race: a few simple minded questions?? (NO flame war - NO FLAMING!!)

[OneOfTheseDays]

answer this for me:

most black people actually have very brown skin. It's only a minority that are very dark and closer to the black skin. Why do we call Africans Black? We should call them brown-skinned. But there's a problem with that, we call Mexicans brown? Mexicans are tan, their skin color isn't brown it all. They are closer to white if anything. I think black denotes a negative connotation as well, we should be saying brown people but that kinda sounds bad too doesnt it?

 

[BigJ]

Originally posted by: SUOrangeman
Hey! It's the bi-monthly "Why isn't there WET thread!" (Yes, if you do a little bit of searching here you'll see that a thread on this very subject matter appears one a regular interval).

I am very glad to see that some folks here have attempted to put things into perspective. Thank you and well done!

Now on to some more factual and thought-provoking information.

I am Black. I capitalize "Black" because I am proud of who I am. After all, it's not like I'm going to wake up tomorrow morning and find that I belong to another race. Does being Black mean that I hate or despise everything that is not Black? Of course not!

Regardless of your racial/ethnic background, is there any reason that you shouldn't be proud of who you are? NO! However, the moment that you or I openly express negative views of someone else *primarily* based on race, then the line of racism has been crossed. If you are in tune with this line of thinking, then something like "White Pride" should not be viewed as a bad thing. Being proud of yourself should not be equated to hating someone or something else because it is not like you. It's still going to take a long time for everyone on all sides of racial lines to realize this.

Ifg I may interject a bit of humor at this point. I recently heard someone say, "You know something is wrong with the world when the best golfer is Black and the best rapper is White." Very interesting!

Now let's move on to BET. How many of you have actually watched more than 30 seconds? Have you noticed that there are probably more infomercials aired on that station than anything else? Yes, these are the same infomercials that air on other channels. Force yourself to sit down one Sunday and watch BET. I think you'd be surprised.

And how many of you know that Viacom owns BET? Although I haven't checked, I'd be willing to bet that Viacom is not nearly as diverse across its entire empire as one might expect BET to be. Does one channel explicitly dedicated to entertainment really hurt you that much? I mean, does DirectTV and the like offer hundreds of other alternatives?

And then there is UPN, Fox, and WB. Sure those powerhouse networks might offer TWO HOURS of Black-oriented programming PER WEEK. But, as you may have noticed, those shows really don't stay around long even though they were very successful. Why is that? It is very likely that the networks used these popular shows to build up funding to eventually cancel them and air other shows. Heck, I dare you to find one Black-oriented show other than Cosby that ended on its own terms (as in, the network did not cancel the show). Better yet, I'd be surprised if most of you can even name more than five Black-oriented shows in the history of television ... without having to look it up! I double dare you to name two shows that actually aired in the same era!

Now, all I ask is that I ocassionally see a face on TV that looks like mine. Is that a bad thing?

One more thing on TV. Have you ever noticed that Black shows all seem to air at the same time? I believe Damon Wayans's show will be pitted again Bernie Mac/Cedric this upcoming fall. Coincedence? Probably not. And how likely is one of them to be cancelled due to "lack of audience support?" Hmmm.

Let's move to Black leadership. (I know, tis topic hasn't come up yet.) The next time Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton show their faces on TV, I'm sure another thread will show up here thereafter complaining about them. I have a few questions for you. Who said that these two (and others) are Black leaders? When was the election? Why didn't I get to cast my vote? Sure, these folks may proclaim themselves as Black leaders ... but does that make it so? The media would have you believe it.

The next buzz word seems to be reparations. Personally, I don't believe that any money paid directly to individuals will solve anything. It might shut a few mouths ... but those mouths will only remain shut until the money is gone. Then, we are all back to square one. If the monies meant to be used as reparations is directly applied to a better solution, then I'd be more inclined to support it. At the same time, who am I to pass up free money?

My final topic for the evening is Black History Month. In a perfect world, there would be no need for Black History Month. Since its inception (W.E.B. DuBois, I believe), the whole point is to educate everyone on the accomplishments of Blacks that tend to get overlooked (primarily, in the classroom). Again, the idea here is to promote. If someone says that the race XYZ offers absolutely nothing to society ... and there are no facts to counter the statements, folks will eventually believe it. Let's not even go down that road in the first place.

Here's a quic assignment. Do some research on Mark Dean. Here's a hint or two: It's actually Dr. Mark Dean and has something to do with IBM. I'd bet you'd be surprised at what you find. Had it not been for Black History Month, I may have never known nor met the man and, as a result I couldn't share this tidbit!

Any comments? I'll even converse outside of this thread (PM or otherwise).

-SUO

Lot of good points in here and agree on alot of what you're saying (and for the record, no I'm "white", but actually have been discriminated against because my skin color borders on looking similar to a Mexican/African-American)

 

[Vinny N]

Originally posted by: docmanhattan

Originally posted by: bizmark

Originally posted by: dullard
"i would almost say that 95% for entertainment today follows the Star Trek diverified crew formula ( included expendible red shirted crew member )."

"Can you elaborate on that?"

On Star Trek crew members needed to die on occasion to be realistic. For obvious reasons you can't have your stars dying off all the time (unless it is a soap opera where resurection is common). The solution is to have minor actors die. Any time you see a new actor on the show, I bet there is a 90% probability that actor would die in that show or the next one. Star Trek also wanted to include more minorities on their shows - but not as major actors. Solution: have the dying minor actors all be minorities - that way you can claim that 50% (or some other silly number) of the total actors are minorites. The result: almost all minorities ended up with one line parts and then died.

