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Why I Wouldn't See 12 Years a Slave With a White Person
The Atlantic ^ | November 27, 2013 | Enuma Okoro

Posted on 11/27/2013 4:45:00 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet

I’m not a racist. But I do have a race problem. I finally owned up to it as I was anticipating seeing 12 Years a Slave. In the weeks leading up to its opening in my state of North Carolina, I tried to think of whom among my friends I could see this film with. I have a number of racially and ethnically diverse friends and acquaintances who would love to see it, and yet, I knew I could only see this movie alone or with another dark-skinned person.

This is hard to admit. I will hurt the feelings of people I love. But isn’t confession the first step to being reconciled? I have good, healthy friendships with a range of people, but I could not think of one white person where I live with whom I would feel emotionally safe enough to see this particular movie about slavery. I did not want to have to entertain any of the likely responses from anyone who could not see themselves in the skin of the enslaved men and women on the screen. I had no desire to dissect the film politically and theologically, engage in well-meaning social commentary, marvel at the history conveyed through the movie, or grieve over what was done to black people.

I did not want the burden of the social translations that black people so often have to do automatically on so many internal levels while engaging in discourse with whites in this country. There are things we learn to do almost subconsciously in order to keep some whites comfortable enough around our blackness. Things like gauging their actual level of interest or understanding of black culture in order to know how far to take a particular conversation....

(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

First impression: it’s very well written.


61 posted on 11/27/2013 6:00:34 PM PST by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: SJackson

On a related note, someone else observed that The Won’s Arab ancestors may have sold his African ancestors to his White ancestors.


62 posted on 11/27/2013 6:02:00 PM PST by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
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To: ladyjane; 2ndDivisionVet
Like I said, "current policies under this administration have taken us back decades in relations between the races."

Divide and concur...

63 posted on 11/27/2013 6:03:29 PM PST by Errant
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To: vladimir998

Period!


64 posted on 11/27/2013 6:03:48 PM PST by skimbell
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Every generation? Every fricking year!


65 posted on 11/27/2013 6:04:21 PM PST by BenLurkin (This is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire; or both.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Typically more black men have relationships with white women—than white men have relations with black women. If you look at asians its just the reverse—typically more white men have relations with asian women than asian men have relations with white men. The woman who tells this story is on the wrong side of something deeply cultural. She wants a white man but none pursue her. Now she thinks she knows why so she’s doubling down. Alas, she has a second problem. Typically, there are very few eligible black men available for highly educated high status highly paid black women. This woman would be better off finding a civilian job around a military base and then holding any white or black military type that approached her to very high standards. These men are motivated and brave. These are the essentials. The rest is fluff. She should ask herself where these men go to unwind. Where do they work. Some are jerks. But if she has any sense at all, she’ll identify them quickly. Soon enough she’ll get her ring and wedding dress.


66 posted on 11/27/2013 6:05:12 PM PST by ckilmer
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Wallow.


67 posted on 11/27/2013 6:08:23 PM PST by Irenic (The pencil sharpener and Elmer's glue is put away-- we've lost the red wheel barrow)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Good heavens. One whose very bread and butter is introspection has pulled back the lid and revealed the monsters writhing within. It seems to be a surprise to her. It isn’t a surprise to the rest of us.


68 posted on 11/27/2013 6:08:28 PM PST by Billthedrill
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To: BenLurkin

I was referring to “Roots” and this thing.


69 posted on 11/27/2013 6:09:06 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet ("Of the 4 wars in my lifetime none came about because the US was too strong." Reagan)
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To: BenLurkin

I was referring to “Roots” and this thing.


70 posted on 11/27/2013 6:09:06 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet ("Of the 4 wars in my lifetime none came about because the US was too strong." Reagan)
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To: DuncanWaring
I believe he's descended from the Luo tribe, who were slave traders, though not Arabs. Whether they sold them to his Mom's slaveholder ancestors, who knows.

I don't want to go to the movies with him either.

71 posted on 11/27/2013 6:11:02 PM PST by SJackson (the Democrats take back control, we donÂ’t make (this) kind of naked power grab, J Biden)
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To: ckilmer

I have dated more Asian than White but married two White women.


