The Reader's Money Quote is a statement that is of such insight and importance that it merits frequent and loud repetition. These Reader's Money Quotes are from an astute UK-based African reader named JaliliMaster (actually, I think of her as one of the international "news correspondents" that this blog has been blessed to have). She said the following in response to the From the "I Told You So" Department-Pres. Obama Watch Division post (my responses are in bold italics):
I agree re: the extended readers money quote regarding dominance. Other ethnicities are doing it and excluding blacks. This is not unique to America, so folks should not think that if they go to another country, they won't face this same type of discrimination. This is the same attitude that allowed these other 'ethnics' to trick AA's in the first place. They thought that other people of colour would have solidarity with them when it came to whites. Turns out, they will stand with you as far as you are needed then you get dropped. [Khadija: This phrase, "they will stand with you as far as you are needed then you get dropped," should be painted on most African-Americans' foreheads. Starting with our gullible, idiotic (mis)leaders.]
In the UK, a Tamil man was taken to court for racially-motivated firing of black employees. Now if anyone knows about the Tamils, they are Sri-Lankan minorities who have been at war for years and are at the bottom of the country socially, economically etc. Yet, he got to britain and used all his money to buy a petrol station service shop. The first thing he did was to fire the employees one-by-one, who were all black Africans, then he hired new supervisors, all Tamil. [Khadija: It's normal human nature to take care of folks in this order: self, family, clan, ethnic group. With many people in many countries, "nation" isn't even on that list. With most people across the board, outsiders are almost NEVER on the "take care of them" list. People who are in touch with reality understand this; and are therefore not depending on others to so-called "do right by them" by taking care of them.]
This man was then taken to court by the employees. He was ordered by the judge to re-employ them or face fines. He chose to pay compensation to these employees than have them working for him. [Khadija: Right, that's to be expected. It's very difficult to bumrush your way onto somebody else's "take care of them" list.]
He was asked how he could be so okay with his racism, he felt there was nothing wrong with it as it was his business. [Khadija: To even ask that question is show how naive one is. {shaking my head}] The man who was interviewing him is some black actor(or other personality) who was doing a documentary. He was the kumbaya type of negro, questioning why people of colour cannot just 'work together'. [Khadija: Oh, puh-leeze.]
I remember he went into Asian communities(Pakistani, Indian etc), and exposed the entrenched racism towards blacks. [Khadija: Then I'm sure this foolish Negro got an earful from those South Asians. From what I've observed of them in the US, they discriminate among themselves based on color. The (arranged) marriage ads that Indians and Pakistanis put in "Muslim" publications openly state that the parent placing the ad is looking to marry their child to persons with "fair complexions." They're certainly not interested in cuddling up with folks who are of African descent and therefore "officially" Black.]
This silly negro started pontificating on camera, even as one Indian man boasted and even mocked that if blacks are so good, how come all the businesses in black communities are owned by Asians?! This negro started wailing that the Asians should be 'fair' and hire blacks. [Khadija: {chuckling}] It never occured to him to question why blacks: (1)Refuse to open their businesses AND manage it properly, and (2) why negroes would rather patronise any other business than a black-owned one!
On a final note, the whole kool-aid(I hate using that term) drunk by black folks in relation to Obama is symptomatic of how blacks, and in particular AA's, refuse to properly vet those that claim to represent them. I've seen many AA's talk about thier 'African Brothers' and 'hang' with them in solidarity, but never make any effort to engage in economic and other financial projects that could be to their benefit. They'd stand by as these African negroes do business with whites, and the whites exclude them(AA's) from being able to partake, in many cases, with the Africans knowledge. No offense, but AA's need to stop being fools. Alot of you seem to have this view that these African 'leaders/reps' would always have your backs, when they don't even have the backs of their fellow country men. [Khadija: JaliliMaster, THANK YOU for the courtesy of telling THE TRUTH. And doing so in the spirit of seeing African-Americans wake up and do better. You already know this, but let me point this out to my fellow African-Americans: We have the deadly mental habit of assuming that other people view the world the same way we do, and that they think the same way we do. They DON'T.
For one of many examples, most African-Americans have the "take care of them" list backwards compared to every other group of people. We put outsiders first and put ourselves last. African-American women put themselves DEAD LAST on the "must be taken care of" list. Nobody else thinks like this.]
The same thing is done with AA leaders, where having the black skin is enough. I've noticed the British governments habits (and the American too), of sending black faces to represent them in African countries when it comes to political issues (say negotiations in Zimbabwe, Sudan etc), because they think they would be better able to trick them with a black face, but then send white faces when it comes to financial issues, because they don't want black folks to be the link to their source of income. Folks need to understand that money is always going to be made, it's all about who makes it. With the recession, it is the smartest that will come out ontop, get with it!
Okay, I tried posting my comments, but it was too long so I'll break them down:
Obama is weak. That is the plain truth. In the case of Bush, only a select few were allowed to speak. With Obama, he allows many to air their views, but only takes the views of a select few into account. What he doesn't realise is that that is no different from Bush. I'm surprised that many could not see Obamas weakness till now. [Khadija: From what I observe, most African-Americans still can't see Obama's weakness. As a friend mentioned to me earlier this morning, most African-Americans will hypnotically cling to (and fall with) Obama to the bitter end. Even after it's all over, they still won't understand what happened, or why.]
Ignoring the fact that alot of the criticism from the right is racially motivated, there are some instances where he should listen. Him bowing to foreign leaders is one of them. Obama seems pretty convinced that he is this all-knowing, world-travelled man, because he lived in God knows where when he was a child. He thinks that he knows more than anybody else about other cultures. That is why he insists on doing nonsense like bowing to other heads of state. In these countries, bowing (or kneeling/bending the knee etc) is used as a sign of respect. But thats where Obamas knowledge stops. It is used as a sign of respect to those who one considers to be above them. [In Obama's case, since he's not actually African-American--he's half continental African and half-White---this is a case of him succumbing to the general (ignorant) American assumption that other people think the way Americans do. In this case, believing that other people subscribe to the "people are people, and people are the same all over, and everybody is as informal as Americans" nonsense. Umm . . . NO.
People are NOT just people in other places. Many other cultures have much more rigidly observed hierarchies. This is reflected in many languages even by "little" things, such as using much more formal forms of address when speaking to people who are in any way "above" you (more educated, older, wealthier, etc.). In many other cultures, everybody has a commonly understood and accepted "place."]
It is the reason the when Laura Bush met the Queen of England, rather than curtsying, she only gave a very slight tip of the head. Why? Her husband was the head of state. She assumes his same level. Therefore, all heads of state are of the same level. The Queen is the head of state, and secondly, Laura is not a British subject, and therefore doesn't bow. [Khadija: That's right.]
I don't know whether or not Michelle had the common sense to do the same thing, although reports said that when they first met, away from cameras, she gave a little curtsey. Try paying attention to foreign media for once, one would see a difference between that and what passes for 'news' in this part of the world. I remember when he went to Saudi Arabia, the moment he bowed, the entire Saudi media went ecstatic, because they felt he was 'submitting'. [Khadija: That's right. Obama was silly enough to think that he was ingratiating himself with these people by doing that. Instead, he was inviting them to hold him in contempt.] That had NEVER been done by any American president before. Now, wherever he goes, this president, supposedly the most powerful man in the world, is actually expected to bow and 'submit'. They expected it in China, they got it. He did the same in other places. It's not lost on me that it is this first 'black' president that is expected to 'submit'. [Khadija: This is a disgrace.]
On the issue of his political appointments, part of the reason that there have been quite a few social faux pas is because the person responsible for 'updating' the president on such issues is the Chief protocol officer. Guess who she is. A die-hard Shrillary nut. She was appointed by Clinton as the post is under the State Department, but she is situated in the white house. Although she is supposed to, she doesn't fly with the president and her office was moved to the State department (from what I understand, that had something to do with Michelle, as she didn't trust the woman when it came to loyalty). [Khadija: A small bit of common sense.]
She had good reason not to, as this woman was a very active member of the PUMA lot, who were virulently anti-Obama. This is another reason why I think giving Clinton the SOS role was a mistake. She insisted that she should have the power to hire and fire as she pleased, a power which should solely belong to the president. Now she stuffed the state department full with her cronies. [Khadija: That's to be expected from everybody except naive, gullible Obama. But then again, Obama doesn't have any cronies of his own--for the reasons that I've covered in previous posts.]
I'm also amused when I see people talking about Hillary running in 2012. People forget that she is inexperienced. There is a reason why all of a sudden, the secretary of states responsibilities have been carved up, with envoys to various regions(Iraq, N. Korea etc) that do not report to Clinton. Being married to the president does not count as experience, especially as up to the point of being given the secretary of state job, she, like Obama, had very little to show for her political career. The silly mistakes she has made with Russia and the Israel/Palestinian issue (too long to go into now) are just one of the many signs that she is a lightweight. [Khadija: Yes, but as we saw with Bush, the actual quality of one's performance is not what matters. What matters is how one's performance is "spun" and marketed.]
Another problem with her is that she seems to reward people (e.g with jobs/political appointments) because of loyalty as opposed to whether or not they are actually capable. This can be seen in alot of the people she had running her failed campaign (start with patty solis doyle).
On the whole Latino issue, the only black folks that can still be deceived with such BS are the ones that are negroes! I've seen many of the 'solutions' that have been put forward to counter the racial discrimination of these Latinos, the most common being to learn spanish. As always happens, the necessary qualifications keep on shifting as black folks meet the mark. After you learn spanish, you find out it's 'native speakers only'. The problem is that black folks are only able to see solutions to problems through the lens of how others can help. [Khadija: African-Americans have been indoctrinated into believing that everybody--except White men--is our "friend."] Instead of trying to figure out how to get these folks to 'do right' by blacks, think of how to make it for yourself. [Khadija: YES!]
I remember during the campaign, when Obama said that parents should make their kids learn other languages. I though..yeah, they should. He then added, "especially spanish". Latinos got so happy. Black folks couldn't see the implications of this. Latinos would not dare openly discriminate against whites, but you know they are more than happy to tell blacks to their face where to stick it. I know this will sound harsh, but people should stop patronising the non-black owned businesses. Whenever one says it, 'they' accuse you of racism, ignoring the fact that they themselves (be it whites, latinos, asians) don't patronise black-owned business. Also, if you are going to support a black owned business, make sure that it supports you. I don't think I need to explain what I mean by that. [Khadija: No, you shouldn't have to explain this, but reciprocity is still a mysterious concept for most African-Americans.]
