A few weeks back a girl I hadn't seen in nearly 40 years (oh my!) called me to say she was organizing a reunion of our junior high school class. Just our classroom, actually; we were in a special "accelerated" program at Pimlico Junior High in Baltimore–three grades in two years, '67-'69. I'd had a crush on this girl back when. Pretty, smart, stylish. As she went down the list of folks who were coming, I quipped, "Wow we were the original black-Jewish coalition." About half the class was black, half white, and most of the whites were Jews. My friend is black. She said, "Yeah, we all argued over whether the Holocaust or slavery was worse, over milk and cookies."
The reunion was at her place in Connecticut yesterday and I had a great time. After the initial awkwardness I felt completely comfortable. These people all knew me back when, and many had liked me. The feeling was mutual. Also, though I had felt a little funny bringing race up on the telephone out of the blue after 40 years, the surprising thing about the dinner was that everyone talked about race. I think it's the Obama factor, partly; one of my dearest friends had an Ebony Magazine with Michelle on the cover and about the first thing she asked me was, Who are you for Phil? Are you kidding, I said. The black kids all spoke openly of their fears that racism was going to defeat Obama, and I talked with my hostess friend about the way that President Obama is going to transform establishment hiring, so there are suddenly blacks in big jobs.
A lot of our memories were racial in character, and people didn't censor themselves. I told about the time the girl with the Ebony magazine shocked me when she got insulted and cried out, "He can kiss my big black woolly ass." I was 13. I'd never heard anything like that in my life, and well, the earth moved.
I'm saying it was a wonderful feeling yesterday to be able to speak so plainly about race in a group that was half-black, half-white, and full of trust.
There were real differences between the black and white kids at Pimlico. The white kids came from a good neighborhood by and large. We were upper middle class. The black kids came from middle class neighborhoods, and worse–though like us they were elite kids, standouts to get into the program. They've all done real well. Forty years on there's probably still a class difference between my black classmates and white ones, but it doesn't feel big. One big difference is, I got the feeling from remarks here and there that racism has been a factor in the black kids' lives and progress. It makes my heart hurt to say that. Antisemitism has meant nothing in my life. Zilch.
Somebody reading this may think that my junior high school experience was unusual. And yes, it was. My closest friend of that period, a white guy, was there yesterday, and he said it was the most diverse experience of his life, Pimlico and City, the almost-all-black high school he and I went on to (and where Leon Uris went, too). When he went on to college, the races were back in their respective corners again. He and I cherish that background for educating us about the world.
But it's not that unusual. And it's less and less so. All over this big country, there are diverse public schools (and even private ones), and black and white kids learning together. Hispanics, Asians. This week I went to the matriculation ceremony for my nephew at Downstate Medical college in New York–well, he's going to have a really diverse class, Asians, blacks, subcontinent Asians, etc. And the dean of students told me that Downstate selects for diversity. At my reunion yesterday, my Ebony mag friend commented that down south there are more and more interracial marriages, and a lot of white people don't like it, but what can they do.
I draw two lessons from my day. Years ago I heard the great Henry Siegman speak at the Nation, and say that Israel/Palestine couldn't ever become a binational state because there was just too much enmity between the tribes, Jew and Arab. I said to him, I'm an American, and I look at what has happened in my country socially, and I'm proud of it. No one could have predicted that, so I don't want to have to believe your prediction about Jew and Arab. Maybe I'm naive. Ali Abunimah of Chicago shares that feeling. I got my optimism growing up in Baltimore.
On my way to the reunion yesterday, WFUV played an old interview with the late Isaac Hayes talking about Martin Luther King's murder. Hayes was working at Stax in '68, the legendary Memphis studio, and he said there were a lot of white people at Stax but after the assassination strain developed between the races. The blacks blamed the whites for what had happened; the studio never recovered. I'm sure there was strain in our little class. I forget. We've gotten past it.
That's the second lesson I draw: the actions of our leaders, great events, have a ton of influence on individuals. Obama has had an amazing effect on America already. And he's going to keep having it as president. We're planning another get-together next year.
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{ 28 comments }
"Yeah, we all argued over whether the Holocaust or slavery was worse, over milk and cookies."
