Posted on 09/06/2005 5:20:49 AM PDT by jmc1969
LET ME START by saying that if I had my life to live over a thousand times, the one thing I would not change would be my race. I am proud to be a black man. There are times however, when I wish that certain people and I did not share that trait.
For the past few days, the whole world ... well, at least those who have access to satellite and cable television, have been seeing pictures of the virtually total devastation of the cities of the U.S. Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina. An estimated 90 per cent of homes in New Orleans have been destroyed by flood waters and more than 100 people have been confirmed dead.
We see people standing on the roofs of their submerged homes desperate to be rescued, others being airlifted to safety, and we have heard tear-jerking stories of families losing their loved ones. But in all of this, we have also seen the really dark side of black people.
The day after the hurricane passed, there were reports of looting but network reporters had been saying that people were looting out of desperation, in search of food and water. A lot they knew.
The pictures I have been seeing are of people - black people - stealing shoes, diapers, and television sets. Not food and definitely not water. Not unless the armfuls of clothing, shoes, and appliances I see people wading through the streets with count as food and water.
Now, if all the looters were looting out of desperation, how desperate were the guy and girls I saw toting several boxes of size 13 Nikes? How desperate was the fellow with the stack of diapers? What, is it that he has several babies at home suffering from loose bowels? What am I talking about, what home? Everything is under water and what isn't, has been totally destroyed.
Plasma TV?
And just what are those guys stealing the plasma television sets going to be watching when there is no power in the entire city?
Desperation? Yeah, right. I am beginning to believe that black people, no matter where in the world they are, are cursed with a genetic predisposition to steal, murder, and create mayhem.
The entire firearm department at a Wal-Mart department store, for example, was cleaned out and the looters used the stolen weapons to rob people. How low is that? Everybody is suffering and the black people would seek to rob people who are suffering just like themselves.
No white looters?
And it has nothing to do with poverty. Where are the white people in all this? I am sure there are poor white people living in New Orleans, Biloxi and the other towns affected by what has been going on. Is it that the media are not showing pictures of them looting and robbing? Or is it that they are too busy trying to stay alive, waiting to be rescued, and hiding from the blacks.
And you know what? Even if the poor whites were looting and robbing, wouldn't it be nice if the blacks could have made them the only ones doing it
Just once, I would like for us blacks to take the high road in situations like this, where instead of showing our darkest side, we put our best foot forward. But I guess that would be too much to ask, too much of a case of wishful thinking.
"Those people are thugs, but (insert name here)'s good people."
From the tone of a lot of the posts here, I suspect many of them used to live in urban areas and left the core city sometime between 1967 and the 1980's. It's a familiar tone.
I know a lot of ex-Detroiters, many of which moved out to where I live. The most anti-Detroit people I know are ex-Detroiters. Most white racists I know are ex-Detroiters. Most black racists I know happen to be Detroiters. It's a large reason why George Wallace and Jesse Jackson both won primaries in Michigan.
In the white's case, they blame "those people" for wrecking the city, starting with the 12th street riot and Coleman Young. Much of the bitterness has calmed down some since Young died, but some remains. In the blacks case, they blame whites for leaving and abandoning the city.
I don't agree with the broad brush statements, nor excuse them as I know all about them. Thanks to one infamous jerk who lived ten miles north of here, my town to this day has its own bad reputation.
I'm not an ex-Detroiter either, so my experience is different. Most of the blacks I know are from either college or the GOP (not Coleman Young types who are always the ones on TV), so that is my own experience. I didn't deal much with the "thugs", nor watch much TV, so I don't pay attention to that.
Unfortunatly, thanks to TV and the news, many people think that the good people are exceptions to an entire race, and when they see "black", they see Coleman Young or Jesse Jackson.
So true but color is drawing line on whether you can call it trash or be labeled a racist.
"Then explain why white looters are not everywhere on the Mississippi Coast which has a population of over 400,000 folks of which 80-85% is white and yet the only looters I've heard mentioned therer are black?"