JaliliMaster, thank you for providing these essential Reader's Money Quotes!
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55 comments:
Yes, I'm increasingly becoming wary about the non-reciprocity of other POC's. I don't assume reciprocity just because another group of people are not white. We are going to have to look out for ourselves and by that I mean AA BW.
I can just give a hearty co-sign to this post. I can say one thing about going away to college that was great for me: it let me know to look out for number 1. The only one I'm answerable to is God and when I die, He's going to show me what I did with my life. You can't waste your time focusing on everyone else. Other minorities don't care about black people: Asian and Latino women may marry black men but they take the black men's money and use it to enrich their families. Like JM posted, they don't hire black people, they don't want to be around black people period for most. This also includes Africans who haven't been corrupted by black culture. And there's nothing black people can say because black people have embraced a culture which shows the lowest of the lowest common denominator.
People need to stop caring about the Reggie Bushes/Kim Kardashians/Gilbert Arenas of the world. Time is ticking and its time to look out for YOU. Better to do what's right and make sure you are fine in this world than not to. Even if you're reading this blog and you're still stuck in the hood, its easier to escape when you're looking to do for yourself.
Hey Khadija:
That was some great commentary from JaliliMaster.
I never considered how wrong it was for Obama to bow to foreign heads of state. I thought the Repugs were just being their usual bigoted selves. But they were actually on to something.
And it's painfully clear that Obama's weak. I don't think he's the worst prezy ever but I don't see strong leadership from him either. During the election, he was always taking the high road and that got on my last nerves.
I remember posting on my Facebook status "It's a crying shame how Obama is allowing racism to keep him from doing his job. Or maybe he was always a fraud." I really lit a fire under my Negro friends, LOL! My critiques of Obama are based on his performance and his character flaws as a leader. And they were making excuses about him looking like an angry Black man. Oh please.
It really annoys me how Obama's always looking to appease his biggest enemies. I mean, does it even matter if you confirm negative racial stereotypes for bigots that you will never win over?
Zoopath,
You said, "We are going to have to look out for ourselves and by that I mean AA BW."
This is all that I've ever been saying about this topic here (and in real life). I'm only doing what everybody except most AAs does: prioritize reciprocating people in this order---self, family, clan, ethnic group.
Only after all the above layers of reciprocating people are taken care of, will I even entertain the notion of being concerned about outsiders. Now, an outsider who has been particularly useful and helpful to me and mine can be moved up in terms of priority.
But the thing is, most of the outsiders that AAs habitually worry about are NOT at all helpful to us. In fact, many of these so-called people of color that we blindly support hate us and hold us in contempt. The proof is in their general behavior toward us.
I don't blame these other people for using us. What's the saying? "Find a fool, bump their head." That's what AAs get for being gullible fools who offer their heads to be "bumped."
Peace, blessings and solidarity.
KM,
You said, "Time is ticking and its time to look out for YOU."
YES!
_______________________________
Anonymiss,
Yes, that was some great commentary. JaliliMaster made it plain!
Yes, sometimes the Republican lunatics are bigoted, crazy AND factually correct. Even a stopped clock is correct twice a day.
Peace, blessings and solidarity.
I find it funny when I tell people I want to learn how to speak another language like Mandarin or German they tell me I need to learn Spanish (meh). I think a second language other than Spanish will allow for more opportunity and mobility in the international community.
As far as the President.....well, its not that I am devoid of hope (teehee) but reality dictates preparation and planning on my behalf because no one is going to ensure my survival but me. With the alliances I am forging and bridges I am building, my goal is to position myself to thrive. From personal relationship to business relationships, my eyes are on the reciprocity prize.
Peace
Greetings, Khadija!
Indeed, great posts and responses, and I agree wholeheartedly.
I have an example of someone who woke up eventually to the "coalition building" with Latinos business.
He thought he had an affinity with them, ie., that they are Caribbean folk like he is, liking the same foods, dance, and so forth.
So when he lost his job in the dot-com bust of the early part of the last decade, he decided to move to Miami with one of his Latin pals, a friend who was also affected by the recession.
Yes, ladies, M-I-A-M-I.
When I heard this, I wondered whether he had lost his mind. Didn't he know what was going on there?
So we know what happened, don't we?
Negro had no Spanish skills, and he was going THERE. So of course, his pal got a job right away, and he was left floundering.
But he caught on eventually--he moved back to the Caribbean, where he was among not only family, ie., his mom, but clan and ethnic group...He is doing well now.
As for the election, I can offer bulletin points from up here in New England.
I voted for the third party candidate, and I could hear the same sort of localism you are speaking of not only in the candidate, but among people who voted for him.
The Democrats up here are lazy and complacent but the Republicans are lean, mean and hungry.
The Democratic candidate didn't even try, basking in the fact that this state leans heavily for the Democrats, in that she had a 30 point lead. She took it for granted that she would win. As in the case of the Hillary, some of the white chicks were so hopeful and sure they would get their first white female senator from the state.
But the candidate forgot that half the state is Independent (I am one of them) and we don't vote on party loyalty.
So when the Republican candidate was getting ready to move, he used all sorts of various stealth strategies that the Democrats weren't even anticipating. By the time she woke up and went on the attack, it was too late.
He spoke to people in the "self, family," language, except he included in it, "us, our friends, and our neighbors in this state!"
Mass. already has universal health care, yet with this plan, he argued, we are going to have to support other states whose governments were not enough on the ball to do the same.
He also stressed the horse-trading that went on, the pandering to different groups in the drafting of the bill(s) and the buying of votes, ie. Nebraska's...
So all eyes were on us as being the state that emboldened the Republicans to fight the Obama even further...It is true, NJ and Va mattered, but this congressional election brought the house down...
SouthlandDiva,
What AAs forget in our naivete is that Spanish is NOT an international "money" language. Our native English is, as well as other languages like German and French.
____________________________
PioneerValleyWoman,
Greetings!
You said, "I have an example of someone who woke up eventually to the "coalition building" with Latinos business.
He thought he had an affinity with them, ie., that they are Caribbean folk like he is, liking the same foods, dance, and so forth."
I can hear the strains of The Doobie Brothers song, What a Fool Believes:
"But what a fool believes he sees
No wise man has the power to reason away
What seems to be
Is always better than nothing
There's nothing at all
But what a fool believes he sees..."
{shaking my head}
You went on to say, "So when he lost his job in the dot-com bust of the early part of the last decade, he decided to move to Miami with one of his Latin pals, a friend who was also affected by the recession.
Yes, ladies, M-I-A-M-I."
{murmuring---But what a fool believes he sees...}
You said, "When I heard this, I wondered whether he had lost his mind. Didn't he know what was going on there?"
Oh no, he (like so many non-AA Blacks) probably thought that Latinos' disdain/hatred/contempt for Black folks ONLY applied to us "non-exotic," "generic" AAs. He thought he would be perceived as special because he's "inter...nation...al."
{murmuring---But what a fool believes he sees...}
You said, "Negro had no Spanish skills, and he was going THERE. So of course, his pal got a job right away, and he was left floundering.
But he caught on eventually--he moved back to the Caribbean, where he was among not only family, ie., his mom, but clan and ethnic group...He is doing well now."
I wonder if he ever truly caught the hint. Blacks are so quick to forget maltreatment from the nonblacks they want to cuddle up to. We remember only while the boot is still firmly pressing down on our necks. Once the person lifts their heel off our neck for a split second, most Blacks (and especially AAs) are quick to forgive and forget.
About the recent Mass. election, you said of the Republican candidate, "He spoke to people in the "self, family," language, except he included in it, "us, our friends, and our neighbors in this state!"
This is significant. And gets back to how minimally sensible people (everybody except AAs) view their priorities. Our misleaders have programmed most AAs to look to create over-arching "Rainbow Coalitions" with eveybody else...in the absence of taking care of self, family, clan, or finally, ethnic group. This is upside-down and backwards. And it doesn't work.
Much of this is our (mis)leaders' fault. However, much of it is our own fault for being a self-hating, looking-for-validation-from- outsiders, type of people.
The other thing is that most AAs don't understand that survival and success are TEAM sports. The same "value of marriage" and "value of stable families" ideas that we spurn (mostly motivated by sour grapes and a desire to save face in the absence of these things among us), are the very things that make survival and success possible!
Peace, blessings and solidarity.
Let me emphasize one of the extremely important "jewels" of wisdom from JaliliMaster's comments.
She said, "Try paying attention to foreign media for once, one would see a difference between that and what passes for 'news' in this part of the world. I remember when he went to Saudi Arabia, the moment he bowed, the entire Saudi media went ecstatic, because they felt he was 'submitting'."
This is a HUGE problem with most AAs. Most of us are only listening to "news" outlets that mirror our own preconceptions. I'm not talking about reading the Moonies' paper, or the neo-Nazi sites. I'm talking about comparing the conversations and "news" from a variety of sources.
I don't believe in such a thing as "objectivity" with news. Every piece of information has a viewpoint and underlying assumptions attached to it.
For example, I hear a steady drumbeat of news stories talking about Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program. However, ALL of these "news" stories are based on the assumptions that:
(1) It would automatically be a bad thing for Iran to have nuclear weapons. Even though, with the recent brief excursion into a disputed Iraqi oil field, modern Iran has never invaded another country. Even after Khomeini came to power. It turns out that the ruling mullahs in Iran have been rational actors for the past 30 years.
Furthermore, if an empire as mighty as the former Soviet Union was deterred from waging war by the mutual possession of nuclear weapons, why wouldn't a much weaker country like Iran also be deterred from engaging in overt aggression?
This assumption is not logical. Particularly when one compares the US' many, many invasions over the past 30 years with NO invasions launched by Iran since the Islamic Revolution.
(2) That the current double standard will and should be accepted by those countries that haven't yet developed nuclear weapons. How is it okay for Israel to stockpile dozens if not hundreds of nuclear missles, but it's not okay for other sovereign countries to have nuclear weapons? And what makes anybody think that those who lack these weapons will stick with the status quo?
