Problems In The White Community

[Woody]

I've been reading the posts on this thread. Man, get off that hobby horse! Or, to mix metaphors, y'all are beating that pore old hoss to death! Get a life. There is a great work to do for God. Better to focus on that than to play the race card.

Dave

I would advise you to not read anymore of this thread David. But, let those that want healing to be free to exercise their right and need ... without your critical judgments.

[Naomi]

I'm sincerely sorry to hear of your disillusionment. I hope those things won't cause you to lose your ideals, because, in spite of some bad people, your ideals are worth keeping alive and working toward.

:-) Thanks. It's no problem; it is what it is ... just a part of life's experiences. As for my ideals, I still have them. Life has taught me that every race, nationality, community and family is comprised of those with class, intellect and a spiritual consciousness. As we have determined, these things can not be forced or legislated. I only post on the subject in an attempt to balance the scales.

Quote:

It sounds like you got many of your ideas about certain things in the South from the mass media, but of course when it comes to that sort of thing, they don't tell all of the truth or even half of it. For to tell all of the truth would be too disturbing. Most people don't like the real truth; they just like thinking they do when they can believe a lie that makes them feel good and persuade themselves that it's the truth.

[Dr. Shane]

I guess discussing the black community is much more interesting than discussing the white community.

[Woody]

It doesn't hurt to discuss both does it Shane?

I think we need to hear both perspectives.

[Kountzer]

Aids, cancer, n korea is crazy & has the bomb, the iraq war is a mess, afghanistan is not too far behind, global warming, jihad, terrorists, tsunamis, natural disasters. Compared to all that, racism in america, real or perceived, is not that crucial.

DB

[John317]

Aids, cancer, n korea is crazy & has the bomb, the iraq war is a mess, afghanistan is not too far behind, global warming, jihad, terrorists, tsunamis, natural disasters. Compared to all that, racism in america, real or perceived, is not that crucial.

DB

In many ways I agree with you. That obviously would not be the case if racial issues in this counry were as bad as they were in the 40s, 50s, and early 60s. So we can be glad for the progress.

[John317]

Originally Posted By: David Koot

I've been reading the posts on this thread. Man, get off that hobby horse! Or, to mix metaphors, y'all are beating that pore old hoss to death! Get a life. There is a great work to do for God. Better to focus on that than to play the race card.

Dave

I would advise you to not read anymore of this thread David. But, let those that want healing to be free to exercise their right and need ... without your critical judgments.

Yes, it's good to have someplace for people to go where they can say honestly whatever they really feel or think on this subject. People are sometimes going to say things that others dont like and that's perfectly OK here. When it comes to talking honestly about race, you have to expect that people are going to show anger sometimes because people usually have felt they can't reveal their true thoughts about it. Consequently there can be lot of suppressed frustration and even anger.

I remember reading books written in the early 60s about "black rage," concerning all the anger that blacks then seemed to have. It is still a subject for discussion on some TV and radio talk shows. But today there are also some whites who feel some anger that they might need to talk out. For me it seems to go together with the subject of the problems of white community because they are sort of interconnected. Frankly I think the white and black communities have a kind of love/hate relationship anyway, and maybe they have ever since the days of slavery.

[John317]

I was just reading about Eldredge Cleaver. How he became a republican and an evangelical christian. If he wanted to be a republican, that's okay. I guess he wasn't that big of a fraud. I never heard him lecture. I did hear stokely carmichael. the stuff he was saying was passe, but he still was talking that revolutionary gibberish.

I've read the autobiography of malcolm x 3 or 4 times. After reading the liner notes about how the ghost writer, Alex Haley, had a career in the us coast guard, I too joined the coast guard. I have also read a lot about martin luther king, jr, heard all the sermons, read some of the biographies.

It might help to know or remember that the last years of his life, Cleaver had serious health problems, including diabetes, which can affect one's thinking and judgment. Near the end, he was arrested for stealing some old furniture from a house, which I am sure he never would have done if he had had his health. It was kinda sad.

Also, he saw a lot of things in Cuba and elsewhere that really disillusioned him about Marxism. He witnessed racism in Cuba and even in China. In Cuba, of course, black Cubans are not treated as well as the Hispanic Cubans. Also in China, there have been times when African students have been badly treated. Anyway, his turning Republican was a response or reaction to things he experienced when he was a Leftist.

I am convinced that in his own way, by co-founding the Black Panther Party, Cleaver was sincere in his desire to help blacks, but he just chose the wrong path, in my judgment. It would have been better had he gone the peaceful route of Martin Luther King. I think King and blacks' close relationship at that time to the church was the reason the Civil Rights Movement never turned bloody, which it could have been if it had followed the path of the Black Muslims.

