The brown/black folk thread #DSF

[Dennis]

So this is the Bore BCT?

[Mods Help]

No. its for people of color. And we actually talk about being being of color here and not Popeyes.

[Phoenix Dark]

A Caricature of Black Reality

Interesting critique of Coates and his recent novel. Really taps into a multitude of things I've talked about with friends and in this thread. I like the book overall yet I also find the suffocating negativity to be more literary than realistic in some areas, which results in some excesses/exaggerations that many people simply overlook.

So much of these discussions seem to completely dismiss or outright deny the existence of a black middle class, or any hope of achievement. To hear some folks talk, you'd think we're all helpless victims at the whip of an oppressive regime. I would not deny institutional racism or deny that many black people are trapped in designed projects/poverty. Yet nearly every city in the country has multiple black neighborhoods where black people are not stuck in poverty and depression. And while I'm not saying those neighborhoods don't have race problems or police problems, the different is noticeable. I've grown up in Detroit and I've grown up in Ann Arbor.

I realize that much of my experiences as a kid or teen are different from many black people. I grew up around doctors and lawyers and pilots. I attended some of the types of dinner parties Coates attends. At the end of the day I was taught to have a goal and strive for it. If Coates rejects the "be twice as good" narrative fine, I don't particularly care much for it either. Still the amount of educated black people I know are doing a lot better than the non-educated ones. And I can apply that to my white friends as well. I agree there is no promised land, but I don't think we're all trapped in a nightmare either.

[Mods Help]

Except your experience is anecdotal and studies have shown that even among college educated black families education doesn't protect wealth.

I think you place too much value and trust in the system. Coates' "negativity" is mere pragmatism. You'll always be a niggger to them. When Coates was hired by Marvel for Black Panther, people paraded around the fact that Marvel was hiring black writers, not the striking fact that they hired one of the greatest American intellectual minds of today. Which is pretty huge, black or not.

I think you place a lot of emphasis on the fact that middle and upper middle class black people exist, ignoring that has existed far before we were even born. I grew up surrounded by bougie blacks. It doesn't mean a thing, and while we aren't all "trapped in a nightmare", the harsh reality is that it could easily become a nightmare pretty quickly. Especially the aforementioned fact that wealth decreases in black households regardless of education. So it's not necessarily a nightmare, as much as it's a limbo: always stuck, always reminded, even when you think you've escaped.

You think you've escaped and that your family/future kids have escaped because your dad became a successful dentist and you got to move from Detroit to Ann Arbor? You're Black. You've never escaped. Call it "negativity", but it's real, and it's here. Reminds me of that episode of Fresh Prince where Will and Carlton are arrested and Carlton thinks his dad's money will save him.

Read PD's post and then watch this scene.

[Mods Help]

Forgot to source but, wake up call:

https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/in-the-balance/issue12-2015/why-didnt-higher-education-protect-hispanic-and-black-wealth

[Phoenix Dark]

I didn't say middle income black people have escaped racism. And while I used an anecdote I was largely speaking on the existence of a middle class, which isn't simply an oddity - it exists in every state. Do more successful black people struggle with race? Of course. But we can't deny the situation is worse for lower income blacks than it is for those who escape projects or poverty or redlined neighborhoods.

I like Coates overall. I'm just saying that in order to make his point he largely has to ignore the progress that has been made. As I said there doesn't have to be a promised land, but there is opportunity for many and education and resources  play a large role in that.

[Mods Help]

http://theculture.forharriet.com/2015/12/ridiculous-tweets-about-wiz-show-how.html#axzz3tJwNyK3l

Oblivious.

[Madrun Badrun]

Didn't black people appropriate the wizard of oz from whitey first?    I mean the only person of colour in the original is the tin coloured dude. 

[Madrun Badrun]

Honestly cultural appropriation is one of the stupidest concepts that I probably don't actually understand. 

[Mods Help]

What do you not understand about it? It's not a stupid concept.

[Phoenix Dark]

Does anyone think a bunch of black kids today know anything about The Wiz?