Again, this is not logical. How does it serve Iran's interests (or any other country that's not a US flunky) to leave themselves defenseless in terms of nuclear weapons? The US government's behavior proves that this is an extremely irresponsible position for any non-flunky government to take---it leads to being invaded by the US, and having one's citizens killed and starved. Most Americans forget that these other governments DO have an ethical duty to protect their citizens from us.
After Vietnam, the US learned to only attack weak countries that can't effectively slap back (like Grenada, Panama, and so on). You will note that, no matter what atrocities and aggressive acts the leadership in North Korea commits, the US govt. is very subdued in how it talks to those N. Koreans. The difference between N. Korea and Iraq is that N.Korea can slap back.
Anyhoo, the point is that most AAs take information from a very narrow set of sources. Sources that are operating from assumptions that we never question. And we don't think through the implications of certain events. This sets us up to be what Evia calls "perpetually surprised" (and blindsided) by events. Which leads me to my next point.
Part 2
Most of us have the habit of only fixating on what other people feel is most important. Again, this leaves us at the mercy of other folks' agendas. Which may or may not serve our interests.
For example, in my recent brief tour of the Black blogosphere, I saw a number of blogs complaining about the recent ruling from the Supremes about corporations. I didn't see many folks talking about the final demise of Air America Radio.
Now, I hadn't listened to Air America in many years (since Jeanene Garafolo left). But that's not the point. The point of concern is that so-called progressives don't know how to sustain an infrastructure. To me, this is a greater concern than the Supreme Court ruling about the corporations.
Yes, the ruling means that corporations are free to give however much they want to typically crazy, reactionary candidates. However, ALL US candidates are running in political atmospheres that are created by the media noise machines---the loudest and most pervasive of which are INSANE. Despite the fact that Faux News, Rush the Drug Addict, and other lunatics are crazy, their collective madness has been omnipresent for decades.
This constant, overwhelming presence (on hundreds of AM talk radio stations throughout the country and other outlets) has allowed them to push more and more of their crazy ideas into the so-called "mainstream." This has had the simultaneous effect of marginalizing SANE poltical ideas. All of which has shifted the political center of gravity to the FAR right.
Let me give an example. All of the above is how you have the utter insanity of a Negro slave like Harold Ford campaigning for Senator in front of a backdrop of a HUGE Confederate flag. Which is how you have Negro slaves currently saying that these sorts of capitulations are a "hip" and "savvy" strategy for nominally Black candidates.
If there had been a sane media noise machine environment, then that public Confederate mess would have been further along on its way out among "polite" company.
The deranged right-wing "noise machine" infrastructure pushes White folks to the far right. The chain-reaction is that Crossover Negro Politicians feel compelled to buckdance to even more ridiculous levels to appease White voters. And in The Age of Obama, most AAs think that having these weak, bootlicking Crossover Negro Politicians in office is somehow a "win" for us. [When the dog loses its mind and chooses to drown itself, then the dependent fleas that were clinging to the dog also drown.]
So, more AAs should have been deeply concerned about the final demise of Air America. And thinking about forming our OWN "noise machine" infrastructure to push our OWN ideas into the mainstream.
Peace, blessings and solidarity.
Dear Khadija,
You and the other commenters have been very accurate with assessment of the situation.
I would like to add my final commment: AAs are the only ones that will be able to save themselves if they expect to survive the "Final Act of the Great American Economy". The reality however, is that after 40 years or two generations, the majority are not as strong or savvy as the generations that managed to survive and in many cases thrive under Jim Crow and Segregation. We, as a people, lost the "values" of protecting and valuing ones' own FIRST.
I hope that those of us who are strong enough, wise enough and savvy enough can make and execute their plans to live an abundant life. To quote Charles Dickens "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times". It all depends on whether you face these realities and act accordingly for yourself, family, clan, etc. or whether you remain in the mode of "What a fool believes..."
I salute you Khadija for giving a final warning and sincerely hope that those AA BWs still needing a final nudge/push, will finally take action as time is running out.
Karen,
THANK YOU for your kind words, ongoing support, and encouragement. I truly appreciate it.
Yes, these last few MB posts will be the last times I give public warnings about all of this. I've been standing near the periphery of the burning house with a bullhorn yelling "FIRE! GET OUT NOW!" for long enough. I've also been re-arranging the items in my suitcase while yelling the alarm. My suitcase is comfortably arranged, and it's time for me to take my leave.
I'm about to walk away altogether. No more sounding the alarm. It's time to end the search and rescue missions. Whoever hasn't already at least started the process of getting out, probably never will. I did my part, and I'll leave most of the posts here for those remaining survivors who come along later.
As you noted---it's paradoxical---but this is potentially the BEST of times for those of us who take heed of reality, and use all the opportunities that are available to us. This is where my new focus is going to be.
Onward and forward into full-spectrum abundant life!
Peace, blessings and solidarity.
Hi Khadija and every one else.
I've been out for quite a while and I thought you had stopped blogging but in recent conversations I had with my dear Jalilimaster, she told me you were still blogging. So i will read and gice my on '2 cents'.
Re Obama,
Jalilimaster is spot on on the bowing issue. When he first bowed to the Saudi king, I just dismissed it as a mistake but when I saw pics of him all over the world bowing like a fool (apologies for insulting your president), it just made me cringe. He is their 'equal' and so therefore should NOT be bowing. You guys should think of it, the 1st potus to bow to all these other world leaders just happens to be the black one......and one wonders why they wouldnt view blacks as lower than them. I remember when they came to the UK (like jalili, i also live in England) for the g20 (or was it g8) summit, the British media was making issue of wether or not BO and MO would courtesy and were going thru what the ususal protocol should be. However, when Bush and his wife came here, there were no such news segments. Why was it only when they pres was black that ppl were wondering wether or not they would bow? Why was the bowing not an issue when the pres was white? President Obama has no idea how much he is lowering himself and image in these pples eyes.
Secondly, although this is a bit on a tangent, although I 'still' like the president, I very much view him a bit 'suspect'. I heard that not too long ago he called up some black congressional leader who was criticising him and told the congressional leader over the phone to "stop demeaning me (obama)". When I heard this, I got so irritated. Had the guy been white or any other race except black, would Obama have had the audacity to call him and tell the person to stop 'demeaning him'? He seems to have more 'guts' when he is dealing with black folks. Also, it seems that for Obama, he is more comfortable throwing black folks under the bus for their 'mistakes' than he is for white folks.
On another issue, it annoys the heck out of me when i see these AA leaders shouting 'brotha' with some of these African leaders. If you guys want me to explain the way the vast majority (if not all) of the way these Africans leaders behave towards their 'people', they are just like the AA leaders, but worse. They could not care less. Atleast the AA ones pretend. So if the African leaders could not care about helping their country people, why on earth would AAs believe they could care about helping you??? A lot of the times, I hear AAs complaining about lack of support from Africans on AA issues but then I have to be honest with you, as long as the African leader you are in collaboration with is seen as corrupt/dishonest/useless, these Africans are not going to buy into anything they are selling. Btw, I can almost say with assurance that when these African and AA leaders collaborate, they are only looking out for themselves. The Africans have realised it and it is about time that AAs realised it too. These African leaders are ripping their country pple off so why would AAs assume they would not be ready and willing to rip you off as well???
-------------------------------
Re other non-black minorities:
I watcthed the show with the hideous negro male that Jalili was talking about. They showed it on tv here about 2 months ago. It was actually filmed and aired a few years ago but the network decided to air it again. I am sure that several black pple here in the UK would have seen the Tamil guy and yet would still choose to go on as they have been. I could'nt even get angry when I saw what the Asians (Indians/Pakistanis/Bangladeshis here in the UK) were saying because at the end of the day, they were all true. The main Asian guy that was interviewed, although his business was in a black community, this guy had the audacity to insult black people on national television. This guy was not scared that his black customers would see him and stop patronising his business! Black pple in their fickle and weak mindedess, after seeing and recognising this racist on tv insulting them, would happily walk into his store and hand their money over! The fools! My philosophy is simple. I vote/protest with my money. If you do not have respect for me, then as far as I am concerened, you do not have respect for my money and if you do not have respect for my money, why the heck should you get it?
This brings me to another issue. The media and hollywood. I am sick of hearing AAs complain about the hollywood 'blackout'. AAs make up 45% of US cinema viewership yet only 12% of the US population. So AAs are supporting these movies more than any other ethnicity in America. Since Hollywood refuses to adequately represent you, why dont you stop watching their movies? Imagine all these movies losing 45% of average cinema attendance, do you not think that hollywood would take notice? Then you have the worthless negro fools like jamie foxx and martin lawrnece that use their 'wanda and shenene' nonsense to debase and demean black women and yet some immensely foolish black women actually support this nonsense!!! I wouldnt even start on Tyler Perry. My flatmate actually said once that she can't wait for his movies to start being screened in the UK (she is also black). I told her how can you want that nonsense shown here. She said that well he was a black director/producer and you dont really see them having such big successes so it is good to support them. She said that she was sure that when he gets very big and successful (like he isnt already), he would stp making those kinds of movies. When she said it, I just remeber looking at her in disgust and thinking 'oh my God, how foolish is this girl!'.
You said: “About the recent Mass. election, you said of the Republican candidate, "He spoke to people in the "self, family," language, except he included in it, "us, our friends, and our neighbors in this state!"
This is significant. And gets back to how minimally sensible people (everybody except AAs) view their priorities. Our misleaders have programmed most AAs to look to create over-arching "Rainbow Coalitions" with eveybody else...in the absence of taking care of self, family, clan, or finally, ethnic group. This is upside-down and backwards. And it doesn't work.”
My reply: I didn’t even need to follow the election closely to know what was going through the minds of the MA voters. People are being naive, thinking that everyone would want universal healthcare, thinking of others, etc. The Massachusetts voters have the same motivation as the seniors. These groups ALREADY have their own universal healthcare. Why should they bother with anybody else?! One may say it is selfish. Probably. But so? They are looking out for themselves, not for anyone else.
You said: “Much of this is our (mis)leaders' fault. However, much of it is our own fault for being a self-hating, looking-for-validation-from- outsiders, type of people.