What a perfect metaphor for the victim ethic that has seized upon post-Christian America: American Jews and blacks in the 60‘s, both of which had it better than probably 95% of the world at the time, arguing over which is the biggest victim. Uncoincidentally, it was right around that time that black social pathologies and incarceration rates started to climb as a result of the institutionalization of the victim-ethic Great Society, designed by Jews, liberals, and materialist internationalists to replace the Christian ethic. Well, at least it worked out well for the Jews, who have ascended to the top of the heap as a result of federal government’s cleansing of Christianity. But not so well for blacks and other Americans without a fascist network to tap into, but maybe they can join the religion of Zionism to get a few crumbs thrown their way by the New World Order neo-Internationale.
Phil, I think you are naive to believe that everyone can be crammed together, and that the people at the top can manipulate the losers, winners and demographics in a way that will make everyone happy-or even create stability. The use of the word coalition makes me believe that you don't really believe your own words. You are a tribalist at heart.
"At my reunion yesterday, my Ebony mag friend commented that down south there are more and more interracial marriages, and a lot of white people don't like it, but what can they do."
I'm a white from the South, and the media types seem to be more concerned with issues of race than most people are. If anything, white southerners are tired of the constant badgering about race, when it seems that the intent is for us to carry the burden for the whole nation when there is plenty of blame to go around on issues of race.
Mondoweiss likes a little flirting. Is she still hot?
I agree with Todd:
"I'm a white from the South, and the media types seem to be more concerned with issues of race than most people are. If anything, white southerners are tired of the constant badgering about race, when it seems that the intent is for us to carry the burden for the whole nation when there is plenty of blame to go around on issues of race."
….I am also a born and bred Southerner. I live in a historic coastal southerner town that was the colonial capital of the state back then and a major slave trading port. As a result 60% of our population is black. There is much more smoke than actual fire in the racism issue. Sure there are still bigots in society but they are by no means as numerous as the media would have us believe.
In the last 15 or so years I have heard two references to race..one was woman at a party who used the N word. No one around her called her on it but no one joined in with her either, she was just ignored. The other, I overheard in a store, was a black woman telling another black woman that some job she had applied for was "given" to a "white girl".
And so the attitudes go, but in my experience it's the exception rather than the rule in both races.
I'm a union tradesman and did a job last year at a large state university, same school I flunked out of due to beer, cops, fighting, and girls. I had to run an electric extension cord from a conference room and out of a window to power a tool.
While I was plugging in the cord, I eavesdropped on the conversation of a group of Anthropology profs discussing their next hire. One prof, he appeared to be the leader, told the group that the new hire must be asian, but not chinese.
This blew my mind, hearing this shit upfront.
The big Drudge headline of the week was that caucasians will be a minority by 2042. Our country will be begin to resemble New Orleans with a small elite and a large underclass … plus a fucked up govt run by the underclass.
Ray Nagin types are our future leaders although that's not much worse than Bush Jr.
Since all born Americans of white gentile origin need to fess up to their guilt about blacks and jews, no matter if they or anyone in their family every did a thing during the historical times and places, how about joining us in new guilt towards Palestinians?
No, when it comes to collective guilt, there's only one group that may apply as oppressor by birth.
BTW, did those white slave traders attack and kidnap black people in Africa along the coast, or did they just buy slaves from their fellow African natives? And, who owned the slave ships?
worst?
well,
genocide of indians
slavery
russian suffering at hands of jews
genocide of iraq for 18 yrs continuing
genocide of afgan for near 30 yrs continuing
vietnam
congo
many others
.
.
.
.
ww2 j,000,000ish suffering doesnt register.
and the palestinian suffering. and the lebanese suffering from constant jewish bombings.both way worse than the hollowcost us.
I married a Jew. And we had a child. One of my nieces married a Black. I live with the ups and downs. I think it's sort of funny Phil never had a kid, nor, I'm just guessing, did anyone in his immediate family interlink with a Black. I also served in the US armed forces as an enlisted spear carrier for American foreign policy. So, those are my credentials to ask, who else on this blog
can claim the same? My dad always said, "consider the source."
That's all I'm saying.
BTW, the US Army combat unit I was in was nearly 50-50 Black and "Hillbilly," with some Latinos. All the NCOs were black.
Curb your enthusiasm.