72 posted on 11/27/2013 6:12:35 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet ("Of the 4 wars in my lifetime none came about because the US was too strong." Reagan)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

blacks were not the only people in history to be enslaved


73 posted on 11/27/2013 6:13:46 PM PST by GeronL (Extra Large Cheesy Over-Stuffed Hobbit)
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To: Errant

Don’t ignore the author opening up about their feelings - they run deep in the black community - deeper than most whites will ever know.


Envy and projection of personal guilt on others runs deep..
and BEGS for Affirmative Action.. as retribution..

It is quite criminal.. you know.. EVIL... as well as being lame..
The bitch is evil.. AND stupid..


74 posted on 11/27/2013 6:24:06 PM PST by hosepipe (This propaganda has been edited to include some fully orbed hyperbole..)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
....someone who is reminded every single day that we are black in America.

********************

Perhaps she could leave if it's so horrible. I'd kinda enjoy all the priveleges that go along with being black ... pass High School and College with no studying , preferential treatment for high paying , show up when you want gov't jobs with benes.. you are allowed and encouraged to intimidate anyone who isn't black with your wallowing in "deserved" hatred for them and their "kind" ... etc. etc. etc.

75 posted on 11/27/2013 6:26:13 PM PST by Neidermeyer (I used to be disgusted , now I try to be amused.)
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To: GeronL; SJackson; Billthedrill; Irenic; BenLurkin; skimbell; Errant; DuncanWaring; Travis McGee; ...

Typically more black men have relationships with white women—than white men have relations with black women. If you look at asians its just the reverse—typically more white men have relations with asian women than asian men have relations with white men. The woman who tells this story is on the wrong side of something deeply cultural. She wants a white man but none pursue her. Now she thinks she knows why so she’s doubling down. But she’s just beating her head against a wall. Alas, she has a second problem. Typically, there are very few eligible black men available for highly educated high status highly paid black women. What’s more these black men know they are in very high demand. So they’ll hold out for the pick of the litter—which—judging by her picture—this woman is not. So she strikes out with high status eligible black guys. (I live in Washington DC where her problem happens all the time.) This woman would be better off finding a civilian job around a military base and then holding any white or black military type that approached her to very high standards. These men are motivated and brave. These are the essentials. The rest is fluff. She should ask herself where these men go to unwind. Where do they work. Some are jerks. But if she has any sense at all, she’ll identify them quickly. Soon enough she’ll get her ring and wedding dress.


76 posted on 11/27/2013 6:38:08 PM PST by ckilmer
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Author has an African name. Does he know that slavery is STILL practiced in many remote parts of that continent? And no African country ever tore itself apart in a civil war to end the practice. Slavery in Africa Was combatted by British colonizers, much to the discomfit of many African tribes and, especially, to the Muslim North Africans who STILL enslave Black Africans in countries like Mali and Niger.
77 posted on 11/27/2013 6:38:54 PM PST by Godwin1
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Just as was enjoying your graphic, I had to run into a very crude word in it. Ruined the entire thing for me.


78 posted on 11/27/2013 6:44:36 PM PST by Bigg Red (Let me hear what God the LORD will speak. -Ps85)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Morons with white guilt. More than that.. racists!

What about the 100,000’s of white slaves brought from Ireland and Scotland into Barbados and the US colonies? What? Does no one remembers white slavery? Does no one remembers people passing laws prohibiting breeding white slave Irish women into mulatos because mulatos (white/black mix) fetched a greater price than just white?
It wasn’t only here in the USA, Europe was rife with it. My grandfather’s grandfather, was born a slave of a german baron in Latvia. Not allowed to learn read, had to wear special peasant clothes, could be bought and sold for money, had no protection under the law other than the rule of his master, heck he did’t even have a last name.. finally emancipated in the 1860’s, given a last name and plot of land.

What a racist is to imply that only blacks suffered the degradation of slavery.

Take your white guilt and choke on it..


79 posted on 11/27/2013 6:44:57 PM PST by Toughluck_freeper
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To: SamuraiScot

Spot on, sir!


80 posted on 11/27/2013 6:46:44 PM PST by Bigg Red (Let me hear what God the LORD will speak. -Ps85)
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