[Mods Help]

They probably did after watching it last night.

[Madrun Badrun]

What do you not understand about it? It's not a stupid concept.

How is it even relevant to that article?

The only way I can think of is that a bunch of white people are expressing (dumb) opinions about the wiz without putting it in its historic/social context, and that is them taking something that should belong to black people and trying to use it for their own benefit.  And that's super silly because you know have a way of basically voiding any opinion you don't like and this is how I feel like I've seen the term used on the internet. 

I'm not saying it is always a stupid concept just that it is being overused to the point of being silly. 

I also tend to think any kind of cultural protectionism is silly though, especially when it comes to language.  Its also way to prescriptionist for my tastes. 

[Phoenix Dark]

You aren't wrong entirely. The article in of itself is ridiculous in the sense that it's another case of Twitter comments being used to make some grand social point. The reality is that most people don't know much about The Wiz, including black people. I'm going to bet it wouldn't be hard to search black twitter and find all types of similar posts from confused black kids.

In terms of cultural appropriation...I wish people would stop misusing the term. A white person playing rock music or rapping is not cultural appropriation. A white person whitewashing the history of jazz and claiming white people created it is cultural appropriation.

The lack of basic logic among online justice types is pretty interesting. Not stunning since a lot of college kids are stupid and grow out of it, but perhaps the onslaught of it online inflates the issue.

[Madrun Badrun]

Ya that makes sense.  I guess its just that I only recently became aware of the term and most of my experiences with seeing the term are in missused cases. 

[toku]

Recent addition to team new black?

[Phoenix Dark]

tbh RZA always struck me as the type of hood dude who makes it out, burns the ladder, and then calls everyone else lazy.

[Mods Help]

What do you not understand about it? It's not a stupid concept.

How is it even relevant to that article?

The only way I can think of is that a bunch of white people are expressing (dumb) opinions about the wiz without putting it in its historic/social context, and that is them taking something that should belong to black people and trying to use it for their own benefit.  And that's super silly because you know have a way of basically voiding any opinion you don't like and this is how I feel like I've seen the term used on the internet. 

I'm not saying it is always a stupid concept just that it is being overused to the point of being silly. 

I also tend to think any kind of cultural protectionism is silly though, especially when it comes to language.  Its also way to prescriptionist for my tastes.

Late.

But my question was in regards to your statement in general. How is the concept of culture appropriation stupid in general? That's what you said. I didn't ask what you didn't understand about the relevance to the Wiz article. I asked about what you don't understand about culture appropriation at large, and you didn't answer the question.

In the context of The Wiz article, the article wasn't about culture appropriation. I'm not sure how you thought it was. The culture appropriation remark was just a side remark saying that white people know so little about our culture that even things as iconic as The Wiz are completely foreign to them. Which is exactly why fighting some people that appropriate is a worthwhile cause, because they have such little historical knowledge of basic Black American culture, yet are more than willing to take.

I think you missed the overall point of the article. The culture appropriation remark was one line and not the basis of the article.

What about culture appropriation do you not understand? I agree that some people are completely misusing it. That doesn't make it stupid concept or that it's not  a problem, though.

I am quoting your original post:

Honestly cultural appropriation is one of the stupidest concepts that I probably don't actually understand. 

[mormapope]

My chorus class in middle school was predominantly black, hell, the entire grade I was in was 60/40 white kids compared to black kids (looked at the records to confirm a while ago).

My teacher showed The Wiz instead of Wizard of Oz, I'm pretty sure I heard he showed the latter to other, more white classes
 

The Wiz is better.

[Mods Help]

The Wiz *is* better.

[Phoenix Dark]

The Wiz is not a good movie.

[mormapope]

The Wizard of Oz isn't either. It was definitely dope when it was released I'm sure, but I'm not the type of person to suck off old shit just for being old and popular.

 

[studyguy]

It's like my girl is really into Grease.
I can't really get into it. I find it incredibly dull and unrelatable.
Some stuff is catchy sure, but it does nothing for me generally. 