It's funny you should mention Leon Uris. His last novel was about Quinn Patrick O'Connell, an adopted child brought up by Irish Americans. He ends up running for president in 2008, until the revelation that his biological parents were Jewish (unbeknownst to him). This sets off "Kristallnacht-like riots throughout the country" (Wikipedia). It was written in 1999! Amongst Zionists, as Uris surely was, the paranoid fear of anti-semitism completely obscures the low-key reality of contemporary anti-semitism. I don't remember the Kristallnacht-like riots when John Kerry said he had Jewish grandparents.
Vote for the old war-mongering geezer, McCain, vote also for Lieberman, who would be placed in a key spot on "defense."
If you want to really see the tail wagging the dog, do this. Your poor goy children and their children will live forever with the results, as they have been destined to do by bibical scripture.
Never again!
"About half the class was black, half white, and most of the whites were Jews."
Correction — Jews are not "White." Even Ashkenazi (European) Jews cluster differently in a genetic sense than native White Europeans; see: http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2008/04/snps-dont-lie.php ALONG WITH http://bp2.blogger.com/_gwEvp95dIvg/SJbmX6AHYFI/AAAAAAAAAMY/Np7D8jyrBOo/s1600-h/The3EuropeanClusters.png
The most recent and comprehensive genetic studies have shown time and time again that Jews are not "White."
Jews are never white, or they are, it all depends on what's best for the Jews. You can't beat this shell game.
And as for the white, black, jewish, gentile factors in the racism ideas and etc..I have thought about that some today since this reading this post.
Among my friends,acquaintances, social, business, etc. there is discussion of jews or the jewish community only when it involves some political issue…such as present and future war, etc.. The criticism of Israel and the Jewish lobby is part and parcel of the general discussion on foreign policy and ramifications for the country….but it is not like.."we must go lynch all the Jews" to save the country. Although there is discussion about the 'attitude" of the Jewish community supposedly reflected by the most hawkish public Jewish figures and organizations. The Black comunity is talked about when social welfare and inequality or culture in America is the subject.
In real life if there are any Jews among the group when talk of Israel and the lobby starts most absent themselves and don't join in pro or con.
Whereas on the net though, 9 out of 10 of the Jews in these type discussion go into the aggressive victim posture and use that as a hurl and basis and justification for every position/attitude they have. There is nothing too vile, insulting or destructive that can be said to or about non jews or even respected figures like Carter or Tutu. And of course any stray Jews who dare to suggest that any criticism of the Jewish community or it's figures may be justified are traitors to the tribe and are dulling the tribe's major bludgeon of choice used on the non jewish world. I don't see this level of attack by blacks on whites in discussing discrimination.
I see a difference between the way the black community and the Jewish community have reacted to their past victim status. More blacks have stepped over that fence and embraced the progress made for the most part. Even though they recognize more progress is needed. The most outstanding example of that being the Bush adm's non action on Katrina.
They haven't "forgotten" past sins of white America and it still a subject with the blame placed on white America where it bleongs. When blacks become agressive it is more in the mode of shaming and asking where our humanity was when we did this injustice to them than denouncing "all" of us as enemies and a vile race. But on the whole most have rightly chosen to accept the amends the country can make and keep working on it in "partnership" instead of using their own past suffering as a battering ram. Perhaps it is the black's religion that makes them more forgiving or maybe they are more practical or maybe despite it all they do think of themselves as Americans right long with white Americans. I don't know the reason. But if I am not correct on this then Obama is a figment of our collective imagination.
In the Jewish community I see a group that refuses to step over that victimhood fence. Perhaps it is only in the older group as Phil says but from what I see in these blogsphere discussion I don't know. The attitude I see most is that everyone must pay forever for everything the Germans,Romans, every country/group in history has ever done to the Jews and they demand to be the only exceptions to all rules imposed on the rest of mankind.
Despite their economic gains and security, so much more than black gains, that Jews have attained in America their attitude remains that the whole world owes them forever. And I guarentee that some Jew reading this is thinking or will either post that the gains the Jews have made which the blacks haven't matched is due to their superior intellect and morality and not to the fact that blacks were black victims with no tribal/community collective resources to help them in America. Even Phil clings to the jewish superiority theory leaving out entirely that the tribal aspects of jews helping "only other" jews and support from the unaffected US jewish community made possible most of the progress of Jews as a whole in the US since WWII. Whereas the black community had no such existing financial support.. ever …to lift fellow blacks, in their fight for equality and economic progress. And I am sure some Jews will claim they were "only" ones to help in the civil rights movement and we WASP did nothing.