The other thing is that most AAs don't understand that survival and success are TEAM sports. The same "value of marriage" and "value of stable families" ideas that we spurn (mostly motivated by sour grapes and a desire to save face in the absence of these things among us), are the very things that make survival and success possible!”
I think people are grossly underestimating how serious the damage that will be done to the AA collective (in addition to the damage happening now), due to the marriage statistics, and the increasingly poor attitude alot of AA’s have to the whole idea. It is not just about stable families and children being given a good uprbringing. No one knows what will happen to the economy, and by extension, the world as we know it. Throw in the problems due to peak oil, there will be a scramble for resources. Having a strong, tight-kint posse, in this case, a family, will be the factor that determines who survives and thrives and who doesn’t. As the family, which is supposed to be that biggest support for ANYBODY on this planet, is further disintegrating, the AA’s that make it are the ones who took heed.
Hello there Foxycleopatra,
I also cringed when I saw Obama doing all that bowing around the world. Barry O. is the 1st and he will be the ONLY US president to bow to these other folks like that. Once the next White US president gets into office, that bowing stuff (and any expections of bowing from others) will be over.
You said, "I heard that not too long ago he called up some black congressional leader who was criticising him and told the congressional leader over the phone to "stop demeaning me (obama)". When I heard this, I got so irritated. Had the guy been white or any other race except black, would Obama have had the audacity to call him and tell the person to stop 'demeaning him'? He seems to have more 'guts' when he is dealing with black folks. Also, it seems that for Obama, he is more comfortable throwing black folks under the bus for their 'mistakes' than he is for white folks."
Yes, this pattern was established when Barry threw the pastor who married him and baptised his children (Rev. Wright) under the bus. And most AAs were dumb enough to cheer Barry on as he tossed Rev. Wright under the bus in order to appease Whites. Most AAs were too stupid to see that this act of throwing Black folks under the bus at the slightest pretext while simultaneously groveling to Whites (remember the racist White cop Barry invited to the White House) would be a long-term PATTERN with Barry O.
Barry Obama ONLY gets some bass in his voice when he's talking to other Blacks. Meanwhile, he's meek and mild with everybody else. And that's okay with most AAs becase we're mesmerized by seeing brown flesh in the White House.
You said, "On another issue, it annoys the heck out of me when i see these AA leaders shouting 'brotha' with some of these African leaders."
I'm annoyed by this as well. However, I will note that whenever I point out the silliness of AAs assuming that there's automatically some sort of "kumbaya" connection to other types of Black folks. . . THEN those non-AA Blacks who want to continue exploiting AAs' gullibility come out in droves to argue AGAINST the need for AAs to wake up and stop blindly assuming some type of solidarity with other types of Black folks.
This is what happened when I did earlier posts pointing out how some of these non-AA Blacks were using us, disrespecting us, and deliberately giving AAs bad advice that they don't follow themselves. For one example of this, see the 4/15/09 post "Beware of Advice From Outsiders Who Want You to Do as They SAY, and NOT as They DID For Themselves."
You said, "So if the African leaders could not care about helping their country people, why on earth would AAs believe they could care about helping you???"
A logical question that AAs rarely raise.
As far as Hollywood, the (White) publishing industry, glass/cement ceilings for Blacks, and all the rest of that . . . the bottom line is that more of us are going to have to function life free, grown-up people and create our own sources of employment, and entertainment industries.
AAs don't want to do that (instead, we'd rather try to "Bogart" our way into being accepting into other people's stuff). But there's no way around it. Creating, and learning how to patronize, our own stuff is the only long-term solution to this otherwise eternal problem.
Peace, blessings and solidarity.
JaliliMaster,
THANK YOU for providing what will probably be the final Reader's Money Quotes for this blog! You've consistently enriched the conversations here with your participation.
You said, "The Jewish holocaust happened about 60 years ago. Most of the Nazi’s and their cohorts are dead; whichever one is still alive is on the run and in hiding. Why? Because no matter how old, ill and decrepit they get, as far as they are breathing, the Jews WILL MAKE THEM PAY for what they did..."
Yes, and the Jews should continue to make them pay. This is the normal human reaction. Only self-hating, slave-mentality folks who don't value themselves anyway are willing to forgive atrocity-level trespasses. Such slaves don't understand the risk/benefit calculations that others make. When there's never any substantive price to pay for mistreating them, most people will mistreat that person or group.
The other angle is that it only really counts as granting forgiveness when one has the power to retaliate. What most Black folks around the world call "forgiveness" is actually more about them being too powerless to retaliate.
There are a number of Arab cultural practices that I dislike, but I do have to give the Arabs credit where it is due: Unlike Blacks, they won't let enemy settlers continue living in comfort in their countries after they've won the struggle against them.
When the Algerians won their war of independence against the French colonialists out of Algeria, they QUICKLY ran the French settlers out of there. The French colonists had the choice of "the suitcase (get up out of Algeria) or the coffin (or else)." [In fact, if I remember correctly, there was a book about that period of French/Algerian history with the title "The Suitcase Or The Coffin."]
Part 2
You said, "I didn’t even need to follow the election closely to know what was going through the minds of the MA voters. People are being naive, thinking that everyone would want universal healthcare, thinking of others, etc. The Massachusetts voters have the same motivation as the seniors. These groups ALREADY have their own universal healthcare. Why should they bother with anybody else?! One may say it is selfish. Probably. But so? They are looking out for themselves, not for anyone else."
Correct. It's normal human behavior to prioritize one's OWN interests FIRST. Magical-thinking, kumbaya-kool-aid-drinking, "if I'm nice to others, they'll be nice to me" AA fools are the only ones who are surprised that other people consistently put themselves first and foremost.
You said, "I think people are grossly underestimating how serious the damage that will be done to the AA collective (in addition to the damage happening now), due to the marriage statistics, and the increasingly poor attitude alot of AA’s have to the whole idea. It is not just about stable families and children being given a good uprbringing. No one knows what will happen to the economy, and by extension, the world as we know it. Throw in the problems due to peak oil, there will be a scramble for resources. Having a strong, tight-kint posse, in this case, a family, will be the factor that determines who survives and thrives and who doesn’t. As the family, which is supposed to be that biggest support for ANYBODY on this planet, is further disintegrating, the AA’s that make it are the ones who took heed."
This is true.
Part 3
A few years ago I had to give a detailed explanation about the basic, common-sense, survival implications of marriage and family when I still made comments at a certain "Black love," Black Nationalist blog.
After reading a multitude of comments where faux-sophisticated "conscious brothers" questioned the value of marriage, I asked them the following question:
During a crisis, whether it's short-term like Katrina or long-term like the Great Depression, who among the following list of persons is most likely to feel a sustained, long-term obligation to help you (and/or your children) in your time of need? Who, among the following people, is most likely to take you and your children in? And for how long?
1-Complete strangers
2-Neighbors
3-Casual acquaintances
4-Friends
5-Your jumpoff's/date's parents and extended family
6-Your girlfriend's parents and extended family
7-Your baby mama's parents and extended family
8-Your wife's parents and extended family
I heard the sound of crickets chirping in response. It's interesting. Many (if not most) AA males don't comprehend this simple idea until they get sick and need somebody to take care of them. That's how a lot of AA Negro males end up homeless. They never established stable families and the social safety net that comes from the kinship networks created by stable families.
This reminds me of a middle-aged BM lawyer acquaintance. He was living large, and rotating among a series of jump-offs. Then he had a stroke, and he needed help to get through daily life.
That's the point at which he started whining that "the women were only interested when [he] had money." But that was the informal, mutually-understood "contract" he established with these various jump-offs. The "contract" he established was that he would spend money on them in order to have sexual access to them. He didn't want to be in a serious relationship with any woman.
This man was one of those Negroes that "didn't believe" that he needed marriage, etc. And as long as he paid his (court-ordered) child support, then it was okay for him that he never lived with his children, nor did he spend much time with them.
All of his behavior added up to him not having anybody--who was in a position to help--who felt any real obligation to him in his time of need. The living relatives from his parents' generation are elderly and unwell themselves. And the bulk of his siblings and cousins never married either; instead, they had out of wedlock children. Nobody in his generation of relatives formed stable marriages. This means that the kinship mutual support network that existed with his parent's generation has become quite tattered and frayed.
This ties into a point that Gina at WAOD made a while back---that many AAs are depending on the family bedrocks formed by marriages from 3 generations ago! We're depending on the stability created by our grandparents' and great-grandparents' marriages, since the younger generations never formed stable marriages of their own.
Oh well. Too bad, so sad for him. And for anybody else who refuses to catch the hint, and make deliberate efforts to form some semblance of a mutual support network of their own. {smh}
Peace, blessings and solidarity.
Very good post and comments. Yes, I agree Jewish people do not forget and they will let you know it.
Some AA people need to take some of the religion out of their thinking...WWJD. No offense to the WWJD fans. But, this is part of what I see as part of the problem, we think about forgiveness when others pertent to forgiven.
I see how my foreign born African supervisor puts herself and her African family and friends first and how she tries to cleaverly knock AAs. I have to admit she does have some valid points. While back home in Africa, China is slowly taking over while so many of her fellow countrymen are dying from hunger and medical conditions that could have to treated.
lois
Anonymous,
I notice that the WWJD ("What Would Jesus Do?") Blacks are generally extremely selective and hypocritical in their applications of WWJD ideology. These WWJD Black folks ONLY forgive:
(1) powerful people/groups, particularly people/groups who have more power than them; and
(2) those people/groups that White folks have given them "permission" to forgive (typically other groups of Whites).
Since Whites have not given "permission" to forgive Bin Laden and other Arab/Muslim lunatics, the WWJD Blacks don't apply WWJD to Bin Laden, et. al. [Not to say that Bin Laden, etc. deserve "forgiveness." Islamic law is quite clear---those people who kill without legal justification, and kill indiscriminately---which includes Bin Laden and accomplices, should be executed.]
The WWJD Blacks generally also don't have a problem with the indiscriminate killing that is done by the US government. How is Hiroshima and Nagasaki (the deliberate, indiscriminate killing of cities full of civilians) any diffferent than what Bin Laden does? It's not. Pearl Harbor and much of the surrounding land was/is a US naval military installation that the Japanese attacked.
