There is a link to a VERY EYE OPENING website that is poppin up in everyone's email in boxes. Its called ABOLISH THE N WORD!!! I swear the site has really made me evaluate my thinking tremendously. I must warn you ...the images are shocking. If you are not ready to face the REAL....keep it movin!!!! * * Abolish the "N" WordLiberal policies arise from the best of intentions, which is why when they fail it is so difficult to change them. Affirmative Action is a policy that has had some successes for individual Black Americans, but overall has been a dismal experiment in reverse racism. One of the worst, unintended consequences of Affirmative Action has been the (unconscious) identification by Black men with the image of themselves as unable to compete in the modern world. I wrote about the unconscious processes involved in Race and the Unconscious, and included this:
When you hear rap groups "singing" about pimps and ho's, and hear young black men refer to themselves with the "N" word (sorry, I am too old to feel comfortable with that word), you are hearing the glorification of their devalued status, a reaction formation. The adolescent whose parents expect him to be a failure will, most of the time, glorify his failures; this is based on the unconscious identification with the devalued aspects of the parent which have formed part of the core of the person's self concept. These people should be shamed, not glorified.
A growing black middle class suggests there is nothing inherent in our black American countrymen that precludes their investment in the American experience.
Ultimately, however, the black population of our country will never be able to succeed until they realize that they are unconsciously buying into an unstated meme saying that they are unable to compete; as long as they believe they cannot compete, they will never be able to compete.
On CNN last week, a young Black woman discussed the web site, Abolish the "N" Word, which was designed to stimulate a vitally needed conversation within the Black community about the metastasizing use of the "N" word among young people.
Race remains one of the various "third rail" topics in American politics. Anyone who dares to deviate from the accepted "Black victim narrative" risks being labeled a racist; jobs and livelihoods have been lost over such transgressions. For a non-Black American the temptation is strong to ignore the whole issue; if the Black community wants to persist in damaging themselves with their behavior, why should I intervene? Worse, many members of my parents' generation risked bodily injury to stand and walk beside our Black brethren in the days of the Civil Rights Struggle. The brother of a close colleague of my father was murdered in the 1960s for trying to organize Black voters in Mississippi, yet many White civil rights activists felt their "thanks" was to be castigated by a younger generation of more radical Black activists in the 1970s.
However, we are now living in different times. America is no longer institutionally racist and there are few people who feel it is appropriate to mouth openly racist tropes, even if some still think them. I have worked with many Black patients and appreciate that they have to negotiate various difficulties that I have been spared but the sad truth of it is that the primary damage that racism still exerts on our Black countrymen and women is self inflicted.
Abolish the "N" Word is long overdue. Here is how they describe their provenance:
As a small group of Brooklynites who grew up during the original old school era of hip hop, we remember when rap songs never used the "N" word or profanity for that matter. We remember referring to our friends as homeboy and home girl. And we were still cool. We remember the airing of "Roots" and the sting of hearing the "N" word on national television for the first time. Now we ask ourselves what happened. What happened in our community that the "N" word is tossed around freely in everyday language? When the use of it makes you cool, down, accepted.
Somehow, homeboys morphed into thugs and bullies, with all the psychopathology of such people. Here is part of the wikipedia entry for N.W.A:
N.W.A. (Niggaz With Attitude) was a hip hop group that was formed in Compton, California in 1986. Over the course of the five years the group was together, they continually redefined the face of West Coast hip hop in both lyrical and instrumental ways. N.W.A was one of the first gangsta rap groups to achieve widespread commercial success.
N.W.A's lyrics were vile and celebrated the worst in the poor Black community, and the Rappers themselves became fabulously wealthy selling "songs" like "Dopeman", "Findum F*ckum and Flee", "I'd Rather F*ck You", "One Less Bitch", and their seminal "hit", "F*ck Tha Police". I am sure I reveal myself as hopelessly "square" by pointing out that their songs devalued everything that is generally thought of as loving and good. However, words matter, what we say matters, and how we refer to ourselves matters. N.W.A explained their self appellation in Niggaz 4 Life, in a song which is all about the glory of pulling the trigger:
I call myself a nigger 'cause my skin won't whiten I call myself a nigger 'cause the sh*t that I'm writing Hypes me, hypes other mother f*ckers around me And that's the reason why they want to surround me And ask me: why do I call myself a nigger-o Ain't none of their f*ckin' business 'cause I'll let the
trigger go So get out of my presence, and get out of my sight 'Cause MC Ren is a nigger for Life You're a nigger 'til you die If you're a poor nigger, then you're a poor nigger If you're a rich nigger, you're a rich nigger But you never stop being a nigger And if you get to be educated, you's an education nigger
It's plain to see, you can't change me 'Cause I'm a be a nigger for Life
The current generation of Rappers have continued the debasement of their own culture and people. 50 Cent's web page shows him staring out and pointing a gun at the viewer, with links to his lyrics to songs celebrating thugs, bitches, and ho's. It is a lovely picture. As the founders of Abolish the "N" Word point out, it is the single most devalued term you can use for a Black person; they helpfully offer some history (a subject most Rappers seem to have missed in their schooling): The definition of the "N" word was a lazy person with no self respect, no regard for family, ignorant, stupid, slow moving, did not speak proper English and had childlike qualities. The caricatures of Black people in the early 1900's encapsulated this definition. The age of the Harlem Renaissance challenged this idea. Alain Leroy Locke, the first Black Rhode Scholar, is credited as the founder of the Harlem Renaissance. He encouraged Artists, Writers, Poets and Musicians to fully express their African pride by aligning with their rich West African History. This era brought about the "New Negro".