And God forbid the Jews ever actually recognize, acknowledge or express gratitude for anything the non Jewish WASP world has collectively done for them in a myriad of ways since their holocaust.
This belief that non jews are the eternal enemy at all times, manifest in their 'higher loyalty to Israel as the "only" safe haven for Jews" from anti semites, is a door slammer to most non Jews.
This attitude was at first was met with sympathy from non jews because of the trama of the holocaust, then as this attitude and the demands that went along with it, persisted and even grew, instead of abatting it became increasingly unreasonable to people. Now lately it is seen as downright dangerous to America in it's political ambitions and expressions in our government. If I had to say one thing to the Jewish groups it would be this…"get over it and move on" or move to Israel. The world and my country in particular, has gone above and beyond all that could be expected in acknowledging/compensating for the wrongs of nazi Germany, for which Germany alone was responsible, no one else was responsible…or you can go backwards by keeping up the group "pay on demand" agression and victim role and eventually you will pay the societal and political blowback consequences.
I think America was naturally right in helping the Jews initially but it has gone too far now. They, or maybe more or less correctly their "leaders", are a bottomless pit of demands that reject any notion of the good of the whole country except in any national domestic policies that might affect the welfare of Jews. We Americans didn't and don't 'owe' the Jews on the holocaust count or any other count. We Americans do "owe' American blacks ( and some other peoples) on the slavery and other counts. And the blacks really haven't gone far enough in their appeal for corrections to 4 generations of discrimination and injustice. The same goes for the Cuban exiles that "demand' we take their country back for them and the illegal immigrants that "demand" the "rights" of legal immigrants when their first act was to break US immigration laws. America doesn't "owe" anything more to anyone it took in than what our laws give to all other citizens and certainly nothing to those who declare it their right to a higher loyalty to foreign country than this country they live in.
It's time we as a country, financially and politically, separate our duties and debts to those we actually owe from the illegitimate demands of other groups who are just incessently loud, greedy and demanding.
The billions given to Israel every year for no purpose except to satisy the jewish lobby and fatten the wallets of the arms industry should in my opinon be used to pay our debts to the black Americans we actually did persecute. They are our particular moral responsibility, Israel and the Jews are not.
And no I am not black, I am one of those white southerners fed up with the collusions for power, divisions, political playing and cause adopting of race and ethnic hyphening by those jockeying for underserved gain that keep all this going. Insteading of realizing what we need to start and what we need to stop, and do and not do, regarding the race and ethnic groups and their issues.
Tribalism is inbred in all of humanity, because it harkens back to the very first humans, and has been continuous since. Liberal US Jews profess to believe that electing a racially mixed president will put an end to tribalism once and for all, even as they keep one eye on the exits by sustaining and maintaining Israel (with American taxpayer money) and insisting that contemporary Jewish top tier status is the result of merit, which is a backhanded way of saying that when WASPS and Catholics ran America, it was as a result merely of their connections (never mind that they are the ones that actually built the country into the Superpower that it now is). But now that Jews run the country, it is a meritocracy. This “meritocracy” nonsense is one of Weiss favorite claims, which just goes to show that he is not as post-tribal as his pretentious pose. In fact, his post-tribal claims appear to be merely one more Jewish ploy to maintain the current Jewish hegemony in the US.
I’m not saying that Weiss is consciously part of the Judeofascist network. But I do believe that (again, because of the millennia of human tribalism) he is sub-consciously a Jewish operative.
The only real hope for a post-tribal consciousness lies through Christianity, as Western civilization proves. Buddhism also certainly has the post-tribal mentality as well, but it lacks the backbone to enforce it instilled in Christianity through its Old Testament consciousness. So, yes, the Jews have their place, but subordinate to Christianity only. When they’re running the show, as they are in Neocon-occupied Washington, its just another primitive tribalist affair, and they are actually dragging history backwards. Little wonder then that the American melting pot is now regressing back to the hard tribalism from which legions of American immigrants tried to escape. Just look at them all: the Jews, La Raza, militant feminists and homosexuals, white supremacists, black nationalists, left-Marxists…on and on and on.