[This is not to say that I weep for the WWII Japanese population. I don't. The Japanese still haven't 'fessed up or made any real restitution for what they did to other Asian countries like Korea and China during that era. And, the reality is that Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan would have done the same thing to the US if they had nuclear weapons. And their citizens would have supported that action; the same way most Americans are okay with Hiroshima and Nagasaki.]
Peace, blessings and solidarity.
"I'm annoyed by this as well. However, I will note that whenever I point out the silliness of AAs assuming that there's automatically some sort of "kumbaya" connection to other types of Black folks. . . THEN those non-AA Blacks who want to continue exploiting AAs' gullibility come out in droves to argue AGAINST the need for AAs to wake up and stop blindly assuming some type of solidarity with other types of Black folks.
This is what happened when I did earlier posts pointing out how some of these non-AA Blacks were using us, disrespecting us, and deliberately giving AAs bad advice that they don't follow themselves. For one example of this, see the 4/15/09 post "Beware of Advice From Outsiders Who Want You to Do as They SAY, and NOT as They DID For Themselves."
I said:
To be honest with you, I don't blame you and some other AAs when you guys get pissed at the way some Africans behave. If the shoe were on the other foot, I would probably feel the same. I think that it is left for AAs to stop being foolish and ignorant about these kind of things. Don't give support to those you dont get it from. As for those Africans who come here giving their 'do as i say and not as i did' type of advice, I used to wonder what their motivation/reason was and in my experience, hey tend to fall under any of the following categories:
1. The naive types: They are just as foolish and ignorant as the AAs that they are trying to advice. These types actually believe the nonsense that they say. I have noticed though that these types of Africans have most likely never had to suffer for much (i.e. their parents did most of the suffering) and so actually believe in all that kumbaya nonsense. I liken these types to white liberals who are so soft on crime because they have never had to live where these crimes were common.
contd. below....
2. The 'crabs in a barrel' types: They KNOW that their advice is wrong.....because they either tried it and it didnt work for them or they do not have the capability to try the more sensible alternative. So instead, want others to remain in squalor with them. An example of such would be some woman (although she was Carribean/Panamanian and not African but still applies) who came here a few months back during the Divestment discussion. I think her name was seattle slim or something along that line. I noticed that even on WAOD, she would INTENTIONALLY try to disrupt the divestment discussions. She would say that bw should not abandon the bc bcos as far as she was concerned, that is what divestment was all about. However, she and her family had divested from Panama, and yet she failed to see her hypocrisy. Yet there were stupid, yes I said it STUPID AA women who were actually entertaining her nonsense. They were too blind to see how this selfish woman was duping them. Ofcourse, before that whole incident, I already knew that this woman was full of ****. On a site, some bw were complaining about Tyler Perry and his promotion of the 'mammy' image using characters such as Madea. This same seattle slim woman began criticisng them and saying there was nothing wrong with it and that she found it funny. Now this is an image that negatively stereotypes ALL black women irrespective of ethnicity but unfortunately for AA women, is most perverse in their own immediate society. This woman said that after all, she was a black woman and was not offended by it. It then occurred to me that she saw it more as mocking AA women as opposed to black women at large so i asked her that "Had the character of Madea been a black Panamanian woman, would you still find it acceptable?". She then in her hypocrisy, came up with a whole load of nonsense as to why that would be 'wrong'.
3. The 'kumbaya/brothaman' types: These types are distinct from type number 1. They have bought into the whole 'African equivalents' of the black power stuff. They may actually have good intentions but unfortunately, are almost always seriously misguided fools. IMHO, they tend to be the category that is hardest to get through to because they are stuck in their ways and will probably pray to their graves for that 'revolution and uprising' (lol) that will never happen. I know some AAs think that one would not hear such rhetoric in Africa. You would be surprised. Thse are the types that I liken most unto the AAs whose heads your trying to knock some sense into. Thes types have drank the kool-aid and been deceived and used but cannot...sorry refuse to see it.
4. The wicked types: This category seems to be growing and growing. The mistake pple make with this category is that they believe this category derives pleasure in seeing others suffering. That is not the case. Their problem is that THEY DO NOT CARE and also are all too willing to make money off the suffering of blacks. This most often than not involves being in consort with racist non-blacks. I can almost assure you that the Africans in this category are playing tricks in you but they can only do it with the help of other wicked AAs. They first play other Africans for fools and when they're done, turn to other blacks mainly AAs. I have however noticed that one hardly ever sees these types trying their nonsense with non-blacks.
Non-Indian Asians have gotten away with it for years so I wonder why it was assumed Latinos would be different? I think part of the confusion may be because some of them have the same shade of brown skin as non-Latino blacks. American Indians are actively disenfranchising AAs from tribal rolls. The confusion comes from following a few black male leaders and in not thinking beyond the moment. They had an agenda and ulterior motive of escaping their own blackness so of course they advocated losing oneself with other groups and a "rainbow" tribe w/no established boundaries or vetting. We see the problem but what is the solution for us as individuals? The only caveat to those of us who may live abroad is our US citizenship may offer some respite but not much.
Foxycleopatra,
I 100% co-sign! All that you've said is on point, but let me respond to a few things in particular.
You said, "I think that it is left for AAs to stop being foolish and ignorant about these kind of things. Don't give support to those you dont get it from."
That's the bottom line. People do what we LET them do; whatever that is. I'm not even particularly angry with the non-AA Black con artists. I won't take mess off of anybody, but I'm not "angry" about it when people try to get over. As with the racist Latino situation, my real anger is reserved for the clueless AA (mis)leadership class.
In response to the points raised in your Paragraph #1: That's an excellent point comparing some of these folks to limosine liberals. that never occurred to me.
In response to your Paragraph #2: Not to rehash all of that, but the individual you described is the SAME person that I blasted in the 4/15/09 post that I mentioned earlier! My primary issue with her was that I felt she was playing games with issues that are literally life and death for AA women. I won't stand for that.
In response to your Paragraph #3: I'm surprised that such folks exist in any real numbers. That's too bad; the world is passing them by. Just like the world has passed most communists and socialists by.
In response to your Paragraph #4: Now, I AM angry with the wicked non-AAs you've described in Category #4. However, I'm even angrier with their AA acomplices.
Peace, blessings and solidarity.
Faith,
The solutions for each of us as individuals were discussed in the following conversations:
1-"Geostrategy Nerd: An Extended Reader's Money Quote From Beverly"
2-"If You're Not on One of These 10 Roads to Riches, You're Heading Toward the Poorhouse"
3-"Comment Overflow for the Post, 'If You're Not on One of These 10 Roads..."
Peace, blessings and solidarity.
hi, this might be a bit off topic but i've been reading some of your previous posts and I just read the post:
"Monday, August 3, 2009
Geostrategy Nerd: The Federal Government Is Giving You A Hint"
In it, you wrote about how the Fed Govt wants to 'shrink' cities into more 'viable' sizes and let nature take over the 'hoods' and turn them into green spaces.
I'm not yet done reading through the comments section but I think What I have to say ties in with the discussion on Obama.
Such a proposal as described above is mostly going to negativley affect blacks. Also, they are the ones who will most likely not have anywhere to go. I doubt the Obama administration has considered this yet. As time goes on, I find myself questioning wether this guy actually cares that much for black people at all. Many AAs are really not doing themselves much favour with the hope and dependence they seem to have put in this guy. As you mentioned in the post I pasted above, it seems like the hurricane katrina without an actual natural disaster. I will probably do more research into it but it seems that BO has put foreward such a measure without any thought whatsoever for the numerous black folk who will be negtively affected by it.
This discussion relates to my job situation.
My bm supervisor won't fire our wf colleague who is totally incompetent and insubordinate to him. He had no problem running off or firing several bf workers. He made a few statements about how easier it was to work with men than women. How he supervised white males with no trouble. One day I just said to him after he made this statement again; So it should be a piece of cake to supervise us if you supervised 30 wm? I haven't heard this comment again. LOL
I have always had problems with bm supervisors ever since I got into the workplace. I have had bad bf supervisors too. This is my only experience as worker. I am looking forward to working in a diverse environment.
Everybody (especially the gullible Black folks who come to Black blogs to worry about---and champion---the interests of self-proclaimed "biracials, biculturals, multiculturals, and Cablanasians"):
I already published this "proud hair-flipping biracial's" comment on the post that it submitted the comment to ("Self-Determination, Part 2," from 12/28/08).
**DON'T respond to this creature. I won't publish comments that directly reply to this racist beast that felt compelled to enter our conversation.**
I published this comment (and I'm reposting it here) because I want some of you naive Black individuals who believe that the "don't you dare call me Black"-"biracials" are "just celebrating all of who they are" . . . to see for yourselves how some of these "biracial" creatures feel about Black people.
Now, I won't waste much time dissecting the arrogance of this "biracial" creature trying to dictate my observations of other "biracial" creatures' behaviors while I was in law school.
For one example, I will note that, at least during my 3 years in law school, EVERY single dime of the stipends that the "biracials" that went to my law school held their hands out to receive from one BLACK organization . . . came from contributions from the BLACK people who attended the fundraisers hosted by that particular BLACK organization.
I know this because some of my relatives were members of the organization, and heavily involved in the fundraising events that created these stipends designated for BLACK law students. Nonblacks did not attend those fundraising events, which were all community-based.
Part 2
Anyhoo, here is the "proud hair flipper's" comment (my editorial comment to follow):
samanthaboom has left a new comment on your post "Self-Determination, Part 2: A Case Study of How On...":
Proud hair-flipping biracial here.
I'm not listening to any angry hypocrite forward some lame line of: Excuse dark skin female's bad behavior of name-calling, getting physical, saying mean things, being unfriendly and having an attitude. Overlook that (cuz they had good reason to behave so vilely) and place them first since it's all the biracial and light-skinned womens' fault for, well, being born biracial and light-skinned with light eyes and hair that flips.
I feel sorry for any biracial that lets some angry black chick dictate how they should identify and demand they erroneously label themselves "black" when they are, in FACT, biracial! And who cares if any dark angry person/group supposedly "cut off" biracials, multiracials etc.? I know I don't as it takes nothing out of our pockets or dampens anything in our lives but, I say, they should think twice cuz we make them look goooood!