What happened to the Black community between the Harlem Renaissance and the advent of N.W.A? Part of what happened was the growth and development of an entire bureaucracy devoted to the ongoing victim status of the American Black. There is no question that on an individual basis many poor Black Americans became materially better off with the Great Society programs, but what they lost was so much more significant. Victims have no dignity and no agency; they are helpless and weak, like children. Worse, the toxic combination of anti-male radical feminism that began to seep into the culture along with the growth of the nanny state, had horrendous consequences for the poor Black community; their men were devalued (after all, they were seen as incapable of supporting a family without assistance) and unnecessary. Since a young woman could raise a child (financially) without any input from "her baby's father" (in a locution that has become all too popular), the father's importance in the life of the child was diminished. Boys growing up without fathers have no fully human, three dimensional, role models for becoming men; as a result they have adopted a caricature of manhood which depends on demanding and coercing "respect". The results, stuck at the level of a Shame Culture, have been all too apparent in the destruction of the poor Black family.
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In psychoanalysis, "projective identification" is a term used to describe what happens when one person projects into another and "inducts" them into their psychodrama. Thus we see a dance of mutual projective identification between rage-filled blacks (which, I should emphasize, is undoubtedly a loud minority of blacks) and guilt-ridden white liberals who can spuriously eliminate their guilt by adopting a condescending attitude toward blacks: in short, as Steele puts it, "we'll throw you a bone like affirmative action if you'll just let us reduce you to your race so we can take moral authority for 'helping' you."
It matters not one bit that most of these liberal programs are not only ineffective, but that they actually harm blacks. The point is not to have an impact on external reality, but on internal reality: to purpose is to reduce black rage and mitigate white guilt. In this regard, the left certainly is the "reality based community," since it is rooted in the very real and enduring internal world of psychological fantasy. In many ways, as any psychoanalyst can tell you, this world might even be less subject to change than the external world, which by comparison is relatively easy to manipulate.
Thus, in this classic liberal ghost dance everybody feels better. Plus, the fact that the programs won't work guarantees that "black rage" will continue, so that the dance can go on ad infinitum. In this little charade, blacks are supposed to be grateful to their liberal masters. If, like Steele, or Thomas Sowell, or Clarence Thomas, or Ken Blackwell, they are not grateful, then they will be attacked by the left as "Uncle Toms." But as Steele points out, "When they called you a nigger back in the days of segregation, at least they didn't ask you to be grateful."
Ultimately, it is up to the Black community to repudiate the devalued image of themselves that has been seized by the worst in their community (and happily welcomed by still extant white racists, as well as unconsciously accepted by white liberals) but it would be a tremendous help to their community if the greater society would finally repudiate Affirmative Action as the racist and devaluing program that it is. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'd been wanting to post on this subject for a while, but I have gotten some flack in the past for being "racist" or making statements that made some feel uncomfortable...AGAIN, my bad! For the purpose of clarification only...RACISM is.......
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[source: blog critics]
"The true meaning of racism has been lost in our culture. One off-color comment from a black man on international TV and people are to quick to call him a racist. However, the terms racist and racism are being twisted to get a point of view across when actually the correct terminology should be prejudice, or pointing out the fact that there are so few people of African descent participating in the winter game.
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Racism is not just using a racial slur. Racism is when a system of people use power and politics to oppress another group of people. When we look at racism we need to see an oppression experienced by black and minority ethnic groups predominantly on the basis of their skin color, and of their culture and identity. Blacks, no matter how hard we try, no matter how many chemical peels or nose jobs, cannot remove the hue from our skin.....continue"
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IMO:
There is a difference between racism and predjudice and me saying "Black Power" or identifying myself as "Pro Black" does not put down anyone...RELAX!!!!!.....in fact, it is said with the intention of uplifiting a group of people that really need it....so its very positive. Read this article for a great break down of the differences.
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Sooooo, that being said, How can Black people be racist?...LOL! We have no power! If Black people are racist against anyone...we are against our selves!!!
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CLICK HERE -------> For more answers to your questions about racism.
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