Problems In The White Community

[Woody]

"This gets better Redwood. I didn't know who were "black like me". As a member of the human race.......I......on the other hand Redwood, take a guess.

[lazarus]

Some people call Obama a Black person. Some call him White.

who calls B Obama white? Where, Why who when?

Redwood if you tell me your ethnicity I'll tell you mine!

[Woody]

Originally Posted By: Redwood

Some people call Obama a Black person. Some call him White.

who calls B Obama white? Where, Why who when?

Redwood if you tell me your ethnicity I'll tell you mine!

I for one call him White.

Regarding Obama ...

He IS white. He is also Black. 50-50

You prefer to call him Black for whatever reason. I may call him White. But we are both right.

I prefer an intelligent exchange of ideas.

If you disagree with anyting I've said ... lets address it directly without name callng.

For example ... you said that you did not say you were "not a racist". I said that hating a person solely based on the color of their skin is racism. You said it is not. So ... this is intelligent conversation. We have clearly defined our differences. And that is helpful. I think that these kind of discussions are fruitful because they more clearly define our differnces.

I find that with many discussions ... our differnces are exaggerated. So ... when we can clearly define our differnces that is fruitful. Otherwise the gulf seems to great.

[Woody]

Originally Posted By: Redwood

Some people call Obama a Black person. Some call him White.

who calls B Obama white? Where, Why who when?

Redwood if you tell me your ethnicity I'll tell you mine!

Laz ...regarding ethnicity .... I am a member of the Human race. I really feel that the Human race is the only race of concern here. I believe in a color blind society. Like MLK ... I dream of the day when the color of your skin does not matter.

[Amelia]

Quote:

Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. (born in Alego, a village in Nyanza Province, Kenya,) and Ann Dunham (born in Wichita, Kansas).[5] His parents met while both were attending the East-West Center of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where his father was enrolled as a foreign student. When Obama was two years old, his parents separated and later divorced; his father went to Harvard to pursue PhD studies, eventually returning to Kenya.[6] His mother married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian foreign student, and they had one daughter. The family moved to Jakarta when Obama was six years old.[7] Four years later, Obama returned to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents.[8] He was enrolled in the fifth grade at Punahou School, a large, private college preparatory school in Honolulu,[9] which he attended through 12th grade, graduating in 1979.[10] His father died in a car accident in Kenya when Obama was 21 years old.[11] Obama's mother died of cancer a few months after the publication of his 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father.[12]

In Dreams from My Father, Obama describes his experiences growing up in his mother's white American middle class family. His knowledge about his absent black Kenyan father came mainly through family stories and photographs. Of his early childhood, Obama wrote: "That my father looked nothing like the people around me—that he was black as pitch, my mother white as milk—barely registered in my mind."[13] As a young adult, he struggled to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial heritage. Obama writes about smoking marijuana and trying cocaine during his teenage years to "push questions of who I was out of my mind."[14]

After high school, Obama studied for two years at Occidental College in California and then transferred to Columbia College in New York City, where he majored in political science with a specialization in international relations. After receiving his Bachelors of Arts degree in 1983, Obama worked for one year at Business International Corporation. In 1985, he moved to Chicago to direct a non-profit project assisting local churches to organize job training programs for residents of poor neighborhoods.[15][16]

Obama entered Harvard Law School in 1988. In February 1990, he gained national recognition for becoming the first African American to be elected president of the Harvard Law Review.[17][18] He obtained his Juris Doctor degree magna cum laude from Harvard in 1991.[16] On returning to Chicago, Obama directed a voter registration drive, then worked for the civil rights law firm Miner, Barnhill & Galland, and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1993 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004.

[John317]

Originally Posted By: John317

The Black Muslims of the 50s and 60s were certainly black supremacists. They taught that all whites were devils and that blacks were superior. Malcolm X was murdered by Black Muslims because he eventually rejected that black supremecist philosophy after he came back from a trip to Africa where he found himself worshipping side by side with white people. The Black Panthers of the 60s also tended to be black supremecist although not as extreme as the Black Muslims. One of its co-founders, Eldridge Cleaver, wrote Soul On Ice to explain his views about race. In that book he talked about raping white women as a way of taking revenge on whites for oppressing blacks. He later repented of those views and became a Christian of sorts and a spokesman for the Heritage Foundation.

