Saturday, April 18, 2009

Let's bring the discussion back into civility.

Wow! I am disappointed, although not surprised, at the tenor of this debate. I'm sure that someone googling this years from now might still be able to glean some cogent points out of all this. Who knows, it may even end up in some kid's thesis.

Let me try to get back on track as best I can. The discussion should be about the actual thesis and the question of is it racist or not. Let's try to steer away from personal attacks. Now..

Shawn,
You seem to be playing the victim here. I didn't "tell you you were wrong." I asked you to justify your statement and you couldn't do so at that point. You said you couldn't remember the exact words when I asked you to give me examples. This is fair enough as the topic came up extemporaneously and you hadn't read it in a few months. Here on this site, you've stated that I am making excuses for and acknowledging racism because I pointed out that a sociology thesis would by definition be extremely focused an a very thin slice of society. I am neither acknowledging nor excusing Michelle Obama's "racism". Please support that statement by showing me where you get the idea that I am excusing or acknowledging racism.

I don't think it's racist to notice and discuss/ask about something you observe. For example, why do Black people eat chitterlings (chitlins)? This is a fair question and can be explored. In 42 years, I've never met 1 White person that ate them, tried them yes, ate them as product of their raising no. I've met countless Blacks from all parts of the country and all strata, half million dollar homes down to tenements that love them. I've never tried them and never intend to personally. Now the question can be explored: it was the part of the hog that White slave owners didn't use and as such gave to their slaves. The Black slaves grew accustomed to and liked them. they carried this liking with them all throughout the country during the great migrations from the South in the late 19th century and the industrial migrations of the 20s and 30s.
Now that's no thesis, but it shows how one can take a narrow focus and delve into it a little and have to acknowledge the institution of slavery, the treatment of slaves and so forth.

To discuss the feeling of obligation to the Black community that one would have had growing up in an era of legal and traditional segregation is NOT racist. Furthermore, the quote you have selected is a mere personal reference to support the actual thesis statement:

This study tries to examine the following attitudes of alumni:
the extent to which they are comfortable interacting with
Black and with White individuals in various activities; the
extent to which they are motivated to benefit the Black com-
munity in comparison to other entities such as themselves,
their families, God, etc.; the ideologies they hold with re-
spects to race relations between the Black and White commu-
nities; and feelings they have toward the Black lower class
such as a feeling of obligation that they should help im-
prove the lives of this particular group of Blacks
.


Regarding your chosen excerpt: Her observation that her path would "likely lead to...assimilation" is hardly equated to force. As you state in one of your posts you are not a slave to white guilt or PC, but perhaps you are locked into a mode of thinking where any reference to the history that exists is invalid if it isn't pretty. And ultimately her prediction was wrong. She is hardly on the periphery of society. After all, she is First Lady.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is true that her paper didn’t say 'Kill whitey' but why the focus always on the so-called white power structure the very same structure that not only built the school she went to but no doubt cut her some slack in doing so as well. It seems to be the only thing that black studies has going for it. No expanding the human mind but instead comments like ‘white greed in a world of need.’ Blacks in the US have the highest standard of living as a group than any other black group in the world. Educational opportunities galore; life expectancy for males on average around five years less than average for white males even taking into account third world conditions in many black areas meaning that the greater society spends huge sums to help blacks that seem incapable of helping themselves.

You can’t really defend her paper on how badly it was written either. I don’t know what grade she got but it should have at best been a C and that is being generous. My guess is that she got a higher grade than that given to her by either her PC white professors or her biased black professors. It is like in California where SAT test have been scrapped no doubt to increase black and Hispanic enrollment while at the flag ship schools in that state Asians and Jews are overrepresented. Now lowering standards doesn’t really help people in the long run. Someone gets into a calculus class with no prior foundation is almost inevitably going to drop out of the class.

Michael T Justice said...

Well, You are chock full of preconceived notions. I'll try too come back to her grade and professors (even though that is not the point of the discussion or your original charge, i.e. that she is racist).

First, let's look at what I said rather than what you'd like to attribute to me. I haven't "defended" her paper on how badly it is written. I'm not even sure I would say it is. It seems to me to be as good as the handful of papers I've seen written by young 20s kids in college.
What I did ask of you and haven't yet received an adequate example of is a racist statement. Your hyperbolic opening about "kill whitey"is nonsensical. Are YOU acknowledging that you don't really have any examples and excusing it with the over the top assertions about the PC White and biased Black professors (although I could ask why the separation based on race even in that comment).

shawn said...

See Mike, you just over looked the most important aspect of what was just stated. Read:

why the focus always on the so-called white power structure the very same structure that not only built the school she went to but no doubt cut her some slack in doing so as well. It seems to be the only thing that black studies has going for it. No expanding the human mind but instead comments like ‘white greed in a world of need.’

That is in fact what that thesis highlights. Put the shoe on the other foot, then what would it be considered?! What is wrong with the people here not answering things but just tip toeing and manipulating things completely. The tone of her thesis was in fact about the "white" power structure. She certainly enjoyed the opportunity of going to Princeton but yet turned her nose up at the folks who built that opportunity.

Michael T Justice said...