At this rate, it won't be long before they're all squatting around fires, sharpening their axes in preparation to tomahawk on another.
America, I pretty much agree with you. My honest opinion is that many in the media love to keep the pot simmering on the issue of race, while staking out a phony moral highground on the issue–similar to the bogus way that the holocaust is used.
As far as owing blacks anything goes, I believe that my duty as a citizen is to obey the sensible laws, and to be respectful toards those who are respectful towards me. Money has been thrown at the poor for forty years now, and that doesn't seem to be the answer. But I have to admit that I would much rather spend money at home than on the military abroad, whether wars are being fought or not.
My guess is that you live in Savannah, and it is a bit different than Atlanta. Atlanta has a large class of wealthy blacks who run the show in the city and county governments. These people have benefitted greatly from Affirmative Action, and pretty much use the city government as a machine for racial spoils. I just can't see how I could possible owe them anything. The same goes for immigrants, both legal and illegal.
For most of my life, I have only known philo-Semites, but the goodwill is fading, as the general nastiness directed at Gentiles, along with the lack of assimilation and loyalty to the nation are very apparent and tiresome.
I don't believe for one second that a person who claims to be post-racial (whatever that means!) would seek to join his group with another group in order to do tribal battle against a third group. That is nothing but tribalism!
To Todd -
There is no getting around that most of what you said about money wasted on the poor, mostly black, is true. And I have seen the same attitude you mention in some who benefited from affirmative action and used it. But then again we see that same thing among our own white elite who run things just on a higher level. I have had my share of run-ins with state and federal agencies full of those black and white types. Which just goes to show the lack of difference between blacks and whites.
I go out into the rural country side around me sometimes and still see hovels I wouldn't put my dog in, held onto as all they have to show for themselves by the forth and fifth generations of blacks that are outside the loop of opportunities and unnoticed and unreached by any program that could improve their lives. I kept a picture from the NYT's of a dead man's body in NO after Katrina that had been lying in the street for two days and two NG men lounging on the street smoking instead of even covering the man. He was black and you can bet that if he had been white or some rich man all hell would have been raised. Katrina raised the black discrimination again but rightly it should have been laid at Bush's door alone. Everyone I know was outraged and still is over it.
I remember this teenage black girl who lived in a trailer in the middle of nowhere and can't remember exactly how she came to my attention, I think it was thru some local school contacts. But she went to school and wanted a after school and weekend job so she could get some money together and not end up like her mother with three kids and no husband and no job. Anyway I made up a job for her and for six months had to go get her and take her home because of course they had no transportation. Finally I bought her an old but decent enough car to get around in as a pay increase hoping against hope she wouldn't go off and get irresponsible as teenagers are inclined to do whether black or white and let me down, but half expecting that to happen. Long story short, she didn't and went to the community college and got a scholarship to the Univ. for a degree in education. She teaches now. The point of this story is not my good deed, which actually it turned out wasn't exactly a selfless good deed since I saw I really did need someone to do what she was doing, but to point out that the neediest don't make the papers, aren't in the news, that for everyone who throws away a opportunity they get there is another one who would run with it if given the chance. To put it bluntly you sometimes have to throw a lot of shit against the wall to see what sticks. But I think most people would rather take a chance on being used or wasting money than have to wonder forever after if something they could have done, but didn't, could have changed a life and several more lives down the road for the better.
I don't know the answer to making everything right or fair between blacks and whites. I think the federal anti discrimination laws were necessary but that maybe the best work is done in communities person to person as communities. And I don't mean just agreeing with every or anything one side says…but working it out the same way you would try to work out a family dispute. I don't view politicans as any kind of heros but I think Obama has the right idea about blacks and whites taking turkey to each other and both assuming their responsibilities. My experience has been that most often the smaller the town community is the more close knit and sympathic the different races are to each others travails.
I don't assume personal responsibility for slavery since I wasn't around but as an American whose ancestors were part of it I do acknowledge that we as a country owe something for what was done. In my father's generation blacks were American enough to fight and die in WWII but not good enough to drink out of our water fountains. That doesn't make you furious? That is so replusive to me that I am willing to pay my father's generation's share of dues for that time alone.
