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>These issues may have already been touched on.. but here's my
>two cents.
>
>I've been lurking here for years and years, since TFA,
>actually.. and what keeps me coming back is the interesting
>thoughts and opinions that you all have on race and racism, so
>this post has me quite inspired.
>
>Basically, my background is this: Currently I have been with
>my black fiance for 4 years strong.. I'm now pregnant with a
>biracial child (I'm white, just for clarification), and we are
>getting married in September - not because of the pregnancy,
>we've actually been engaged for over a year.
>
>The question was asked earlier (at some point in the post) how
>a white person would go about raising a biracial child.. since
>I'm faced with the situation, I've already thought a lot about
>it. I get upset and offended, at times, that most biracial
>people (in my experience, that I've known personally) only
>claim their minority side.
You shouldn't feel upset or offended. I don't think it's anything that someone is making the child DO. But in a country where to be "white" is the norm, people are, of course, going to make it more known if you are not the norm. And I forgot where I heard this idea, but I believe that a person, if biracial, is labeled by the lower of the two races (on a socio-economic scale). Sorry, to say so, but simply because black people are on such high-profile status in this country, your child's probably going to recognize him or herself as black because other people throughout his or her life will never let him or her forget it or believe otherwise.
"I'm black" "I'm latino".. it's
>important to me to raise my child to treat both sides of it's
>heritage equally, and embrace and learn about aspects of both.
This is most definately important and a very good idea, of course. Offer as much information as you can.
>I also know there will be a lot of things that I will be
>learning right along with my child when it comes to their
>African-American heritage.
>
Yup.
>One thing that I have never understood about the interracial
>relationship debate is why there are such strong opinions
>against it. The people that I have seen argue until they are
>blue in the face but have problems coming up with any
>reasoning beyond "it's just not right, you just shouldn't do
>it." I have yet to hear an opinion that goes beyond "white
>women take our men" or "black men only date white women
>because (insert random stereotype here)." None of these are
>reasons built on fact for the majority of IRs. Also, I would
>like to point out that most of the issues that my fiance and I
>have faced are with black women. Black men, white women, and
>white men have all been more apt to embrace us as a couple
>than black women, who mostly show anger or make rude comments
>(usually towards me, not him). I'm not saying this is always
>the case, but this is what I have experienced. Does anyone
>have any thoughts or reasoning that goes deeper than what I
>have mentioned on this topic?
>
My personal opinion? It's a historical thing. I could have probably guessed that most of the badmouthing came from black women, as well, as I'm sure that any other person of African descent would agree. Hmm...blah...it's alot to explain...umm... Well, excuse me for putting the following in a very cut and dry manner. Hopefully I don't get flamed for anything I might word the wrong way. Hopefully, you know the basics about slavery...the fact that European beauty was put on a pedestal and still is in this country. Well back during those times, you could say that our enslaved ancestors (as well as many other non-white peoples around the world have eventually experience), became brainwashed to the idea of white/European beauty. For this the European female was forcefed in many different ways to the enslaved populous as being something, lets say for black men, a prize that they weren't worthy enough to acquire and to black women, a beauty that was unattainable to them. Sounds exaggerative, but I think for the time period, I've pretty much got it right. As time went on and slavery ended, you could see that blacks in the Americas and West Indies, when forced to choose between doing what their heritage had passed down and the way the society in power lived and looked in their everday lives, the latter was usually picked, for the universal (and somewhat naive) idea that "If we act and look like the most powerful, maybe we will become them and gain their power as well." Also, the fact that this race of people, unlike the racist ruling society, now had to try to blend in as much as they could into this higher society so as to prevent brutal and deadly discrimination plays a HUMONGOUS part in all this. I think I'm digressing a bit though. Say that these viewpoints about white women remained early on in this century. Also note the fact that during these times women were also highly discriminated against in this country, no matter their race. Black women, living in a society that has just been a couple of decades out of slavery, still have two strikes against them. They are black and they are women. A black male, at this time, at least had the power of his gender. He was a man. People expected it to be of a male nature to speak out, to go after success, and maybe to even achieve it. A woman was expected to sit down and pop out babies. It was nearly impossible and unheard of for a black woman to make