The black muslims, or the nation of islam, never owned slaves, they don't have a 400 or 500 year history of owning slaves, or of taking millions of people out of there homeland and cutting them off from their history and culture. As for

Eldredge Cleaver, it's a waste of time discussing him. He was a fraud,...i.e. just bumping his gums.DB

Is your point that since they didn't own slaves, black supremicism is good? I think it's a bad thing for anyone of any race, irrespective of color, to treat others of a different race as not as good as someone else just because of the color of their skin.

The sad fact is that blacks in Africa had slaves thousands of years ago and blacks in Africa continue to have slaves to this very day. In fact, I would be willing to bet that more blacks throughout history have been enslaved by other blacks than by whites and that more blacks have been killed by blacks than by any other group.

If blacks had not been brought to America, almost all blacks would be living in Africa today, where they would have fewer opporuntities to fulfill their talents and abilities and where they would have had a greater chance of having died from disease and starvation.

None of this takes away at all from the fact that it was a very great sin and wrong for whites to have enslaved blacks. My only point is that we need to tell the the whole truth about slavery and keep things in perspective.

As far as Cleaver is concerned, the fact of the matter is that before he returned from Africa in 1978, a large percentage of blacks viewed him as a very important black leader and spokesman, and they saw the supremecist Black Panther Party as being at the very center of the black power movement.

[John317]

Quote:

Can you imagine a National Assoc. for White people ???

Sadly there are groups who think that white people are the only people that the world needs. And they have made clubs of a sort. They are the KKK and Ayrian Nations. Plus all of their offshoots.

But except for the 1920s, when the KKK was it its zenith in influence and power, both the KKK and the Ayrian Brotherhood or Nation, have never been accepted by whites as any kind of true representation of caucasion people. There are reasons for their founding and their organization, but almost no white person thinks of them as speaking for them. Most whites oppose them just as most blacks do.

[Woody]

Regarding "The sad fact is that blacks in Africa had slaves thousands of years ago and blacks in Africa continue to have slaves to this very day. In fact, I would be willing to bet that more blacks throughout history have been enslaved by other blacks than by whites and that more blacks have been killed by blacks than by any other group.

If blacks had not been brought to America, almost all blacks would be living in Africa today, where they would have fewer opporuntities to fulfill their talents and abilities and where they would have had a greater chance of having died from disease and starvation. "

.................................................................

Well said John 317

I would go a step further . Most of the Blacks would have been killed by their own kind through tribal warfare. The tribal kings were slaughtering hundreds of thousands of blacks that were not of their tribe. Then came the idea of slavery. Slavery actually saved the lives of millions of Blacks.

Yes , Blacks are the biggest owners of slaves present and past. If there is any blame here is should go back to the Black tribal leaders who murdered and sold their own kind.

I really don't think that todays Whites should have to pay for what these tribal leaders did and still do today. Lets all get beyond what happened and start a color blind society. Lets have a clean start in America.

I am willing to forgive the blacks for Affirmation Action and I would hope the Blacks are willing to forgive the Black tribal leaders and also the whites who accepted the outcast Blacks.

[Woody]

Originally Posted By: Amelia

Quote:

Can you imagine a National Assoc. for White people ???

Sadly there are groups who think that white people are the only people that the world needs. And they have made clubs of a sort. They are the KKK and Ayrian Nations. Plus all of their offshoots.

But except for the 1920s, when the KKK was it its zenith in influence and power, both the KKK and the Ayrian Brotherhood or Nation, have never been accepted by whites as any kind of true representation of caucasion people. There are reasons for their founding and their organization, but almost no white person thinks of them as speaking for them. Most whites oppose them just as most blacks do.

On contrast ... The NAACP is widely accepted as the voice of the Black community. By individuals and by the Media.

[Woody]

"who calls B Obama white? Where, Why who when?"