It sounds like this a cause with me but not really, I am not much of a cause or organization joiner but I have always been aware of conditions around me and tried to intervene or speak up where I could and felt it would do some good.
I don't know about the jewish attitude ever changing. I do think black American issues are something that can be resolved. In fact when I look at interactions between blacks and whites today I think astounding progress has made in my lifetime due to the black willingness to put some grudges aside and the better part of the white community reaching out.
But I also totally agree with you that black -white animosity is really vastly exaggerated by the media and others, it just doesn't reflect what I see all around me every day. So maybe not such a lot of work has to be done on "attitudes" among races as work needed on more equal distribution of American wealth and resources for both black and whites and taking American power and politics out of the hands of what is absolutely the most trashy crowd of elites this country has seen since the era of the Robber Barons.
The median net worth of an African American household is about $6,000, compared to more than $88,000 for a white household. (data from 2002)
This matters a lot more than how horny white and black folks can get over each other.
This is the legacy of 200 years of slavery plus another 150 years of systemic discrimination. Recognizing this history doesn't mean feeling guilty or feeling one has felt guilty enough. It means coughing up the dough, getting together the political will to rectify this historical evil through reparations.
American, I first looked, who is this, asking me to read that much? But it was very interesting.
"The point of this story is not my good deed, which actually it turned out wasn't exactly a selfless good deed since I saw"
I think beyond empty PR lots of good could be done on a win-win basis. The problem with "administering" the poor is that ultimately all these institutions (e.g. Indian affairs in Canada) have a huge interests to keeping the problem alive. It creates jobs! I think Catherine Fitts is actively thinking about the paradoxes surrounding the problem.
What I notice is that the poorest don't even know their rights. … And the treatment of the poor is the ultimate racism.
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A long time ago by now an article on Horowitz' FrontPageMag made me immediately unsubscribe. It felt absolutely racist. Since then I consider your subject that societies should somehow deal with the wrong done a substrata in the larger discourse. The Neocons offer to US society: Never look back, don't let yourself be distracted by the mistakes of the seventies.
It is no doubt alluring to larger segments of society beyond ethnicity.
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The neocons still feel like a peak in the US development, but also a very American phenomenon.
Bill Moyer's interview with Andrew Bacevich has a huge part of the story, as it felt to me, before the neocons and their attack poodles moved to the center or my attention. Mainly since their arrogance and pride took so much the center of the stage.
sorry: in keeping. I don't reread the rest.
American, I agree with you on many things, but I don't think that it is the place of government to redistribute income or opportunity. To me it seems that when goevrnment does so, opportunity and income are largely taken from those who would need it most, and given to others of who may or may not need a thing, based on an arbitrary condition.
I'm not exactly sure where you live, but I have lived in small towns in the coastal South, and I know what you mean about rural poverty. The situation that you described isn't exclusive to blacks in the region, but is more common among whites in inland and upland areas of the South.
My take is that many of the rural poor in the South are emotionally tied to land for historical reasons, and have a hard time leaving for opportunities elsewhere. How many antique stores can a small town have?
I'm not making light of anything, but I'm not sure that I owe anyone a thing other than to be respectful and law-abiding.
Plenty of whites in the South were just as poor as blacks, and were second-class citizens where blacks were arguably third-class citizens. I've know whites who were sharecroppers (it wasn't uncommon) and others who were virtual slaves in factory towns that paid wages in factory scrip that could only be used in factory stores, and for factory housing. In many cases, poor whites faced klan justice for stepping beyond their "place," just as blacks did–my grandmother told me such stories outside of any racial context. You don't hear such things in the media because it doesn't keep the pot boiling.
I don't claim that the average white was worse off than the average black, but I do claim that both groups have been sold out, and that neither group had much that would prepare it for success in the current economy.
I do believe that small communities in the South do deal with race better than large urban areas. A society that can produce the places that I saw in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago and the Bronx really doesn't have a leg to stand on when speaking of race. Issues of race can get raw in small towns, but the discussion is often face-to-face with people that know one another, live and work in the same communities and understand one another to a degree that I don't think is often the case in urban areas.
Since I'm not a multiculturalist, I believe that cultural differences will always keep people apart. I don't think that anyone can demonstrate otherwise, and I don't believe that a nation can survive with competing dominant cultures.