[Mods Help]

The Wiz is not a good movie.

Doesn't mean it's not better.

[Phoenix Dark]

Wizard Of Oz is a classic, haters
 

spoiler (click to show/hide)

actually it's not that interesting as an adult

[close]

[Am_I_Anonymous]

Came in here to read talking points.

Found discussion on Fred savage vehicles instead.

[Mods Help]

This year I'm going to learn more of my history. I have ordered Africana, and can't wait.

Other books I'm going to be reading:

A Taste of Power: A Black Woman's Story
The Ways of White Folks: Stories
James Baldwin : Collected Essays
Angela Davis: An Autobiography
Assata: An Autobiography
Black Boy
From Slavery To Freedom: A History of African-Americ​ans
The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism
Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
The Encyclopedia of African-Americ​an Heritage
The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes (Vintage Classics)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Up from Slavery
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
The Souls of Black Folk (Dover Thrift Editions)
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
The Mis-Education of the Negro

My interests right now mostly lie in history, sociology and non-fiction so I can learn my history.  And I hate not knowing my history. I'd love to expand after this and read books dedicated to west African culture history, but don't know where to start.

I didn't have an Black American Studies class when I went to college and I feel like I missed out on that. So I need to make up for time lost and give myself my own education. Some of these books I've read. Most I haven't.

Also what are the best books on the slave trade - not just North America  but the entire thing?

[Mods Help]

I prefer The Wiz. Not the movie, but the play in general. Fuck that Herbie Hancock song in the movie. The first movie wasn't that good. It also has that Herbie Hancock song!

[Phoenix Dark]

Black Boy is my favorite novel. Will come up with some other recommendations when I get home.

I'd hope that more young black people are introduced to black literature given what's happening in the country today. When I read Black Boy the first time I was a little kid nosing through my big cousin's university homework because she told me I was too young to understand it. I read the book and didn't "get" it, needless to say. But I read it multiple times thereafter, as a teen and then as an adult, and each time found it enlightening.

I think it was Coates who said that reading about black history prevented him from continuing down a rather ugly intellectual path. He didn't use the phrase but it was clear he was referring to the Hotep mindset. He argued that learning about blacks who sold blacks into slavery and all the complexities of the issues helped him avoid the mythological view that certain blacks have about things. IE that we were once great, powerful, peaceful kings until the white man ruined it all. In reality we were humans, and guilty of all the vices and fallings of other humans.

[Mods Help]

Black Boy is my favorite novel. Will come up with some other recommendations when I get home.

I'd hope that more young black people are introduced to black literature given what's happening in the country today. When I read Black Boy the first time I was a little kid nosing through my big cousin's university homework because she told me I was too young to understand it. I read the book and didn't "get" it, needless to say. But I read it multiple times thereafter, as a teen and then as an adult, and each time found it enlightening.

I think it was Coates who said that reading about black history prevented him from continuing down a rather ugly intellectual path. He didn't use the phrase but it was clear he was referring to the Hotep mindset. He argued that learning about blacks who sold blacks into slavery and all the complexities of the issues helped him avoid the mythological view that certain blacks have about things. IE that we were once great, powerful, peaceful kings until the white man ruined it all. In reality we were humans, and guilty of all the vices and fallings of other humans.

But wasn't their definition of slavery much different than the chattel slavery they were sold into? Chattel slavery is uniquely trans atlantic. When they thought of slaves was it really the same type of slaves we think of? I think that when arguing that you have to have a bit of context through into it. Of course, I could be entirely wrong. It honestly sounds similar to the Natives "selling" their land and not understanding the repercussions.

I'm looking forward to Black Boy the most after The Ways of White Folks and The Mis-Education. A fellow Black atheist and communist? I hope I'm going eat well.

[Phoenix Dark]

Black Boy is my favorite novel. Will come up with some other recommendations when I get home.