Outside of male athletes or hip-hoppers, few dark skins in this country have considerable money or power any ol' way. Even historically, often it was the light and/or mixed like Dr. Charles Drew, Booker T. Washington, Langston Hughes, Thurgood Marshall or Lena Horne or currently Halle Berry, Mariah Carey and, now, Barack Obama etc. etc. that accomplished, excelled in education, accumulated wealth, started business or made history.
Kick us out and remain a poverty-stricken, incapable-of-pulling-yourselves-out-of-the-pit-on-your-own, non-contributor to society that constantly has your hands out demanding assistance like the African-looking Haitians in your backyard. Haitians have had their own dang country for centuries - where 95% of the people are all dark-skinned with afro-hair - yet they haven't been able to get themselves, their self-esteem or their country together for 200 years, so good luck!
Part 3 (still quoting from the racist, "proud hair-flipping" beast's comment):
And what is this whining about biracials stealing 'fellowships, scholarships, stipends and set-asides that were created by and for black people"?
#1 The writer can provide zero proof (with credible links) or quantify her baseless claim of biracials 'stealing black people's scholarships'. She can't because that is called hyperbole - also known as bullsh*t. It's a shame so many females are too lacking to realize that and eating up the things this Khadije chick is spewing and slobbering.
#2 IT AIN'T YOUR (BLACK AMERICAN'S) MONEY and, primarily, scholarship dollars come from whites. You can't tell whites what to do with THEIR money and if they choose to set up W or X fellowship and fund Y or Z scholarship and make it available to those who are African American, biracial, Latino or Asian, that is THEIR business and right. You've NO POWER to change that so keep on with your stereotypical black woman's attitude swirling your neck, talking loud and whining about it.
#3 Black Americans have been too busy wasting billions on perms, hair salons, outlandish hairstyles, cars and clothes (things that have no value or depreciate) instead of saving and pooling. Had they not, maybe they'd have the equivalent of quality and prestigious institutions like the Catholic Notre Dame, Mormon Brigham Young or Jewish Brandeis some Microsofts and Googles or have built more businesses and amassed/passed down wealth to their children. All that instead of a few HBCUs (many of which were founded and/or funded by white abolitionists and Quakers). Outside of Howard or maybe Spelman or Morehouse, too many of them now turn out students that can barely compete and spent too much time partying and going to step shows. Even now, middle class black American students are scoring low on standardized tests and being outscored/outperformed by biracials, children of immigrants, and others from the Caribbean and continent.
IF you allow these comments to be posted (which I doubt b/c I question whether you have the courage) it's OK to fire back. I'm strong and beautiful enough to take it all in stride."
Part 4
I don't want you to respond to this creature because it is singularly unimportant. What it thinks, about anything at all, is irrelevant.
My point is that I want you to STOP supporting people who HATE you. PURIFY your money, your time, your energy, and your effort from ever having any connection to creatures like the thing that submitted that comment. CLEANSE your resources of ever having contact with demons like the one that submitted that anti-Black racist comment (from a blocked profile, so we can't go visit it at it's site---cowardly, as usual).
Remember the Tigger comments/jokes that I quoted in an earlier conversation? Notice how Tigger and this particular "biracial" creature talk just like Klan members. Interesting that so many Black parents in IR relationships raise Black-hating "biracial" racists who sound just like the Klan. That's quite a (disgraceful) accomplishment.
And some of you are foolish enough to worry about the fate of these types of "don't you dare call me Black" "biracial" creatures.
Here's your homework assignment so you can understand the spirit in which those types of "don't you dare call me Black"-biracials are coming from: Go to Wikipedia or any other research source and look up the following "biracial" individual from Africa: Tippu Tib (alternate spelling Tippu Tib).
I know it's hard for most of you to do that. I know that most AAs were programmed from slavery times on to be "fairer than fair" to outsiders (of any kind, including the self-proclaimed "don't you dare call me Black" biracials).
What about being fair to yourself and your children? Think about it.
Peace, blessings and solidarity.
Foxycleopatra,
It almost doesn't matter whether or not Obama has any affection for AAs. He knows that he can do anything at all to us, and most AAs will still support him. No matter what. No matter how many fatalities are caused.
This is what's so dangerous about AAs supporting any and all "Black faces in high places." The lesson AAs taught ALL US politicians during and after Katrina is that we're okay with being ignored literally to death. We're okay with that, as long as the person who watches us die is a prominent Black person.
Condi Rice is just one example of this. This . . . being . . . went shopping for Ferragamos and out to see Spamalot while Black bodies floated through New Orleans. I will never forget that. Nor will I forget her runnning out to defend Bush's non-response to Katrina.
But most AAs have forgotten all about Condi's Ferragamos during Katrina. Many (if not most) AAs still like and respect Condi. What does that say about us? What does that say about what we will tolerate off of any prominent Black official? Answer: It says that we're mostly fools who value symbol over substance; and that ANYTHING AT ALL is permissible with us.
Peace, blessings and solidarity.
Anonymous at 7:47 p.m.,
Respectfully, you're missing the point. The point is not about BM supervisors. The point is that if you are an employee depending on a single income stream from a job, then you are extremely vulnerable---you're in danger.
Peace, blessings and solidarity.
Re: the whole Condi issue.
The reason why I don't get mad at her is that I don't hold her any more reponsible than any other Bush Administration official. Condi didn't, under her own volition, come out and defend that idiot called Bush. It was him (or his people) that wanted her to come out and defend him, to prove that he didn't 'hate' black people. It says alot that they knew that all it would take was a black face. We have to accept that when it comes to tolerating all sorts of nonsense because we see a negro doing it, the other side of the coin is holding black folks in power more responsible than we would white folks.
It is the same thing that is causing this whole Obama derangement. Black folks are all of a sudden expecting some sort of special treatment from Obama. But blacks have been voting for years. I never saw them demand anything of any real, tangible value from the white politicians they voted for. I mean, for goodness sake, I saw black folks(mostly older and quite politically active) who were so grateful to George W. Bush and leaning strongly to vote for him only because he FINALLY turned up to some 'negro gathering'. It was annual and had a political leaning. They always tried to get the big politicians to come. Because Bush, after several years, decided to turn up, they were salivating, and acting as if he'd given them a million dollars.....each!
It's the same way I see black folks harping on about Colin Powell and his support for the war, as if because he is black, he was supposed to be more 'understanding' than the whites in government. They seem to think his support for the war is more heinous than Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld etc. Blacks are making a very big mistake with such an approach as most politicians who will actually gain a official post in which they have actual power are white. So if we only expect rewards (from support/votes)from the blacks in high places, black people are getting really short changed. Let's not kid ourselves that there is going to be another black president anytime soon. So will black folks wait till then before they actually expect something in return for their votes?!
I agree, concerning the anonymous poster with the BM supervisor. From what you wrote, it doesn't seem your job is the high flying corporate career type (with the mere supervisor being able to fire numerous employess for near flimsy reasons). Therefore, should he decide to turn his ire on you, you could be out of a job. In this economy, what will you do?
Also, if your skills are not very transferrable, i.e. you are not a professional(lawyer, doctor, engineer, accountant etc.), and you can be easily replaced, do you really think it is wise to be solely dependent on this one job seeing as:
1. I doubt you would have racked a large 'safety pot' from the salary.
2. You are at risk of losing the job due to the economy, and unskilled and semi-skilled(I'm assuming that's the type of job you have) are always the first to go.
3. You are also at risk of losing your job if this BM supervisor decides that he has a problem with you.
4. Should any of the above happen, you're pretty screwed!
JaliliMaster,
At least in my case, I think you've misunderstood. I didn't expect "more" from Condi or Colin Powell. I hated Bush and ALL of the minions associated with him---the whole kit and caboodle!
I was equally offended by his original flyover of the area during Katrina. Bush's flyover, his "You're doing a heckuva job" comment, Condi's Ferragamos . . . ALL of it was equally foul, indecent, and downright inhuman.
I never expected the creatures in the Bush Administration to care (not any of them). My thing is that it was grotesquely arrogant for them to be so blatant about their disregard. These overt displays of being blase added insult to injury.
In the past, "normal" US officials had the common sense to feign concern during mass disasters. To be blunt, these Bush Administration folks were acting like the dictators and dictator's officials in many 3rd world countries. Sitting around drinking fine wine in palaces while there are literally dead bodies in the streets just outside the palace. And Condi's Ferragamo Affair reminded me of Imelda Marcos and her shoe collection!
The overt, public displays of unconcern were what I found positively shocking and supremely offensive about that whole episode, and everybody involved in that mess.
Peace, blessings and solidarity.
Khadijah and Jallimaster
Thanks for the advise and I have been looking for new employment for 18 months. I have not been successful. I have been trying to stay out of the ruckus at work for the last 6 months now. It is so hard to find a job in Atlanta.
Anonymous,
You're welcome! Here are some more detailed thoughts about that. Everybody needs to develop additional income streams. I understand that this takes time. In the meanwhile, everybody needs to have at least one skill that will provide some income during ALL economic times, so that you can save up some emergency reserves.
A friend's daughter took bartending classes. The young lady happens to be a teacher, but she also works part-time as a bartender during the week and summer breaks. People are going to be ordering drinks in taverns and restaurants no matter what's going on with the economy.
The friend's daughter has saved enough money to buy a rental property of her own. It took several years of saving her part-time income, but she accomplished it. A colleague's mother bakes and sells homemade desserts as her side income (people are serious about buying tasty, homemade desserts especially during the holidays). At the hair salon that I go to, there's a "cake lady" who comes through a couple of days a week and sells homemade, fresh out of the oven cake slices to the patrons.
Anyone who doesn't have some sort of side business needs to at least have a ("blue-collar") skill that can provide part-time, side income (bartending, fixing cars, etc.). Relying totally on the income from a single source (especially a J-O-B) is courting disaster.
Good luck!
Peace, blessings and solidarity.
Khadija:
Oh no, he (like so many non-AA Blacks) probably thought that Latinos' disdain/hatred/contempt for Black folks ONLY applied to us "non-exotic," "generic" AAs. He thought he would be perceived as special because he's "inter...nation...al."
Hey! Not all of 'us' feel that way. Not even when we have a white or Latino person tell us "inter...nation...al" blacks to our faces that 'we have a better work ethic' etc. 'Other' black people can tell a bigot from a mile off also.