So then, are you of the mind that history has no context? I think you are the one tip toeing. I've been straight forward with you. The White power structure that you are talking about didn't "cut her some slack" and just let her out of the goodness in their hearts. It was a long hard fought battle. And they didn't then just up and say WELCOME Blacks. There were many fights against their attendance. Many Whites wanted to keep the thing they had built for themselves. This has always been the case. Remember our conversation about legacy spots? The only way a lot of blacks could get to the college level was through affirmative action.
So here we are in 1985 (another summer sound of the funky drummer) and roughly 15 years of Black graduates have made their way through this brave new world. How did that journey affect them.
"My overall hypotheses described in this section focuses on the group with whom the respondents identify most. The independent variables measure identification through such
questions as time spent with Blacks and Whites, socio-economic class, career mobility, etc. The individual’s degree of identification with either Blacks or Whites will determine his/her motivations to benefit various social groups,his/her ideologies about race relations between the Black and White communites, relative comfort felt by him/her when interacting with Blacks and Whites, and his/her interest in
the Black lower class. The more the individual identifies with the Black community the more his attitudes will sway towards a positive relationship with the Black community,however, the more the individual identifies with the White community the more his attitudes will sway towards a neg-
ative relationship with the Black community. This idea of
identification will be discussed further in the Summary and
Conclusions chapter of this study."

I'm half way through this thing and I see the focus not on the white power structure but rather on the journey through the different community. Now you may be of the mindset that we should just get over it and there is no different community anymore. Well to that I say, how do you feel about Obama talking about a change in relations with Cuba. If you see that as wrongheaded, I'd wonder why it's not okay to change the attitudes toward a 60 year adversary versus a 300 year adversary?

Anonymous said...

Of course history has a certain context as well as a certain biased predicated on who wrote it or who writes it like in example the victors of WWII who certainly downplayed any war crimes committed by their side.
Actually the white power structure (of course such a structure is a bit different than it was prior WWII) may have cut her some slack since we don’t know what her SAT scores were or what her grade point was in HS. Just like we don’t know what her husband’s was either.
Her paper and her results are nothing more than opinion that is her opinion based on a very small sample of people. Just trying to wade through this bit of jumbled words you posted is just a taste of how poorly she wrote her paper. Just this bit the more the individual identifies with the White community the more his attitudes will sway towards a neg-
ative relationship with the Black community

Actually that bit sounds bigoted to me, borderline racist. She seems to be saying that upper class whites in her school harbor negative thoughts about thug blacks and that spending time around them that she and her fellow black students will also pick up negative vibes about the black underclass therefore she is being bigoted against her white classmates and since most poor whites have a negative views of black thugs she is lumping all whites together making her a racist.

Of course there are different communities trying to their slice of the pie appealing to their own people i.e. like the black caucus that every year or so puts for a reparations bill for things that they personally never suffered from as they receive the best health care in the world the best retirement in the world and their over 100 thousand dollar salaries. If Michelle hadn’t met her husband (who by the way she said that after his election that now she was proud of her country for the first time in her life) had run for Congress would she have joined the black caucus? Would she every two years back the reparation bill? Etc.

Lastly trying to conflate slavery, Jim Crow what not with Cuba is a stretch but it does show that all these disparate groups i.e. people of color can combine against their oppressor the ‘white man’. Now you of course will say that the target of justified anger from these people of color is not targeted at the poor downtrodden white males of the world but wherever I go in the world no way doubts that I am a white male. Think of it this way a black student sits in his first years of school learning about the evil white man and how he the black student is a victim. I mean that is one of the courses the Obama taught at Harvard. Now what this means is that for years and years non white students have been taught to distrust white males possibly even to hate them even though white liberals and others of their ilk will say that only powerful white males are to blame; but let’s continue and say that this particular black student get accidentally gets shoved by a white classmate while waiting in the cafeteria line, the black student whips around and punches the white guy and then proceeds to kick him in the head: later the black student is not charged with a hate crime but only simple assault. Did all those years of anti white indoctrination add fuel to the attack?

Anonymous said...

This is the bit I took out of the bit you copied and then put in my previous post I underlined it and italics it but such markings didn't carry over to your blog.


Michelle wrote:

the more the individual identifies with the White community the more his attitudes will sway towards a neg-
ative relationship with the Black community

shawn said...

It is hopeless haha. I can't see this getting anywhere. The discussion of race is in fact unatainable. Maybe Eric Holder is right, maybe we are just a nation of "cowards". That god damn whitey, he's always fuckin up something haha. I think the best way to sum up whitey would be the following:

mark-ass bitch:
A bitch ass dude is who is domintated by his woman in all aspects of life. Many times the slut will string several of these unsuspecting and clueless men along in order to pay the bills, cuz we all know ho's don't wanna work. The mark-ass bitch will gladly give the slut all his money and time in exchange for her pretending to be faithful. This type of man will not get your back in a fight, he still will cock-block you if given an opportunity, he will tell his girl all your secrets that he knows and lie to you about it later. This person is a total piece of shit, pathetic excuse for the superior sex of our species. A failure, a dirt bag.
See Also: Mark-ass buster
I can't believe that mark-ass bitch didn't come to your bachelor party cuz he had to babysit her kid while she went to conjugal visit it's daddy in jail.

Anonymous said...

Forgive, dont forget, and move on.

BIGDOG