a success out of herself in the newly freed U.S. (and west indies, if you like). The ideals of the white power didn't help much either. The stereotype of the black woman was usually one of a whore, a mami, or just that ignorant black "n-". And because of the viewpoints of white people seeping into the black populous' minds they tended to retaliate against each other, male against female. As subtley as it could happen to as blatantly as it could possibly happen. In many ways the black populous in the West tended to keep themselves in "their place" for their own safety, but sadly wallowing in inflicted ignorance also came with this. Not saying that some of these people couldn't become successes, the men mostly, but when a black man usually prospered and he reached the point where he was respected by the white populous (or at least tolerated as a black man who could use his brain), of course, the thing that would come to mind is "Now, I want everything that I've been denied. Everything that the white people (the people in power) have." Clothes, house, money, and icing on the cake for any dignified, rich man...a beautiful wife...And beauty, in this country at that time, belonged to white women (as in it was bashed into everyone's brains that this is what beauty was). And as I recall, reading a book title "If He Hollers Let Him Go," which speaks about race relations "colorstruck-ness" was a HUGE problem in the black community as a whole. The whole "the lighter your skin, the more beautiful/prosperous/dignified you must probably be". It was something that black people would be pitted against each other to attain. And the fact of the matter is that at that time, if a black man and black woman, not educated but just working class, tryin to get by, were living together and a white woman just came along and decided she would like to play around with her fetish for black men, the dude would probably be gone in a second. It was a state of unconscious submissiveness. I think if black women weren't just totally disrespected and ho'ed out by rich white men at the turn of the century and alot of them wanted to feed THEIR fetish for having a little black female side-mistress, the black woman would probably be gone his way in a second, as well. And though people say this mentality has ended, they're more than likely wrong. I mean..most of our other problems as a people are still present...Why would this be the one problem that just left us. Ha, I doubt it. Now, look at the U.S. today. The population of black men in jail is so tremendously and attrociously HIGH, that it pretty much guarantees that if all black women (or at least a healthy, somewhat normal/expected amount since women always outnumber men) wanted to get married to black men....it couldn't even POSSIBLY happen. And notice the shit that just went down in Queens. BLATANT, racism is still alive infront of our eyes and so many black men being in jail just pounds that into our heads everyday...and it's only one of many things that do. Black people live in a state of constant awareness, and IMO constant anger against the oppression, and I think, for black women, having been the dogged down, bottom of the barrel of the Americas for so long, abused by white people this whole time, and by their own men early on in the century, with the effects of all that leading down to today, seeing a black man, with a white woman just reminds them of how they've been dogged down. Not necessarily saying that they're thinking "I want that man she's with!"...but alot of the time black people are fetishized, just like any other minority, as something exotic, and an experience to be had by a ton of ignorant and claim-not to be ignorant white people. I think it's pretty hard for white people to NOT look at minorities in that light in someway, somehow...but anyway... Yea. The black woman back then would be thinking "That white woman's fetishizing him, and he's fetishizing her skin colour," and back then she would have probably been right. The way white people ran the country at the turn and deeper on towards the middle of the 20th century kind of assured that a black family would buckle and crumble under the pressure, even though quite a few families lasted through the struggle. I think (and now i'm bout to get philosophical) the black woman's "pain," is the fact that she's been ignored and downtrodden for so long and in today's time, now that we are in a global society, she sees tons of Asians marrying Asians. Tons of Latinos marrying Latinos. Tons of whites marrying whites...But not enough black marriages whatsoever. (This may be due in part to the media). And to see a black man with a white woman is one black marriage that "could have been." And she also has to come to terms with the fact that she may very well spend the majority of her life alone for one reason or another. Black men continue to be fetishized, however...and in this day in age, alot of women are after them. Black men are in, whereas the black woman continues to be portrayed in media (music, and visuals), as the bottom of the barrel when it comes to beauty, maternal instincts, and expectations for a wife. I think it has even gotten worse in the last couple of years. I am in no way trying to imply anything about your relationships or any differing ideas. I'm simply stating what the probable viewpoint for the black women looking at you and your fiance angrily is. Hope this helped you out a little.
