Black culture in New Orleans is completely different from black culture in Texas. Detroit has it own form of black culture, as does New York, and Washington D.C.

As for gaining equal rights, dont make me laugh. The Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam set back the civil rights movement by years, if not decades, by fostering hatred for other races. You can't single out whites as the worst when its clear that plenty of other races do the exact same things. The white race is simply par for the course.

As is any culture in a different geographical location. But truth remains that there is a culture of blacks that looks like a mix of urban and southern poor culture and contains a lot of hodgepodge remnants of passed down African mysticism and tradition, lots of musical things involved... and is almost uniformly Baptist... a sect of the Baptist religion that does not resemble other Baptist sects.
Like I said, it's stupid to call it black culture... but what else are you going to call it? Colin Powell is not a member of that culture. Nor are a great majority of the black middle class... But it is not completely a class difference either. It is truly a subculture within American culture and one created through the communities of blacks. When they come up with a new name for it, I'll get back to you.

And I never said it was higher... Merely that it is a culture rather than a race. I'm skeptical of white pride because... well, guess. Got any description of "white culture" yet? All they have to be proud about is not being black or yellow. That's racist. Show me an exception to the rule.

The Nation of Islam is backwards, yes. And it's actually a countermovement to what I'd describe as "black culture" because it looks to regain some roots (strangely they picked up Islam instead of African pagan tribal religion) from the old country and stand against American culture. "Black culture" is a true subculture, not a counterculture. Its utility is better described through the work of Martin Luther King Jr. It's better speakers today are people like Bill Cosby and Barak Obama who encourage the black communities to take responsibility for their actions and call for an end to gangsta culture (another counterculture). And then we see the utility is wearing as rights are gained with the examples of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson... who are more of a liability than an asset.

Frankly anyone who suggests that "white pride" is a good idea for anything other than to show the absurdity of other "prides" is even more counterproductive. Essentially such people are either racists or convinced that the majority should take up a minority mentality despite its position of power.

 

[vyo476]

Black culture is no more a single culture than white culture, yet you somehow see it as being higher up on the food chain for some odd reason. Black culture in New Orleans is completely different from black culture in Texas. Detroit has it own form of black culture, as does New York, and Washington D.C.

But black culture is united by the historical oppression of all blacks. Where did the black cultures of New Orleans, Detroit, New York and Washington, DC all come from? Slavery. Those cultures wouldn't have ever come into being if blacks hadn't been pressed into slavery - and when they were being enslaved there were no distinctions made between various differences. That's where black pride comes from - their shared heritage.

Whites have no such shared heritage. As whites, we've never been grouped together en masse by outsiders just based on being white. Poles, the Irish...white peoples have been oppressed before, but never for being white. Literally the only thing that binds us together is the color of our skin. The same is not true for black people.

 

[Dave]

You are both kind of changing the definition of black pride. You are giving me a definition of african-american culture, not black culture. If you want to play that game then we can go back to how Whites were oppressed by British rule and had to fight for survival on through 1812, and that should now be considered white culture.