[John317]

Quote:

Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. (born in Alego, a village in Nyanza Province, Kenya,) and Ann Dunham (born in Wichita, Kansas).[5] His parents met while both were attending the East-West Center of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where his father was enrolled as a foreign student. When Obama was two years old, his parents separated and later divorced; his father went to Harvard to pursue PhD studies, eventually returning to Kenya.[6] His mother married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian foreign student, and they had one daughter. The family moved to Jakarta when Obama was six years old.[7] Four years later, Obama returned to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents.[8] He was enrolled in the fifth grade at Punahou School, a large, private college preparatory school in Honolulu,[9] which he attended through 12th grade, graduating in 1979.[10] His father died in a car accident in Kenya when Obama was 21 years old.[11] Obama's mother died of cancer a few months after the publication of his 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father.[12]

In Dreams from My Father, Obama describes his experiences growing up in his mother's white American middle class family. His knowledge about his absent black Kenyan father came mainly through family stories and photographs. Of his early childhood, Obama wrote: "That my father looked nothing like the people around me?that he was black as pitch, my mother white as milk?barely registered in my mind."[13] As a young adult, he struggled to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial heritage. Obama writes about smoking marijuana and trying cocaine during his teenage years to "push questions of who I was out of my mind."[14]

After high school, Obama studied for two years at Occidental College in California and then transferred to Columbia College in New York City, where he majored in political science with a specialization in international relations. After receiving his Bachelors of Arts degree in 1983, Obama worked for one year at Business International Corporation. In 1985, he moved to Chicago to direct a non-profit project assisting local churches to organize job training programs for residents of poor neighborhoods.[15][16]

Obama entered Harvard Law School in 1988. In February 1990, he gained national recognition for becoming the first African American to be elected president of the Harvard Law Review.[17][18] He obtained his Juris Doctor degree magna cum laude from Harvard in 1991.[16] On returning to Chicago, Obama directed a voter registration drive, then worked for the civil rights law firm Miner, Barnhill & Galland, and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1993 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004.

No doubt Obama, Tiger Woods, Condy Rice, and fomer General Powell, all tend to share more the value system of whites and also to think more like whites than like blacks. I have been told by many blacks that the above people are "not really black." I think that is tragic for blacks, that people of that quality are rejected as one of their own. It seems like many blacks reject Woods, Rice, and Powell because those people have become successful through nothing but determination, hard work, honesty, talent and character instead of through affirmative action.

[John317]

"who calls B Obama white? Where, Why who when?"

I agree. I know blacks well enough, though, to understand why Obama no doubt identifies himself as black instead of white. The truth is that most whites would probably be astounded if he were to claim to be white, even though he really is half white. That's because in some important ways, black culture is much stronger than white culture. It influences on a fully conscious level the individual who is a member of it in ways that the white culture does not. Similarly Mexican or Indian blood and culture is far thicker than white blood and culture. As an example, my daughters are half white and half Mexican but it is the Mexican blood that makes them "stand out" and that they identify with most. For instance, they love Mexican music more than any other kind of music. They also love the Spanish language more than English. They listen to Mexican traditional music and speak Spanish without any encouragment, whereas they usually only listen to music in English and speak or read English when there is a special reason for them to do so.

It is the same with black cultural icons, behavior and language, all of which work to encourage and strenghen or emphasize black self-identity. By the same token, in a lot of ways whites have allowed their culture and the distinguishing marks of their lives as whites to become weakened and diluted.

Mexican families, for instance, are generally closer than typical middle class white families. They communciate with each other and support one another far more than whites. As a general rule, Whites don't feel as Mexicans do the need to stand together against common enemies that threaten to overcome or defeat them. That is largely because whites are more likely to feel they can get along just fine being alone and independent. It is one reason that whites have a greater tendency to separate from extended family by long distances and communicate less with family members than Mexicans, who usually stay fairly close together and communicate and share with each other on a regular basis.

[Amelia]

Quote:

Mexican families, for instance, are generally closer than typical middle class white families. They communciate with each other and support one another far more than whites. As a general rule, Whites don't feel as Mexicans do the need to stand together against common enemies that threaten to overcome or defeat them. That is largely because whites are more likely to feel they can get along just fine being alone and independent. It is one reason that whites have a greater tendency to separate from extended family by long distances and communicate less with family members than Mexicans, who usually stay fairly close together and communicate and share with each other on a regular basis.

Ah hah!!

Here is another answer to my question of why a person of mixed race would choose to be other than white, aside from the color of their skin.