I interpreted the original statement the other way. Look at the major characters on the original Star Trek crew:

Kirk
Spock
McCoy
Uhura <-black
Sulu <-Asian

Ummm, that's really all that I can think of when it comes to 'named characters' who were on every show.... and then the red-shirted guys (I actually picture the 'typical' red-shirt as a white guy, but whatever) and the enemy/Admiral/love-interest/whatever who also is a major player in a given episode. ST:TNG kept up about the same formula... significant black and Asian characters, but the majority were white. About the same as the racial composition of the US.

That is what i meant. Just the major characters. The red-shirted crew member aside was more just for giggles.

Not to get off-topic, but with TNG, there was a recurring theme of strong female characters as guest characters. It wasn't simply to get additional minorities accounted for. I believe some searching of the ST newsgroups will bring up an actual count. Whatever it is, I think it's more than the count in DS9 and Voyager. Somehow I wonder if it was make up for the Kirk-conquer of the day in all those TOS episodes...

Originally posted by: djheater
Race is mostly a social construct IMHO....

Congratulations you just made my head explode. Too much information from an "American Identities" FSEM I took and another course about Social Construction + djheater's comment = loaded comment that I'll probably have to think about for 20 years

 

[Evadman]

FFM... I don't get it either.

I think that racism has turned against whites. We have these nifty hiring laws that make it so as a company you must hav a set % of minorities weather they can do the job or not. So we descriminate against the white guy and hire the mexican or black guy that does not have the proper skills for the job, but then the company can be all good with the government. What happened to hiring people who are.. Oh my!.. Good at their job? Pffft.

there is a double standard. Whites must "make way" for minorities, hence the shows and celebrations you listed. Whites are rapidly becoming suppressed. I honestly would not be suprised if some lawsuits came out of this.

Now, to fly in the face of my above argument, I am going to guess as to why those shows exist. Black culture is just plain different thatn white. The same comedians that I watch on BET suck ( as far as jokes go. ) compaired to the cuys I see on Comedy central. But they don't actually suck, they are speaking to a different audiance. So, BET is a place to "hang out" and see predominately black programming. Now for why it is not racist, ya got me.

Backround on the guy making the above statements:
I am 22 and white. Grew up in a predominatly white suburb of chicago. AFAIK there were 2 families who were black in the entire town of 40k people. I remember doing a satire of the local police reports in the paper in English Class in High school. (the english class was an honors English, with no blacks or minorities at all in the class.) That satire went: "2:31pm. Black man spotted walking on sidewalk, was issued a warning." or something similar for 2 pages. The High school was Elgin High which was predomitely black. Within the first year, I stopped seeing colors. Sure, the blacks had their own "dialect" ( or whatever it is called ) and I noticed they use the "N" word to call each other across the hallway, which I never got. I had been taught never to use. ( bad evadman, bad! No say "N" word or I will get the soap! ) I still have a few good friends that I go out drinking with from Elgin who are black. I really wish people would stop seeing color as i did in High School and see everyone as American.

There, problem solved.

 

[radiocore]

I'm gonna have to agree with most of the other replies.

No WET exists because its all pretty much WET.

No White History month cause every month is White History Month

As for the pride thing, I think it comes and goes for every race

 

[Muadib]

Originally posted by: radiocore
I'm gonna have to agree with most of the other replies.

No WET exists because its all pretty much WET.

No White History month cause every month is White History Month

As for the pride thing, I think it comes and goes for every race

Exactly! Not for nothing ffmcobalt, but you live in one of the least racially diversed states around. How often do you have anything to do with a black person, once a decade?

 

[Chaotic42]

Sticking a race name in front of something makes it two things.

#1 - Politically Correct
#2 - Damaging to race relations

Any time you point out a difference, people split up into groups.

 

[NikPreviousAcct]

Originally posted by: Muadib

Originally posted by: radiocore
I'm gonna have to agree with most of the other replies.

No WET exists because its all pretty much WET.

No White History month cause every month is White History Month

As for the pride thing, I think it comes and goes for every race

Exactly! Not for nothing ffmcobalt, but you live in one of the least racially diversed states around. How often do you have anything to do with a black person, once a decade?

ROFLMFAO

...you've obviously never been to Portland. Or Beaverton. Or Hillsboro (everyone calls it Hell'sburrito). Or Cornelius (everyone calls it CornTown). It's one of the most diverse cities in the nation according to some magazine article that I read last year (IIRC, I even read that article from a post here on AT).

nik

 

[Linflas]

Originally posted by: radiocore
I'm gonna have to agree with most of the other replies.

No WET exists because its all pretty much WET.

No White History month cause every month is White History Month

As for the pride thing, I think it comes and goes for every race

This gets repeated like some kind of mantra but it is not true. I would be more than willing to bet that blacks representation on any network is much higher than their 12.5% of the general population. As for history as far as I am concerned it has no race or color, it just is what it is. Saying that the other 11 months of the year are white history months implies that somehow blacks do not share in the common history of this country. It is pretty hard to teach US history without mentioning the major implications slavery and its aftermath had on this country and blacks place in it. It is not necessarily a pretty history but it is reality.

 

[MrPhelps]

Lets all celebrate "Human history month" every month, I sort of do with Anandtech. When I need help or a good deal I really don't know who I am getting the info from.

I think replace all of the prefixes with "Human" and maybe it would be better.





Man o Man if was only this easy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!