>Also, and I know the question was asked earlier in the post
>whether white people feel guilty about slavery.. should I
>really be obligated to feel guilty about slavery just because
>I happen to be white? Yes, it was a horrible thing that
>happened. There are LOTS of things in history that I would
>change if I had the power to do so. But I have no say in what
>happened before I was born. I feel no guilt. No one that is
>living today had the experience of being a slave OR owning a
>slave, so why do I specifically at times get labeled an
>oppressor, when I have done nothing to intentionally oppress
>anyone?
>
Because black people are still oppressed. I mean, nobody's cracking a whip over our backs making us work for nothing anymore, but let me just be the first to bring up the bullcrap with the 181 black men getting arrested in Queens because a police officer shot himself in the leg somewhere, again. Yea...unfair and blatant oppression is still around. Most black youth IN THIS WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD, grow up in poverty, or something slightly above it (remember, I'm saying most). And hardly anyone really gives a two rats ass about fixing this blatant racism. The reason YOU are blamed, whether you did anything or not, unfortunately, is because people assume that you come from a comfortable history of people, you were raised comfortable, and you are living comfortably now and still asking "why are folx mad at me?" I think the only way that black people WONT be mad at individual white people is if WHITES now put THEMselves out on the line to help and make life better for the people whom their ancestors have kinda effed up our today for. Not saying that this is a plausible idea, because some people just wanna live they lives comfortably without any worries, and no one can blame you for that. And no one can blame any well-off black person who wants to do the same either. The point of the matter is...People blaming you is probably never going to go away, and IMO it's a valid (yet kind of unfixable) reason.
>When it comes to "white privilege".. I agree that there are
>probably certain privileges that I am afforded just because
>someone may only see the color of my skin. However, if at some
>point I ever have knowledge that I am receiving something
>solely based on my skin color, I couldn't accept that. I'm
>sure it happens more often that I think, but I've never been
>aware of it. For example, if I were in the process of trying
>to get a job, and I knew that I was up against a minority that
>was OBVIOUSLY more qualified than me in every way possible,
>and somehow I found all of this out and I was offered the job
>and they weren't - I would turn it down in a heartbeat because
>I would know exactly why I got the job over them, and the
>reason behind me getting it is unethical, racist, and wrong. I
>can't accept a job on those terms. It's not in my heart to do
>so.
>
But realisitically, how many times will you know when you are being privelaged? And that's exactly the problem.
>
>And finally (sorry for being so long-winded!), I think that,
>at least since I've been younger, it has always been
>considered "cooler" (by who, I'm not exactly sure.. but I know
>that has been the overall belief among people my age) to be
>black than white. There are a lot of white people that I have
>come across that act like they think black people should act
>when they are around groups.. the way they dress, talk (hence,
>groupthink).. that kind of thing, because they think they need
>to change to fit in. This is okay, to a point, IMO.. because
>everyone changes a little bit when they're in a group setting
>depending on who they're around. There's certain things that I
>would talk about with my best girl friends that I wouldn't
>start a conversation about with my family. Where this line
>gets crossed is when I hear a white person say the n-word or
>something else offensive.. and then explain that it's "ok
>because I have black friends." This is the kind of line that
>doesn't need to be crossed. By anyone! I hate hearing the
>n-word from white people.. but I hate it JUST AS MUCH coming
>from black people! I just hate the word in general. It's a
>word that was made to disrespect and show hatred towards a
>group of people - why can't everyone just let that word die!
>
Black people have mixed relationships with words of their own oppression. I think in t he case of the "N" word, black Americans have been hearing it for so long that they decided to just flip one on the people who wanted to make them feel bad for hearing it. They turned it into something positive, but really, I dont see the point of it being something positive unless it's used in the vicinity of white people. Why call other black people "niggas" if it's not necessary? You'd think that if the point was to show whites that we could turn it into a term of endearment then it would only be useful infront of racist whites. I think, I can safely admit that I think the "nigga" craze has gone completely overboard. I dont like it personally and don't see the point unless it's used at a specific time to retaliate against hate in a black person's face.
>Whew. All that took some energy.
Hope I helped you out. <------------ There's only one way to find out...
http://www.liligi.com
http://lilcreepysmiley.blogspot.com/ (LAST UPDATED: AUGUST 9, 2009)
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<3 u Mom: Sep. 3, 1960 -May 1, 2006
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