When the daughter of my mother's work colleague who had a Jamaican background like we did just moved to Florida from London, UK she went on saying how the white people at work seemed 'so nice' and so did most of the ones she'd come in contact with so far.
And my Mom said 'They think they're nice. Hmmph. They don't realize that all these people see is a "black" with an accent'
Khadija:
This is significant. And gets back to how minimally sensible people (everybody except AAs) view their priorities. Our misleaders have programmed most AAs to look to create over-arching "Rainbow Coalitions" with eveybody else...in the absence of taking care of self, family, clan, or finally, ethnic group. This is upside-down and backwards. And it doesn't work.
Much of this is our (mis)leaders' fault. However, much of it is our own fault for being a self-hating, looking-for-validation-from- outsiders, type of people.
This is all true, and yes that includes non-AA blacks sometimes and I mean blacks from any continent.
Foxycleopatra:
I am sure that several black people here in the UK would have seen the Tamil guy and yet would still choose to go on as they have been. I could'nt even get angry when I saw what the Asians (Indians/Pakistanis/Bangladeshis here in the UK) were saying because at the end of the day, they were all true. The main Asian guy that was interviewed, although his business was in a black community, this guy had the audacity to insult black people on national television. This guy was not scared that his black customers would see him and stop patronising his business! Black pple in their fickle and weak mindedess, after seeing and recognising this racist on tv insulting them, would happily walk into his store and hand their money over! The fools! My philosophy is simple. I vote/protest with my money. If you do not have respect for me, then as far as I am concerened, you do not have respect for my money and if you do not have respect for my money, why the heck should you get it?
Foxycleopatra yes, yes, YESSS! I lived in the US for a number of years and moved back to London in the UK almost five years ago and now I'm looking to move back to NYC once again. Even my mother said exactly what you said the other day.
She said that '95% of black people are too "licky licky" and that they would continue to patronise non-black/non-white businesses that treat them badly instead of boycotting them totally and getting them where it really hurts' In parts of London, like in certain south-eastern areas of the city, if a black person puts up a fruit and veg stand across from an Asian (Indian)'s fruit and veg stand, if the Asian guy is cheaper by even a bit, all the black people will buy from fro the Asian person's stand right away and continually, this was observed by my mother. *shakes forehead*
She refuse to buy from the Asian's stalls.
When I worked in north London a few years ago, a black male colleague of Jamaican descent said that he remembered a black family who owned & ran among the very first set of black hair care supply shops around north London years and years ago, soon lost money and soon went under after Asian (Indian) competitors set up their black hair care/beauty supply shops and all the black people started flocking to them instead.
SHEESH!
If black people cannot respect each other within the business world such as consumers buying mostly from black shops and companies even if their prices aren't the cheapest and without cobnsumers requesting that every black business-owner 'discount' their services to death! (How are they gonna make a profit if they have to discount every service or product to every black person they see? LOL)
And if black shops and businesses don't step up their game to out do any of their non-black competitors and offer only great customer service by firing any stank employees, then I don't how black businesses can ever make it. I just can't wrap my heads around how some black people don't wanna buy their relaxers, weaves, shampoos etc. from another black person! *slaps forehead*
AK,
You said, "Hey! Not all of 'us' feel that way. Not even when we have a white or Latino person tell us "inter...nation...al" blacks to our faces that 'we have a better work ethic' etc. 'Other' black people can tell a bigot from a mile off also."
I know; "many" does not equal "all" or "most." It just means "many."
You said, "This is all true, and yes that includes non-AA blacks sometimes and I mean blacks from any continent."
Oh yeah, there are non-AA Blacks who do the same thing. I just happen to feel that my own ethnic group (AAs) routinely take this madness to levels that other Blacks generally don't go in such large numbers---we're the most infected with that particular strain of insanity.
You said, "If black people cannot respect each other within the business world such as consumers buying mostly from black shops and companies even if their prices aren't the cheapest and without cobnsumers requesting that every black business-owner 'discount' their services to death! (How are they gonna make a profit if they have to discount every service or product to every black person they see? LOL)"
{shaking my head} What's also peculiar is that Black folks generally only require the lowest prices from Black businesses. We are quite happy to pay exorbitant prices to nonblacks for the most trivial of things.
The only small exception to this rule is that AAs will spend large sums of money on products sold by hip-hop performers. I've been told of some brand of blue jeans that are favored by the AA underclass that cost several hundred dollars. [I don't know who makes these jeans.] {more head shaking}
Peace, blessings and solidarity.
Although I know that the point here with this post is that black people should have built up their own capital and business and kept feeding them making them stronger before any foreigners came on the scene to give any AAs some real competition or knocking them out of the running, but how come nobody's made a peep about Latinos in certain parts of the US putting 'native speakers only' in their ads?
Do these same Latinos still automatically expect the support from Affirmative Action when it comes to getting into PWI colleges & universities and the HBCUs AND when it come to getting jobs in any 'Anglo' areas as they call it? Yet they have the audacity to put up 'native speakers only' like they're back home in Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico or whereever? What are they gonna say when a white so-called 'Anglo' has learnt fluent Spanish and applies or even interviews for that same 'native speakers only' job being advertised in, let's say Miami, and they come out and complain about it?
Through websites such as yours Khadija, and Evia's, I hearing that a lot of white, Asian and Latino students are enrolling these days at a lot of HBCUs because it's supposed to be cheaper or whatever it is. The HBCUs can't ban a Latino, Asian or white person from attending and they certainly can't stop them from being an HBCU homecoming queen, like the one who was voted in by a panel of judges (instead of the full student body?) as mentioned on Evia's website under the Pondering section.
How come the 'Rainbow Coalition' don't speak up about any of these things such as the feisty (pronounced as face-stee) 'native speakers only' ads while everybody else can easily go to a college that once-enslaved AAs built for black people who were always 'kept out'?
AK,
You said, "...how come nobody's made a peep about Latinos in certain parts of the US putting 'native speakers only' in their ads?"
I think that in the beginning, our (mis)leadership ignored Latinos' racist behaviors because of the "What a fool believes he sees" Syndrome (after The Doobie Brothers song)---they were so mesmerized by the "rainbow coalition" ideology that they ignored reality. I think that our (mis)leadership currently ignores Latinos' racist behaviors because they're afraid of the clout that Latinos have now gained.
You said, "Do these same Latinos still automatically expect the support from Affirmative Action when it comes to getting into PWI colleges & universities and the HBCUs AND when it come to getting jobs in any 'Anglo' areas as they call it?"
YES, they expect it AND they get it!
You said, "Yet they have the audacity to put up 'native speakers only' like they're back home in Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico or whereever? What are they gonna say when a white so-called 'Anglo' has learnt fluent Spanish and applies or even interviews for that same 'native speakers only' job being advertised in, let's say Miami, and they come out and complain about it?"
Oh, Latinos will also discriminate against White Anglos when they're powerful enough to get away with it. That's why Whites have belatedly learned that they made a HUGE mistake when they let all these Latinos into this country.
The thing about the HCBUs is this: Some of them were founded by AAs. However, many of them were created by our former slavemasters to create what Southern Whites felt was an "appropriate" leadership class for AAs---as some of Min. Farrkhan's ministers have summed it up---to create a cadre of "preachers and teachers" for AAs. If I remember correctly, Howard University was created for AAs by Whites.
In addition to our own often-addled (mis)leadership, the fact that many of these HCBUs were created by Whites has had long-term (negative) implications. For example, there was a point in the early 1960s when Howard University and other HBCUs suspended BW students if they wore their hair in naturals!
You said, "...the feisty (pronounced as face-stee) 'native speakers only' ads..."
{laughing out loud at this}
Peace, blessings and solidarity.
LOL Feisty pronounced as 'face-stee' is a Jamaican thing Khadija. LOL LOL
Khadija:
This reminds me of a middle-aged BM lawyer acquaintance. He was living large, and rotating among a series of jump-offs. Then he had a stroke, and he needed help to get through daily life.
That's the point at which he started whining that "the women were only interested when [he] had money." But that was the informal, mutually-understood "contract" he established with these various jump-offs. The "contract" he established was that he would spend money on them in order to have sexual access to them. He didn't want to be in a serious relationship with any woman.
........
This ties into a point that Gina at WAOD made a while back---that many AAs are depending on the family bedrocks formed by marriages from 3 generations ago! We're depending on the stability created by our grandparents' and great-grandparents' marriages, since the younger generations never formed stable marriages of their own.
Exactly. Even had to remind silly me about a year or two ago saying 'AK, haven't you ever thought about where you're going to be or what's going to happen when you're my age and about to retire? Haven't you ever though about what's gonna happen when you're older than I am now? When I look back at myself I don't know where the years have all gone to because I can still remeber being 15 and all the things that I did back then! I didn't think that I'd be as old as I am now but here I am.'
Those where my mother's words to me and from then on at least once or twice a week those words and especially her meaning and reason for saying them have been still on my mind. My clock is going forward like anyone else, it's not rewinding.
I'm in my early 30s now and I've never had children but even if I don't ever have any and it's too late, I'd still like to marry a kind, gentlemanly, supportive, protective, financially stable or well off, and intelligent man who would love nothing more than to be my constant companion through life. Because I CAN still hear my mother's words, and the truth is I MUST think about these things right now. My immediate family is small to medium in size and although I don't wish to burden anyone, I don't know who I could rely on as I get older for mutual support if I never have kids that is. *shrugs shoulders*
One of my mother's long-time friends who we don't see much of anymore has rheumatoid arthritis that she let go untreated for so long until she has now gnarled fists for hands (I don't know why she didn't get more treatment to slow this down); she can't even open her fingers up, and when she was younger and more able-bodied she had her one daughter who's around my age as a single parent.
Her daughter's father was never in their lives and my mother doesn't know who this man is because her friend just never spoke of him to anyone (???). So NOW (to me ) she is so fully dependent on her one daughter who is living in her mother's house the same house she grew up in, taking care of her mother who's in her mid to late 50s as well as own husband and the two very young kids, a toddler and a newborn, that they've had TOGETHER thank Goodness.