I'd hope that more young black people are introduced to black literature given what's happening in the country today. When I read Black Boy the first time I was a little kid nosing through my big cousin's university homework because she told me I was too young to understand it. I read the book and didn't "get" it, needless to say. But I read it multiple times thereafter, as a teen and then as an adult, and each time found it enlightening.

I think it was Coates who said that reading about black history prevented him from continuing down a rather ugly intellectual path. He didn't use the phrase but it was clear he was referring to the Hotep mindset. He argued that learning about blacks who sold blacks into slavery and all the complexities of the issues helped him avoid the mythological view that certain blacks have about things. IE that we were once great, powerful, peaceful kings until the white man ruined it all. In reality we were humans, and guilty of all the vices and fallings of other humans.

But wasn't their definition of slavery much different than the chattel slavery they were sold into? Chattel slavery is uniquely trans atlantic. When they thought of slaves was it really the same type of slaves we think of? I think that when arguing that you have to have a bit of context through into it. Of course, I could be entirely wrong. It honestly sounds similar to the Natives "selling" their land and not understand the repercussions.

You're right that chattel slavery was a unique European and Arab practice, but some African tribes were pretty fucking brutal when it came to slavery and tribal warfare. Slavery as indentured servitude was not practiced across Africa, it existed in various tribes but wasn't the norm. And there were tribes that later learned how brutal European slavery was yet continued to sell their slaves.

The general point was not that "both sides do it" or whatever, but that the issue is more complex than some would like us to believe.

[Mods Help]

Black Boy is my favorite novel. Will come up with some other recommendations when I get home.

I'd hope that more young black people are introduced to black literature given what's happening in the country today. When I read Black Boy the first time I was a little kid nosing through my big cousin's university homework because she told me I was too young to understand it. I read the book and didn't "get" it, needless to say. But I read it multiple times thereafter, as a teen and then as an adult, and each time found it enlightening.

I think it was Coates who said that reading about black history prevented him from continuing down a rather ugly intellectual path. He didn't use the phrase but it was clear he was referring to the Hotep mindset. He argued that learning about blacks who sold blacks into slavery and all the complexities of the issues helped him avoid the mythological view that certain blacks have about things. IE that we were once great, powerful, peaceful kings until the white man ruined it all. In reality we were humans, and guilty of all the vices and fallings of other humans.

But wasn't their definition of slavery much different than the chattel slavery they were sold into? Chattel slavery is uniquely trans atlantic. When they thought of slaves was it really the same type of slaves we think of? I think that when arguing that you have to have a bit of context through into it. Of course, I could be entirely wrong. It honestly sounds similar to the Natives "selling" their land and not understand the repercussions.

You're right that chattel slavery was a unique European and Arab practice, but some African tribes were pretty fucking brutal when it came to slavery and tribal warfare. Slavery as indentured servitude was not practiced across Africa, it existed in various tribes but wasn't the norm. And there were tribes that later learned how brutal European slavery was yet continued to sell their slaves.

The general point was not that "both sides do it" or whatever, but that the issue is more complex than some would like us to believe.

Oh, I definitely agree it's complex. It's also why one of many reasons I do not claim Africa.

[Mods Help]

Oh!

Forgot another one.



And this one too.



 

Time to bump Public Enemy, Queen Latifah,  and KRS.

[Mods Help]

watch this.

[Phoenix Dark]

Soul On Ice
The Outsider (by Richard Wright)
The Fire Next Time
Uncle Tom's Children
When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America
This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible
We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement

[Mods Help]

Here's a (probably) better video on PTSS.

Let's all heal, gang.

[Beezy]

Good list MH. There's some books on there that I've been meaning to get. Started The New Jim Crow last month, but haven't read much because I also started a new job that's been taking up a lot of my time. I'll try to start reading on my commutes again instead of sleeping.

[Mods Help]

Any books you reading bout the Carribean trade and history? Shit was bloody. I'd like to read tho I'm not from Jamaica. The way I see it, ours is a shared history. I'd love to read more scholarly attempts at distilling the trade in Latin America beyond Black in Latin America as well.

