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.
Reminds me of the Eddie Murphy & Dan Ackroyd movie "Trading Places" lol
Funniest movie ever.
Agreed. LOL! I think there's a LOT of TRUTH to that movie.
Agreed. LOL! I think there's a LOT of TRUTH to that movie.
Agreed. LOL! I think there's a LOT of TRUTH to that movie.
Dan Ackroyd drunk in that Santa suit stuffing food in his pockets cracks me up. lol
Whoops! Some things just need to be said three times, lol! Once or twice isn't enough.
Yeah hehehehe. It's a metaphor for getting together at the end screwing the government imho.
"If more fathers of these children had married their mothers this would not have happened"
Don't know how familiar you are with life in the hood,but way too many of those women have this attitude of"I don't need no man"and when they DO get a husband or permanent relationship they do everything possible to run the man out of the house with their domineering ways and take away the man's rightful role in the family.
Say what you want about"the brothers" but I am not totally unsympathetic to their so called"irresposibility".
Those two old guys reminded me of the two old guys from the Muppet Show.
Remember the Swedish Chef? he was my favorite! lol
http://www.ladyofthecake.com/muppets/ChocolateMoose.mov
LOL!
There's no way culture is genetic.
Certainly there is a lot of artifice in a more complex advanced culture, but it stretches credulity to say that physical aspects of persons are genetic but personalities are not. Cultures cultivate certain aspects of personality which in turn can affect a culture if it is dynamic enough. Intellect is another ball of wax and is dependent, I think more on the person.
The problem is simplistic "either/or" thinking, ie, the notion that race is only genetics, or that culture is entirely unrelated to genetics or race, etc., ergo, it's either/or, nature vs. nurture, and never both.
Anyone who has observed children and animals, for instance, can recognize distinct personalities that emerge very early in life, long before "nurture", that is, deliberate enculturation, has had a chance to take effect. We know, and it has been demonstrated (to all who care to study the matter honestly) that more than just physical appearance is genetically influenced. Intelligence and personality and other behavioral characteristics are influenced by genes. This doesn't mean that "nurture" can't also be an influence.
Rather than thinking in such simplistic terms as "race" or "ethnicity", I find that Evolutionary Psychology has the better idea: look at how groups of people behave; those who tend to group together over time and who pursue the same group strategy and share the same group psychology, are therefore part of the same evolutionary group which you can call a "tribe" or a "race" or a "nation" or whatever term seems appropriate in context.
In other words, look at what people do, both as individuals and as groups, in order to recognize what "race" or "ethnicity" or "nation" or "tribe" or "sect" or whatever they belong to. This will tend to strongly correlate with "race" in the sense of "what people look like" but it's not an absolute category and there's plenty of room for overlap and intermixture.
As to blacks, it's obvious that they are badly served by their current culture. Blacks in the USA didn't use to have most of the problems they currently have, or had them to a much less degree. The welfare state has had a big role in creating this problem. Taboos about race make it very difficult to talk about the problem, and if we can't talk about the problem, we can't do anything to fix it.
that is the perspective of age-of-enlightenment liberal science. Race at one time meant what ethnicity means today.
Excellent observation. People trying to make the ethnicity vs. race distinction today don't seem to realize that the two words mean basically the same thing, if you explore the origins of these words. Problem is that 19th century scientists came along and took a perfectly functional word, "race," and redefined it to mean exclusively something to do with skin color, shape of skull, etc., without any cultural context at all. This has created more than a bit of the mess and confusion we are in now when trying to understand "race". It created the genes vs. culture, nature vs. nurture false dichotomy which we are currently intellectually hobbled by.
You say the thug culture holds a higher sway in black communities?
Funny,I grew up in an all white suburban area of California and had to fend off little extortionists,theives,predators and gangsters most of my young life until I got wise enough to BE like them-at least on the surface-and they finally left me the hell alone.
Black thugs.Spent much of my adult life working-living around them.Just like with the white ones-they give you respect once you let them you know you won't be f----- with.
Wardaddy,I know you had some ugly experiences with"the brothers".So did I.And often those ugly incidents were from my"white brothers"just as often as the black ones.
I'm not sure what your point was, but the point that I was trying to make is the the scientific perspective is a materialist one and therefore reduces people to their skin color which tells us nothing about them. People exist in cultures with ethnicity, genetics, geography and everything else. When you start analyzing people you separate one part from the rest and make an observation about a part of them that you mistake for a universal truth.
"During my life," said Joseph de Maistre, "I have seen Frenchmen, Italians, Russians, and so on…but I must say, as for man, I have never come across him anywhere; if he exists, he is completely unknown to me."
His next title will be "The Light Side of White People--An introspective and humorous look into the daily life of a White Supremacist."
Well said!
No sale.
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