This lady who's very quiet and gentle is just very lucky but I can't help but feel sorry for her daughter who must feel very put-upon at the moment. That's what happens when you don't have enough mutual support from enough bodies around you in your family when you get sick and for whatever reason you never married!
And the black women who have OOW kids yes you're kids may hopefully be there for you willingly if God forbids something happens to you, but you should consider the way you have your life at the moment so that you can stop making your life a burden and creating a burden for them, while their still young children.
And as for the BM playas out there who are enjoying all of the 'friends with benefits' action becuase their well-paid white-collar professionals always rolling in ready cash, I pity them if they can't heed words like my mother's words. I remember on Halima's website I think it was I'm not sure, that somebody said they walk by a homeless black man begging on the corner not far from where they live and they were speaking to them and in passing this beggar claimed that he has a daughter who's a lawyer.
AK,
You said, "LOL Feisty pronounced as 'face-stee' is a Jamaican thing Khadija. LOL"
I figured that was probably a regional (Caribbean) pronunciation thing, which is why I was so tickled by it. It reminded me of something that a couple of my friends do. They're both originally from (different parts of) the deep South.
They've both lived in the North long enough to have lost most of their Southern accents. But they both pull out their old Southern accents for special emphasis when talking to or about crazy people and crazy situations.
For examples, one friend refuses to say R.Kelly's name in the "standard" Northern accent. She deliberately does an exaggerated drawl of this creature's name whenever he comes up in a conversation: Instead of saying the letter "r" with one syllable, she drags the whole name out, saying, "Ar-ruh Keh-lee."
After having said everything else (before and after) in the sentence containing the name "R.Kelly" with a Northern accent, her doing this has the effect of putting verbal "brackets" around this creature's name. {chuckling}
The other friend does an exaggerated drawl when answering "no" to people she's not very fond of: "Ahhhhh, naaaaaaaaaw." {more chuckling}
You said, "That's what happens when you don't have enough mutual support from enough bodies around you in your family when you get sick and for whatever reason you never married!"
Yep. This is the point I was trying to make with the True Fellowship series of posts. And it's not just having these "official" relationships in existence (having kids, being married) that matters. It's also the QUALITY of these relationships.
The unfortunate thing is that most of the AA marriages that I've seen are bad ones.
I'd say that of the AA marriages where I know one of the partners well enough to have a good idea of large chunks of what's actually going on---because the person vented to me about it---there's something DRASTICALLY wrong with about 95% of them.
And by "drastic," I mean things on the level of adultery, making unilateral financial decisions that put the entire family unit in an economic bind, refusing to be bothered with assuming the responsiblity of raising one's own children, etc. Behaviors that tell you that your marriage partner is NOT your friend.
Part 2
First of all, the overall absence of marriage among AAs destabilizes the relatively few AA marriages that do exist. The BM husbands have waaay too much leverage because of the numerical shortages and other factors that exist among AAs males. So, a lot of married BM use this situation as leverage for not holding up their end of the marriage bargain. And since many if not most AA women feel "lucky" to be (officially) married at all, they put up with it.
Most of the married AA women I know well enough to know, have said that they don't believe that their husbands would take care of them if they had a long-term illness. Several have said that they're almost sure their husbands would "trade them in" for younger models if that happened.
Several women are functioning as single parents who happen to be married. Their husbands NEVER participate in any child care responsibilities.
One woman's husband is a self-employed professional running his own practice, so he gets to set his own hours. He REFUSES to rearrange his schedule to attend ANY of the normal school meetings for their children, or to take the kids to ANY medical appointments. Instead, he requires his wife to scramble at her job as an employee and use up all of her sick/vacation time to do these things.
The same "man" refuses to assume any responsibility for watching their children when he's home. So, the children could never be left home alone with their father because the man wouldn't bother to check to see what they were doing. He can't be bothered because he's engrossed in watching tv.
And the wife learned that she couldn't leave them home alone with their father because he left them unattended to do all sorts of things while he watched tv.
Things like their then 4-year old son starting a small fire after having extended time---without being checked on by his father---to find and play with matches.
Things like the same small son dragging a chair from another room into the bathroon in order to climb and reach the medicine cabinet---in order to pull out a shaving razor and cut plugs out of his head while trying to give himself a haircut.
The same child was left unattended for long enough to fill the bathtub to overflowing.
This near-total lack of interest, concern or responsibility from their father has not changed as the children have gotten older. I hope I'm wrong, but I fully expect there to be BIG trouble with them later on down the road.
You said, "And as for the BM playas out there who are enjoying all of the 'friends with benefits' action becuase their well-paid white-collar professionals always rolling in ready cash, I pity them if they can't heed words like my mother's words. I remember on Halima's website I think it was I'm not sure, that somebody said they walk by a homeless black man begging on the corner not far from where they live and they were speaking to them and in passing this beggar claimed that he has a daughter who's a lawyer."
Yep, that's how a lot of Negroes end up homeless. The woman's husband that I described above is on track for a reciprocal lack of concern for him from his kids when they are adults.
Peace, blessings and solidarity.
Khadija, you said:
"First of all, the overall absence of marriage among AAs destabilizes the relatively few AA marriages that do exist. The BM husbands have waaay too much leverage because of the numerical shortages and other factors that exist among AAs males. So, a lot of married BM use this situation as leverage for not holding up their end of the marriage bargain. And since many if not most AA women feel "lucky" to be (officially) married at all, they put up with it."
This is the TRUTH!!! As a matter of fact I have noticed a disturbing trend where a BW marrying even the most undesirable person will be celebrated, and anyone who criticizes will get the condescending "well at least she's married" reply. Clearly BW are be indoctrinated to believe we are lucky to be getting married at all, so we should take what we can get.
It is also a very vicious cycle. The low AA marriage rates threatens the quality of the AA marriages that do exist, which results in the children of these unions having a very negative view of marriage, which will make it unlikely that they ever get married themselves, depressing the rates even further.
Sometimes I wonder if that is the reason our marriage rates dropped to began with. If our foundations were strong, they would have not been able to crumble so easily in such a short period of time. I think the phenomenon of married BW essentially operating like single parents is not new. We already know that unlike WW many of our mothers, grand-mothers and great grandmothers did not have the luxury of being housewives. Add in the cultural indoctrination of having to be a "strong black woman", and uplift and support her mate while her own needs are not being met and you have the beginning stages of the non-reciprocal mess that is going on now. BM constantly complain about how feminism made the role of the father unimportant and weakened the black family but I suspect that the their own behavior is what made their role obsolete. If the woman is doing it all, then what is the point of getting married? And the cycle continues.
As far are the lack of reciprocity from other POCs goes, I am glad that many of us are waking up. But many more are still in Kumbaya land and under the delusion that were are all in this together. White liberals can afford to engage in this foolish thinking, but I am furious with AAs for buying into to this nonsense.
These same AAs are now competing for resources with these people and losing. Supporting wide-open borders and no limits on legal and illegal immigration greatly reduces the quality of life for everyone. That is why so called "socialist" countries like France, Canada, etc. that liberals love to uplift tend to have very strict regulations on who is allowed in their country. Do you really think they would be able to offer these "progressive" social policies if they just allowed every and anyone in?
But we love to fight for the underdog and we constantly assume that everyone with a brown face is our "brother". Then these same people turn around and systematically shut out AAs from industry after industry. Rainbow coalition my foot.
Magenta,
You said, "As a matter of fact I have noticed a disturbing trend where a BW marrying even the most undesirable person will be celebrated, and anyone who criticizes will get the condescending "well at least she's married" reply. Clearly BW are be indoctrinated to believe we are lucky to be getting married at all, so we should take what we can get.
It is also a very vicious cycle. The low AA marriage rates threatens the quality of the AA marriages that do exist, which results in the children of these unions having a very negative view of marriage, which will make it unlikely that they ever get married themselves, depressing the rates even further."
You're absolutely correct. This IS an extremely vicious cycle. The way to break this cycle is for more AA women to STOP restricting themselves to only dating Black, specifically AA men.
Most AA women have had the experience of being respectfully approached by nonblack men. Unfortunately, most AA women blow off these respectful advances because they're operating in the "nuthin' but a BM" mode. This mindset sets AA women up for the ravages of participating in a GROSSLY numerically-imbalanced (imbalanced in a way that favors AA males), RADIOACTIVE, all-AA relationship market.
In general, most people are unprincipled and opportunistic. They will do whatever "the market" will tolerate. And so, AA males use the numerical imbalances to their advantage. And no amount of rhetoric of any kind is going to change this situation.
The only positive change will come when more AA women WALK AWAY from this increasingly-toxic all-AA relationship pool; and start responding to the quality men from the global village who respectfully approach them.
There are also the legions of foolish AA women who loudly, publicly proclaim that they "would never date outside their race."
Part 2
Only AA women are dumb enough to do this. No other women of color narrow their marriage options like that. NOT African women. NOT Latina women. NOT Arab women. Not East Asian women. NOT South Asian women. NOBODY ELSE does this, except AA women.
You said, "Sometimes I wonder if that is the reason our marriage rates dropped to began with. If our foundations were strong, they would have not been able to crumble so easily in such a short period of time. I think the phenomenon of married BW essentially operating like single parents is not new."
I believe you're correct. This has been another painful conclusion that I've come to about "old school" AAs. It's as painful as when I realized that Black Nationalism, despite it's healthy message of SELF-love and SELF-respect, is a failed ideology.
There were many wonderful things about many "old school" AAs. However, prior AA generations' foundations MUST have been rotten to the core for things to have unravelled so far, so fast with the advent of desegregation.
Firmly rooted things don't fall apart that quickly. It lets me know that what looked like community among previous generations of AAs was merely survival-based, temporary, PROVISIONAL cooperation that segregation forced us to have. It was the externally imposed discipline of a chain gang.
You said, "...BM constantly complain about how feminism made the role of the father unimportant and weakened the black family but I suspect that the their own behavior is what made their role obsolete. If the woman is doing it all, then what is the point of getting married? And the cycle continues."
This is true. Again, the answer for BW is to WALK AWAY from this madness and accept the blessings that the wider world has to offer.
**And with that, I'm closing the comments to this post. Everybody, THANK YOU! See you at the new site, which is now up and running! Onward and forward!**
Peace and blessings,
Khadija Nassif
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