[Beezy]

No, I'll ask my bookworm friends and cousins if they can recommend any.

[Beezy]

So far "Sugar in the Blood: A Family's Story of Slavery and Empire" is the only response I've gotten.

[Mods Help]

good rec tho

[Phoenix Dark]

So far "Sugar in the Blood: A Family's Story of Slavery and Empire" is the only response I've gotten.

[benjipwns]

http://townhall.com/columnists/crystalwright/2016/01/18/draft-n2105218/page/full

Martin Luther King, Jr: In A Class of His Own

Editor's note: This column is an excerpt from Crystal Wright's new book, "Con Job: How Democrats Gave Us Crime, Sanctuary Cities, Abortion Profiteering, and Racial Division."

When was the last time anyone heard the “Reverend” Al Sharpton give a sermon? I mean a real one, not a rant that incites racial unrest. Ever since Sharpton came to the defense of Tawana Brawley in 1987, knowing she HAD lied in accusing white men of raping her, he’s been a professional race profiteer. Not only did Tawana lie, she lied big time: spreading dog feces on herself then hiding in a trash can to stage her rape. After Al “marched” in defense of Brawley, a grand jury concluded Brawley had concocted a “hoax” and the lawyers who represented her were disbarred. Steven Pagones, a Dutchess County assistant district attorney, was one of the men Brawley, Sharpton, and her advisors Alton H. Maddox Jr. and C. Vernon Mason accused of raping her. In 1998 Pagones won a defamation lawsuit against the three race-baiting stooges, who were ordered to pay Pagones $345,000 in damages. Brawley was also sued by Pagones and ordered to pay over $400,000 in damages, which she only began paying in 2013.27 In 1988 People magazine referred to Sharpton, pictured with Brawley on the cover its magazine, as “a belligerent black activist” whose actions were a “disgrace.” Today, a thinner, tailored-suit-wearing Sharpton works as a well-paid TV host of MSNBC’s PoliticsNation.

The “Reverend” Al has also been quite successful in not paying over $4 million owed in federal and New York state taxes. Obama’s IRS was masterful at targeting conservative groups from 2010 through 2012 to silence their influence in elections by delaying or not approving their applications for tax-exempt nonprofit status. But you mean to tell me the IRS can’t make Al Sharpton pay the $3 million in back taxes he owes the federal government? In spite of his lawlessness, Sharpton has visited the Obama White House about eighty times. Apparently our Democrat president buys into Al’s hustle. Or, like the Democrat Party in general, he finds it useful for winning elections. The first black president’s embrace of Sharpton—enabling him to pose as a spokesman for us all—should show black Democrats how little Obama thinks of black people. Sharpton calls the president, governors, and congressmen his friends, just like Jesse Jackson, who pops up like a jack-in-the-box at every racial riot or protest alongside him.

But Al and Jesse aren’t alone in belonging to the “black spokesperson” club. When “an unarmed black teen” is killed under America’s first black president, the media also call upon Michael Eric Dyson and Cornel West to be the mouthpieces for black America.

As the Class of 1943 University Professor at Princeton University, West is best known for his book Race Matters. If he were intellectually honest, West would say race matters for keeping him employed, just like so many other black professors working in “Black Studies Departments” at colleges across the country. Dyson is another black professor, an “ordained Baptist minister” turned spokesperson for the black race. Like West, Dyson’s only qualification for the job of speaking for an entire race seems to be his skin color.

As a professor of theology, English, and African American studies at Georgetown University, in 2011 Dyson taught a three-credit course on the black rap/hip-hop star Jay Z: “Sociology of Hip-Hop: Urban Theodicy of Jay-Z.” “His body of work has proved to be powerful, effective and influential. And it’s time to wrestle with it,” Dyson recalled in an interview, as if he were analyzing the work of a great writer like William Shakespeare or James Baldwin. Hip-hop lyrics, including Jay Z’s, are notorious for glorifying gangsta behavior: crime, killing, and treating women like “bitches and hoes.” Yet Dyson found Jay Z’s song-writing talents were critical to the education of Georgetown students, who paid $40,000 in tuition that year.

