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-Is it racist to talk about racism!

This version was saved 13 years, 6 months ago View current version     Page history
Saved by jn
on September 22, 2010 at 1:17:29 am
 

 

     Everyone can voice their opinions about everything else but, bring up racism and your automatically a racist. Having a best friend who is black we always have talks about it and end up in discussions over it. I am a very firm believer on equality, isn't that what Martin Luther King always preached? He wanted both races to unite as one and live in harmony. So why is it now that we have reverse racism and people like Malcolm X, Reverend Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson preaching to oppress the whites and think blacks should now own them in slavery and we look up to them? I get called a racist a lot when I make statements like that because I think that just like the word, feminism, people take a negative connotation to that statement. I think everyone should just be a little more educated about all the different role models and groups like the black panthers, who think whites should be killed and owned by blacks, because they have a misconception of them. I was one of them, it wasn't until I had to do a paper on the differences of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King that I discovered that MLK didn't even like Malcolm because of what he was teaching the blacks; he was contradicting what MLK was preaching and wasn't helping his message to be heard. Now, I obviously disapprove of either extremist group or radicals like the KKK's and I DO NOT approve of anyone being hurt or tormented just because of their race. Growing up, I was the minority being white so you have no idea how much I was made fun of or called "little white girl" or picked on because of how I was dressed. But because that wasn't common, it was ok for them to say that to me? Should blacks be the only one that can pull the race card to stand up for themselves when they are being harassed, regardless of the past?  So, is it racist to talk about racism?

 

Back to: Lindsey's Page

 

I just read a very interesting article that speaks to this issue. I think you will find a lot of interesting points in it, and it would be a good article for you to respond to. -April

 

No, it is not racist to talk about racism, obviously. In America we have this ridiculous idea now that we live in a "post-racial society" so anybody who talks about racism is automatically seen as being racist. 
The idea of "reverse racism" is misleading. "Racism" refers to the racially prejudiced ideas in people's heads. Anybody, including black people, can be guilty of judging others based on their skin color. But the problems of racial injustice go deeper than simply the ideas in people's heads. The real problem is not just personal racism, it is institutionalized racism (slavery, colonialism, Jim Crow, capitalism), which really causes racial inequalities and disparities in society. It's not about who says the N-word. It's about who controls the economy and how it is structured and who benefits from that system. Historically, since the theft of Africa's resources and labor, the European and North American population has benefited en masse from the mass extraction of resources and the oppression/enslavement of African people in the US and around the world.

Now, onto your post:

The Black Panthers did not think whites should be killed and owned by blacks. Whoever told you that is a goddamn fool. That's such an absurd mischaracterization of what the Panthers stood for, I have to assume you have not read anything by or about the Panthers, which you should do as soon as possible. Read their revolutionary 10-point program and you will realize how off-base your description was. It is not wise to pollute the commons with blatant misinformation. It is also ridiculous to compare the Panthers to the KKK. The Panthers were fighting for self-determination and freedom for the oppressed African community... they had social programs and worked tirelessly to uplift the community (free breakfast programs, health clinics, community control of policing, etc).

On the other hand, the KKK were a bunch of cowardly white nationalist terrorists whose deep-seated hatred drove them to violently attack, rape, and lynch Africans, for the perverse enjoyment of the white community.

It is not accurate to put Malcolm, Sharpton, and Jesse Jackson into the same category. If you did some research you would find out that there are huge ideological differences between those three leaders. Malcolm completely rejected the mainstream political instituions of the US and organized for the independence of African people, unlike Jackson and Sharpton, who are Democratic party-connected, preachers and opportunists who have never stood for revolutionary change. Malcolm was a revolutionary. And although he felt contempt toward whites in his early life (you would too if your father had been violently murdered by Klansmen and you grew up in the foster care system), Malcolm revised his views as his life went on and ultimately embraced multi-racial solidarity in the fight against oppression. Also, you say "now we have reverse racism and people like Malcolm X", are you under the impression that Malcolm is a present-day public figure? Malcolm was assassinated in 1965.

- Jesse Nevel

 

I would like to add that the differences between MLK and El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz can be understood as different political and rhetorical strategies. MLK sought change from within the existing system; El-Shabazz wanted to completely throw out the system and start fresh. He was a radical, bless him. When we compare the two, in many keys ways we are comparing 'apples and oranges'. Lindsey, to give you some perspective on how your skewed writing speaks to long held myths, check out this paper.

 

Growing up, I was the minority being white so you have no idea how much I was made fun of or called "little white girl" or picked on because of how I was dressed. But because that wasn't common, it was ok for them to say that to me?

 

I think we found the heart of the 'reverse' racism issue in this question. There's a sense of 'turning the tables' or hypocrisy. Being on the receiving end of racism hurts, but why must your experience be signified as more hurtful, more racist? Racism, whatever form or direction it flows, is NOT ok.  Your question does not relate to racism, however. It speaks to prejudice. And we must distinguish between the two. They are not interchangeable terms and they do not have (necessarily) the same consequences. My Joshua grew up down in South Side St Pete. His ass was kicked on a routine basis until he made friends with three football players. I asked him once how he felt about the black kids who jumped him all the time. He told me that the bigger issue was the kids with more money.

 

This is off topic, but my dad used to tell me that I was "pretty smart for a little white girl." But you see, I was a little white girl.

 

 

A poem for black hearts

Amiri Baraka

 

For Malcolm’s eyes, when they broke
The face of some dumb white man, for
Malcolm’s hands rose to bless us
All black and strong in his image
Of ourselves, for Malcolm’s words
Fire darts, the victors tireless
Thrust, words hung above the world
Change as it may, he said it, and
For this he was killed, for saying,
And feeling, and being/change, all
Collected hot in his heart, for Malcolm’s
Heart, raising us above our filthy cities,
For his strive, and his beat, and his address
To the gray monsters of the world, for Malcolm’s
Please for your dignities, black men, for your life
Black men, for the filling of your mind
With rightiousness, for all of him dead and
Gone and vanished from us, and all of which
Cling to our speech, black god of our time
For all of him and all of yourself, look up
Black man, quit stuttering and shuffling, look up
Black man, quit whining and stooping, for all of him,
For great maltose a prince of the earth, let nothing in us rest
Until we avenge ourselves for his death, stop animals
That killed him, let us never breath a pure breath, if
We fail and white men call us faggots till the end of
The earth.

   

 


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