Perhaps its because there are no cities the size of New Orleans there, or because there is a higher percentage of black poor who feel disenfranchised from the American mainstream - for whatever reason.
"How do you explain the disturbing comments from whites in the Superdome Convention Center and elsewhere? Denying there is black on white racism..."
I don't think I said that. Racsim is color blind.
So what is your explanation for what happened in New Orleans? Remember, the vast majority of New Orleans' poor blacks were the victims of these thugs, not the perpetrators.
I don't know the answer myself. Maybe it has something to do with the breakdown of family structure in black communities - factors related to slavery and later liberal government programs which were conducive to developing a fragmented family structure.
Another explanation maybe the rumor I have read on this forum that New Orleans empited its jails before or during the storm, and since most of New Orleans is black, most of the inmates were black and they contributed to a lot of the looting and thuggery.
I understand that there is a genetic disposition or are genetic dispositions to commit all sins:
Corinthians 10:13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
Deuteronomy 5:9 Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me,
I don't know if a mode of sin can be found in DNA or not, but sin has very much to do with the flesh and does not always require a conscious choice. People sin instinctively which is why all peoples have had so many problems with the law.
In my intuitive opinion, you can defiantly find a link between culture and genetics. People of different races have different aesthetical tendencies born of experience and environment over time. My children and I have a low appreciation of habanero sauce for instance but I have had Chinese and Mexican friends who delight in it's pain inducing savor. In so far as food is cultural and our tolerance or appreciation of food is genetic, culture is genetic.
It was amazing how many times I heard on the news som reporter talking with some gal holding a baby say something like "the father of little Laura remained in the house..."
I apologize, I used color in place of "race" color as a term for racial differences is pretty weak.
A lot of people are "white" but are not of the same race.
I think I'd better not comment on it.
Seattle's front page had a photo of a bunch of white kids that were arrested for looting and stealing a car trying to get out of N.O. One guy had a what looked to be a photo of Curt Cobain on his shirt.
So in your mind it is OK to use the term black trash?
With respect, because I've followed you and think you are a helluva guy, I think you are losing-- not because your arguments aren't forceful (because they are), but because the majority have been seduced and made helpless by liberal ideology. I don't know how that'll change, but I do know you and people like you will have a part in making it happen.
Looks like you all behaved. ;^)
It's going to take some time to read all the posts though.
I woyuldn't be so sure. For all the sniping going on, there were many more cases of personal pretection. I even saw instances of people chasing off looters on CNN!
I'm glad that it didn't!
I certainly don't have the reach of a Jesse Jackson (hell, even with my FNC appearances, I can't call them or hold a presser at the drop of a hat and get anyone outside my family to show up), and consider my battles to be small ones (plenty of small groups, and plenty of individuals as opposed to massive audiences at a time), but I do win those far more than I lose them.
In the larger picture, the battle is an uphill one, simply because I have to work much harder to reach the same number of people (and that's IF I ever will reach as many people), but I have to look at this from the microcosm-based scale as opposed to the macrocosm-based. If I looked at it solely as a big-picture head-to-head with the Jacksons or Sharptons of the world, I'd go curl up in a corner and drool silently to myself instead of continuing my battle (even if some percieve it to be windmill-tilting). But I do appreciate your comments.
I don't mean to be inflammatory, but would a white man have gotten away with writing this? Not in my opinion, which I conclude to mean that we have a long way still to go in race relations.
I appreciate what you do... your resilience in the face of ridicule and lack of attention from the liberal media is amazing. You're definitely swimming against the tide. God Bless you that you're headed in the right direction.
No, it appears to be an idealogical issue.
Liberal versus Conservative.
Is your post # 85 directed at me? Because I don't understand your point.
I blame the destruction of the family unit.
I tried to point out how biased the media is in its portrayal of Bush and then made the mistake of defending Clarence Thomas. Not a good move on my part!
Of course, I must admit that when I was her age I was a total liberal--"ah but I was older then, am younger than that now". (quoting a guy named Robert Zimmerman from my home state of MN).
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