‘This Is How We Lost to the White Man’

Atlantic Monthly ^ | May 2008 | Ta-Nehisi Coates

[george76]

Last summer, in Detroit

[PLMerite]

I know those are supposed to be wings on her helmet, but they look more like Yoda ears.

[neb52]

“Great idea, tommorow I will come to work drunk and put an O’ in front of my last name! It’s really a shame I hate potatos.....”

Hey most of us paddies have self control and don’t go to work drunk! OK maybe a beer or two, but what else am I suppose to use with my cereal? Then again I am a Mc not an O’.

[Right Cal Gal]

Market Street in San Francisco.
Look for me - I’ll be the one in a drindl skirt with the big.......braids.

[the invisib1e hand]

They have so many built in, government enforced advantages, that all they have to do is actually WANT to try, and they’ll be two legs up on the next person.

It can't happen that way. One cannot have the "on the dole" mentality and WANT to do anything. You cannot be both a gamer-of-the-system and a real contributor. You're one or the other.

[When do we get liberated?]

I am a Fortune, no Mc or O but from county cook for certain

[Cringing Negativism Network]

As is sometimes the case, when I see something which is alleged to be “racism”, I substitute the opposite, and see if it still sounds out of bounds.

In reverse, this works thusly:

“La Raza”. That oft-cited Latino group. Translates literally as “The Race”. Suddenly, doesn’t seem quite so innocent.

There’s a quote in the article - a good article worth reading if you’ve just skimmed it until now, where listeners start getting miffed and walking out on Cosby. This seemed like a good place for the “opposite test”. Here’s my take:

(in opposite)

“Then he attacked White naming traditions, and the style of dress among young whites: “Ladies and gentlemen, listen to these people. They are showing you what’s wrong … What part of Germany did this come from? We are not Germans. Those people are not Germans. They don’t know a damned thing about Germany— with names like Wilhelm, Kaiser, Adolph, and all that crap, and all of them are in jail.” About then, people began to walk out of the auditorium and cluster in the lobby.”

In opposite, the speaker would be railing against... skinheads.

Rightly so.

So, what’s so offensive about what Cosby was saying?

I agreed rather strongly. America needs to get over the multicultural racism. Rapidly.

Or we risk, becoming history’s biggest Bosnia.

[RGRX]

Could you have a tranlator put that in english?
Thanks.

[RGRX]

Could you have a translator put that in english?
Thanks.

[SunkenCiv]

Instead of waiting for handouts or outside help, Cosby argues, disadvantaged blacks should start by purging their own culture of noxious elements like gangsta rap

Good luck with that Bill.

[EnigmaticAnomaly]

"Then again I am a Mc not an O’."

Me too! :-)

[Lancey Howard]

They likely do not know who Booker T. Washington is either ?

That's old stuff. I always enjoyed Booker T. Washington and the MGs.

[Appleby]

Then he needs to hire better writers.

[Riverman94610]

What up,G?You ain’t with the Ebonics”
OK,seriously,what the young man was saying is that he has a very poor image of black females because even his own mom had street habits that made her lose respect in his eyes.He thus transforms that anger and pain onto black women as a group and that their music relects this pain.Therefore the trend to label women”bitches and hos”and condoning violence toward them.

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