Did you ever hear Malcolm X's talk on "the ballot or the bullit"? He gave that speech not too long before he went to Africa and changed his mind about violence and hate. I wish he'd have lived. About the time he was murdered was when he was just beginning to come into his prime and have something good to offer. In my opinion Malcolm X was 100 times the man Louis Farakahn ever was.

[aka]

Problems in the white community?

Interesting what you wrote here saying "It might help to know or remember that the last years of his life, Cleaver had serious health problems, including diabetes, which can affect one's thinking and judgment."

That fact about diabetes is new to me. I never heard that before.

A certain type of diabetes has this Forum's boss.

Can we draw similar conclusions on his thinking and judgments?

[Woody]

Serious Health problems can include many problems that DO effect ones thinking and judgments. Like all health problems ... each one effects humans differently from one individual to another.

[Kountzer]

I was influenced by this sda uncle of mine early. I didn't join the church til much later. When I was in the 8th grade I used to hang out with the older boys, guys that were already in high school. We would play sandlot ball, walk to the high school games, stuff like that. Along the way, they would all be talking about the autobiography of malcolm x, and eldridge cleaver's soul on ice. Naturally, I had to read those books also. Malcolm x had the biggest influence on me. I read soul on ice to find out what happened to the black power movement after Malcolm had left the scene.

I intrinsically knew 3 things then: that sda stuff my uncle was telling me about the sabbath and all was the truth. Before that I attended a baptist church. I knew that Malcolm's choice to become a muslim was not the way to go, not for me anyway. I also knew that the fact that Eldridge Cleaver used maoist type communism as the basis of his beliefs was an even worse way to go.

I haven't paid much attention to Cleaver since then, and that was at least 30 years ago.

DB

[John317]

Problems in the white community?

Interesting what you wrote here saying "It might help to know or remember that the last years of his life, Cleaver had serious health problems, including diabetes, which can affect one's thinking and judgment."

That fact about diabetes is new to me. I never heard that before.

A certain type of diabetes has this Forum's boss.

Can we draw similar conclusions on his thinking and judgments?

Not necessarily. It depends on many factors, not least of which is whether the person who has it is controlling his blood surgar level through diet and proper uses of insulin. Many people don't follow the doctors orders about it and lots of people have diabetes but aren't aware of it.

[John317]

... they would all be talking about the autobiography of malcolm x, and eldridge cleaver's soul on ice. Naturally, I had to read those books also. Malcolm x had the biggest influence on me. I read soul on ice to find out what happened to the black power movement after Malcolm had left the scene.

I intrinsically knew 3 things then: that sda stuff my uncle was telling me about the sabbath and all was the truth. Before that I attended a baptist church. I knew that Malcolm's choice to become a muslim was not the way to go, not for me anyway. I also knew that the fact that Eldridge Cleaver used maoist type communism as the basis of his beliefs was an even worse way to go.

I haven't paid much attention to Cleaver since then, and that was at least 30 years ago.

DB

Cleaver wrote a companion piece called Soul on Fire, explaining his change from Leftist revolutionary to Christian.

I think you made the right choice to avoid those radical ideologies. I was very attracted to them at one period of my life. Vietnam radicalized a lot of young people during the late 60s and early 70s. It sort of swallowed up the Civil Rights Movement because the issue of the war was viewed as more crucial since the main objective of CRM, the Civil Rights Act, had already been passed.

I was a teenager when Cleaver was a presidentail candidate on the Peace and Freedom ticket. He made appearances on various TV talk shows, including the Louis Lomax show, which I used to watch a lot. But not very long afterwards, Cleaver and some other Black Panther's were involved in a shoot out with police. There were people killed in that gun battle and Cleaver was arrested. Cleaver jumped bail and went to Cuba and eventually on to Algeria. From there he wrote some good stuff, including fiction that was published in Evergreen, a highly reputable literary magazine of that time. I followed Cleaver's experiences closely in those days because I admired him very much, along with Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. One time I walked down a street in San Francisco and was robbed by about 5 black teenagers only a little younger than I was. They took a camera and my wallet and some other personal stuff. Then I started talking to them about Cleaver and within a few minutes they had given my things back to me. That shows the interest in Eldridge Cleaver among even the kids on the streets of the black community in those days.

Today I find that such kids don't care for the most part about political and social issues. I try to get them interested in reading books and in history but it's hard going. I've never even found one among the kids I take care of who's heard of Eldridge Cleaver, much less read his book.

[Kountzer]

Some parts of San Franciso are dangerous for anyone, white, black or whatever. Places like the tenderloin, some parts of the mission district, even along Market street.

[Amelia]

Quote:

Places like the tenderloin

I don't even want to think about how that name came to be.

[olger]

Why do you think poor church attendance is a problem? Maybe it just shows an accurate assessment of how useful attending church is!

Why do you think homosexuality is a problem? Is there any evidence at all that its incidence today is higher than in the past or in other groups today?

/Bevin

If a person's heart is locked, going to church only frustrates them.

olger