These are the credentials—race hustler, black preacher, or black studies professor—that catch the eye of liberal news organizations. Democrat-allied journalists further insult blacks when they class Sharpton in the company of true civil rights activists such as Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers, and Rosa Parks. The news media and Democrat politicians know all too well that Sharpton and the rest of the black leaders are nothing more than liberal con artists. That’s why they promote them, because they know blacks keep following the voice of these black Pied Pipers right to the Democrat ballot box without questioning their motives. The day blacks decide to question why black leaders are getting richer every election cycle while the black race wades deeper into an economic wasteland will be the day blacks own political power. “Still today, the best way to make a black leader mad is to say to him that black Americans are capable of being fully responsible for their own advancement,” wrote Shelby Steele. This is quite a revealing point that black Americans should spend some time thinking about. The livelihood of black leaders like Sharpton and others is based upon the Democrat precept that blacks are irresponsible degenerates, buried under a mountain of ignorance—and forever needing to be rescued by the Democrat Party.

[Mods Help]

Yes, yessss!

If anyone doubts that the mainstream media fails to tell the truth about our political system (and its true winners and losers), the spectacle of large majorities of black folks supporting Hillary Clinton in the primary races ought to be proof enough. I can't believe Hillary would be coasting into the primaries with her current margin of black support if most people knew how much damage the Clintons have done - the millions of families that were destroyed the last time they were in the White House thanks to their boastful embrace of the mass incarceration machine and their total capitulation to the right-wing narrative on race, crime, welfare and taxes. There's so much more to say on this topic and it's a shame that more people aren't saying it. I think it's time we have that conversation.

- Michelle Alexander

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=938033916284566&id=168304409924191&fref=nf&pnref=story

[Mods Help]

http://prisontime.org/2013/08/12/timeline-black-support-for-the-war-on-drugs/

Amazing read.

[Madrun Badrun]

So far "Sugar in the Blood: A Family's Story of Slavery and Empire" is the only response I've gotten.

There is a diabetes joke in there somewhere.

[benjipwns]

http://blackpeopleloveus.com/

[Phoenix Dark]

 

Tariq Nasheed, ladies and gentlemen

[Madrun Badrun]

[Madrun Badrun]

[toku]

https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessments-in-criminal-sentencing

“A guy who has molested a small child every day for a year could still come out as a low risk because he probably has a job,” Boessenecker said. “Meanwhile, a drunk guy will look high risk because he’s homeless. These risk factors don’t tell you whether the guy ought to go to prison or not; the risk factors tell you more about what the probation conditions ought to be.”

[Phoenix Dark]

Not even a "no Arabs under 30" asterisk? Damn.

[Am_I_Anonymous]

I feel PD's pain.

Just recently found out from my coworker who spends all his weekends with hookers that most hookers in our area have a strict no arab, only expat policy. A lot of the same Hos are arab.

Am I black yet?

Can you dribble drive and throw down a ferocious windmill while not messing up your Jordan's?

Until you can do this you are not full black.

[Madrun Badrun]

I don't understand black innuendo.  Who fucks with shoes on?

[Am_I_Anonymous]

I don't understand black innuendo.  Who fucks with shoes on?

Well your mother, for starter.

[Madrun Badrun]

I also don't understand black people going for fat white women. 

[Am_I_Anonymous]

I also don't understand black people going for fat white women.

Oh we don't just fuck the fat ones breh. They just have less to hide.

The last girl you ogled and bothered probably has had black dick and is in no need of your 5 inches and self defiling personality

[Madrun Badrun]

I was saying my mom is fat ...

[Am_I_Anonymous]

Serious talk for a minute...you CACS sure like to insult your mothers. I don't get it, it's strange.

[Madrun Badrun]

If she didn't want to be insulted she shouldn't have gotten fat