"Community"! Whites just do not have a sense of community that welcomes someone as a brother/sister or family. Yes, we whites are more likely to be socially "loners" even within our families. I will even hazzard a guess and say that more whites put away their elderly rather than keep them within the family fold and take care of them.

[Dr. Shane]

I moved away from my biological family to become part of the latino community so that I would have a sense of community. This may be one of the reasons that the latino churches grow so much faster than the white churches - because they provide community to the believers. It may also be the reason why so many latinos that are disfellowshipped repent and are rebaptised - because they want to be part of the believing community again.

[Woody]

Shane ... I don't mean to question that latinos repent after being disfellowshipped and are rebaptised. But, I would love to see some stats on that. How many have been disfellowshipped?

[Dr. Shane]

I am not aware that statistics are kept on that. However it is a common occurance in latino churches. I have been involves with latino churches for 12 years now and in my limitted exposure, I have seen it happen numerous occations.

This "lack of community" is definately a problem in the white community.

[Woody]

Sounds good to me. Thanks Shane.

[lazarus]

"who calls B Obama white? Where, Why who when?"

Quote:

Laz ... I hope that Amelia's response answers your question.

Its was an interesting post but I don't know where it answers the question.

[Amelia]

Laz, I didnt see that either. I just posted that so others could see some of Mr Obamas background. It's sad that both his parents are deceised and don't know of his successes.

[lazarus]

If you disagree with anyting I've said ... lets address it directly without name callng.

I'd love to know when I called you a name.

[lazarus]

Quote:

No doubt Obama, Tiger Woods, Condy Rice, and fomer General Powell, all tend to share more the value system of whites and also to think more like whites than like blacks. I have been told by many blacks that the above people are "not really black." I think that is tragic for blacks, that people of that quality are rejected as one of their own.

What is the value system of whites?

There are many other black people who are successful that many blacks would say are black.

Quote:

determination, hard work, honesty, talent and character instead of through affirmative action.

Of course these qualities are white qualities right?

[Dr. Shane]

Let's not make this a black verse white thread. I don't see anything positive coming from that.

Now we did hit on an issue in the white community - lack of community. Can we expand on this discussion and stay out of the black verse white conflict?

[Jeannieb43]

The problem with secualr society is that they tell gays they cannot change. They tell gays they must live out the gay lifestyle.

And just what exactly is the gay lifestyle?

Is it something like the heterosexual lifestyle except between persons of the same gender?

Well, if you ask me there's no common "lifestyle" among gays any more than among heteros. Every single individual lives his/her life according to his/her individual style. Who's been appointed to investigate the private lives of any two persons living together, to judge whether or not it's "acceptable" lifestyle?? How far would you go? -- If they share a common living room? or share a common bathroom? or share a common bedroom? Or travel together on vacations?

I don't have any data on this, but I'd venture to guess that there are just as many celibate gay couples as celibate heteros. This does not mean they don't love each other; it only means their practice doesn't happen to include sexual intercourse.

Will you condemn them also?

[Woody]

"What is the value system of whites? "

Like Shane said ... It is the belief that through hard work you can achieve the American dream. You don't have to have it handed to you through Affirmative Action.

It is the belief that all Americans are created equal and do not have to have hand outs in order to achieve. Affirmation Action promotes racial disharmony and that is what the Blacks live on.

The sooner we believe in a color blind society ... the sooner we will find the race issues disappear.

[Woody]

"Who's been appointed to investigate the private lives of any two persons living together?"

I will try to answer this one ...

It is the GAYS that have appointed ALL of us to do so.

The gays feel that they are discriminated against with employment and housing and you name it. They want all of us to know what their sexual preferences are so that we will not discriminate against them. So ... the government now is required to find this out. And the landlords have to know so they do not discriminate against the gays.

It is the Gays that have the marches to let us all know about what they do in their bedrooms. WHO Cares. I don't march around saying what I do in the privacy of my bedroom. But the gays seem to think it is important for all of us to know.

With the gays ... you really don't need to investigate ... they will gladly announce it to all. But just in case .... they want it on all the forms.

By the way ... I have gays in my family . But I don't advertise it like going down the street in a parade. I think it is a private choice.