The problem with Jews seems to be that they are largely not a part of the American cultural fabric, and don't want to be. Instead, they seem to want to change everything to suit their own needs. As culturally different as blacks and whites seem to be, I know that the similarities that they do have allow them to work together in many cases-and this is especially true in small towns. Jews seem to be a different story.
To Todd…
To be clearer I am not talking about "redistrubing wealth" in the sense that term is used by the "no body ain't never helped me and I ain't gonna give what's mine to no body else neither" crowd.
I am also against cash reparations. I might be for cash settlements in the instances where blacks had land for all intents and purposes stolen due to their lack of education or knowledge. The settlements to Jews were originally for property lost and slave labor and survivors of camps. Now it has morphed into more but that's another subject.
What I am saying is blacks make up the highest percentage of poverty for historical reasons therefore they should be given some kind of edge when it comes to deploying the funds we do have for poverty and education purposes. That doesn't means that a black whose parents make $120,000 in a federal job should get first dibs on a free education over a poor white just because he is black.
Use what we have on 50-50 black- white "need" based basis and then use "some" targeted to blacks. I think that is fair and due to bring them up to snuff for the generations they lost. We pay out settlements to people wrongly convicted and imprisoned if the prosecution was at fault in certain ways. The compensation is for the years the state wrongly took from them that put them at a disadvantage when they go back into the outside competitive world. I don't see a lot of difference in the two comparisions. As taxpayers we participate in these paybacks whether we like it or not. It's called the price of living in a civil society.
I don't think you or I are personally guilty for slavery any more than we were for the holocust. We don't personally owe it. Most of us pay for programs thru our taxes and don't see the payoff. Thus the "resentment". But once again the sucessful or unsuccesful "effort" is still the price of that civil society.
Bottom line is white and black attitudes are based on their personal experiences most of the time. As we said before those personal experiences have improved astoundingly in my time. That just leaves the problem of speeding up and improving the ways to level the playing field so that any "resentments" jealousies, hurt feelings, personal conditions, etc. people have can't be blamed entirely on color.
I think you are totally realistic on the cultural dominance subject. It's everywhere we look these days and as old as mankind. A balancing act that we in the US seem to be losing our grip on these days.
LeaNder…
you are on target…I have been reading Catherine Fitts lately too.
"To be clearer I am not talking about "redistrubing wealth" in the sense that term is used by the "no body ain't never helped me and I ain't gonna give what's mine to no body else neither" crowd."
I'm not sure what that means, but I see nothing civil about a government taking from one group and giving to another. I'm no fan of collective reward or punishment.
Applying laws equally, even if it means prosecuting well after the fact, is fine with me as long as there is a clear victim and offender.
I would much rather spend money on actual Americans at home than on troops abroad. But plenty of money has been thrown at poverty in the U.S. to no avail, and to say that we have to accept this situation indefinitely because taxes are in place already isn't an excuse for overtaxation, social-engineering or for redistribution.
What I would like to see is a government that is responsive to the needs of the citizens in a well-defined manner. The situation at present is one where most American children of all colors get a terrible education, while the government takes the attitude that both skilled and unskilled labor can be imported- if not trained or educated on the taxpayers dime. That's not right, and it's not a black vs. white issue.
I don't mean to make light of complex issues, but when do we get to move on from the civil rights model?
As a black, I second the comments made by "Ed" on how certain blacks and Jews basked in the "My Holocaust was worse than your Holocaust" grievance. I remember those days well, especially the anger of blacks who felt that Jews had a heck of a nerve to compare their experience to SLAVERY! There was no educating them in the knowledge that slavery is the way of the world, and that every soul that has ever lived had/has ancestors who were enslaved.
And, Phil, don't be so sure that your reunion buddies suffered any pernicious racism, other than social rejection, which is everybody's right. Many blacks whine about "racism," not because of jobs they couldn't get, or homes they couldn't buy, but because of women they couldn't catch. Or does this fact pain you, too? You seem so pained by blacks' complaints.
Todd….
I think what you are saying is we have a larger problem than black white issues.
That we have a government system that is both incompetent and out of control and creates more problems in some areas than it cures.
I totally agree.
We agree.
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