Across America, Latino Community Sighs With Relief

[Tez3]

Sorry but regardless of their skin colour, their religion, their ancestry and provided they are a citizen of your country….aren’t they…just Americans?

I think they are only all Americans to those of us outside of America!

 

[Steve]

I think they are only all Americans to those of us outside of America!

Honestly, that's pretty typical. I tend to lump the UK into one group as well, even though I know that there are discrete cultural identities within that very small geographic area.

In America, though, I think that it's more about the relative youth of the country. It is a country of immigrants with some relatively recent cultural baggage. So, you have people who are proud to be American, who are also proud to be of X, Y or Z stock. Whether that's African-American, Boriqua or Scandihoovian. The double standard I'm pointing out, though, is that caucasians do it as much as anyone, but don't tend to recognize the behavior for what it is. The Scandinavians, Irish and Italians are often extremely proud of a cultural heritage many have never experienced first hand. As I said, I'm guilty of it myself.

And just to be clear, the only thing that irritates me is the implication that white people don't do it.

5-0 kenpo, if I misunderstood your point, I apologize. I will say, though, that it's human nature to want to be distinguished from the crowd in some way. If it's not cultural, it's something else. I don't personally have a problem with it.

 

[billc]

Ken Morgan, you're right. Once someone from somewhere else becomes a citizen, they are as American as anyone from the founding. That is the magic of the United States. One of my favorite examples is the late night host Craig Ferguson. He just became a citizen, having originally been a citizen of Scotland. He is now one of us. Big loss to Scotland though, he is a really funny guy. Please, all potential citizens, do it the right way. It would prevent a lot of grief all the way around. The system is slow and expensive, lets fix that so that it moves faster and smoother. That way we can drain the brain power, the hard work ethic and the spirit of entrepeneurism from the other countries of the world.

 

[5-0 Kenpo]

View points aside, to take someone of obvious European descent, and try to pass them of as simply African instead of South African, is kind of insulting. And, by that I mean insulting to African Americans that know damn well that kid's family originally came from Europe. If you want to play this ridiculous game, go right ahead, but its asinine.
Sean

Do you really want to talk about asinine?

I have never looked at a legitimate questionairre and seen a classification regarding individual countries. Using the lingo of the United States, why would they say South African-American vs. African-American.

And as a so-called African-American, I don't find it insulting at all.

If I was "white-skinned", but my family lived in, say, South Africa, for 300 years, and I choose to move to the United States, from where am I descended?

But let's go back even further. Where are all humans descended from? Hmmmm? Africa, perhaps?

That is why this game is asinine. We pick an arbitrary time in history to determine where you are "descended" from, all to suit some political and ego-driven game.

Oh, by the way, why does someone who has never even been to Africa have the right to call themselves African-American, but not someone who was actually born and raised there does not?

 

[5-0 Kenpo]

5-0 kenpo, if I misunderstood your point, I apologize. I will say, though, that it's human nature to want to be distinguished from the crowd in some way. If it's not cultural, it's something else. I don't personally have a problem with it.

Yes it is. But there is a difference when you use that "distinguishing" characteristic as a defining one and use it to separate yourself from your fellow citizens.

I'll give you an example.

I'm a cop. Now, if I told you that and that was the end of the conversation, I have "distinguished" myself from you. I'm sure that you wouldn't even mind me using such a characterization to convince the bouncers in Vegas to let me skip through line (unless you're in it, of course). But if I uses that status in such a way to use it as an excuse for say, speeding, running red lights, etc., I'm sure that you would have a problem with that.

We may both be citizens, but I'm a cop, and that separates my rights and priviliges from yours. It's the same thing.

 

[Touch Of Death]

Do you really want to talk about asinine?

I have never looked at a legitimate questionairre and seen a classification regarding individual countries. Using the lingo of the United States, why would they say South African-American vs. African-American.

And as a so-called African-American, I don't find it insulting at all.

If I was "white-skinned", but my family lived in, say, South Africa, for 300 years, and I choose to move to the United States, from where am I descended?

But let's go back even further. Where are all humans descended from? Hmmmm? Africa, perhaps?

That is why this game is asinine. We pick an arbitrary time in history to determine where you are "descended" from, all to suit some political and ego-driven game.

Oh, by the way, why does someone who has never even been to Africa have the right to call themselves African-American, but not someone who was actually born and raised there does not?

If you don't like the term fine.
Sean

 

[Blade96]

the term african american, no matter how noble its intentions, always seemed weird to me. a lot of the people are many generations american and you'd have to go back to slave times to find anyone from africa. The people living today have little if anything to do with africa - they are americans. If you use that term then I must be a 'british-canadian' since my ancestors or some of them anyways, came from there.

 

[Tez3]

People may lump the UK as being all one but they are one because of conquest not by actual choice. In fact the countries are now separating.

Wasn't the original premise though that everyone who went to America to settle and subsequently had families etc there were all Americans? That everyone was the same...an American? it's what's been peddled for a long time by American to the rest of us for sure.

 

[WC_lun]

People may lump the UK as being all one but they are one because of conquest not by actual choice. In fact the countries are now separating.

Wasn't the original premise though that everyone who went to America to settle and subsequently had families etc there were all Americans? That everyone was the same...an American? it's what's been peddled for a long time by American to the rest of us for sure.

That is the ideal. The implementation of that ideal has beean a bit rocky through our history, especially if you are a person of color.

 

[billc]

Using African-american, latino-american, mexican-american, irish-american, is one way politicians line us up against each other. they use group politics to keep us angry at one another, which lets them step in and use our tax dollars to reward their favored groups, punish their opposite groups and keep us from being at peace with each other. one of the best comment I have seen on this came from the Actor Morgan Freeman in an interview about Black History month. I will try to find it.

Morgan Freeman on how to end racism.

 

[granfire]

Using African-american, latino-american, mexican-american, irish-american, is one way politicians line us up against each other. they use group politics to keep us angry at one another, which lets them step in and use our tax dollars to reward their favored groups, punish their opposite groups and keep us from being at peace with each other. one of the best comment I have seen on this came from the Actor Morgan Freeman in an interview about Black History month. I will try to find it.

Morgan Freeman on how to end racism.

HAH!
I knew you couldn't possibly get everything wrong!

Yes, the us vs them keeps the money rolling.

(but agreeing with a black man on why Black History Month is BS still gets you weird looks)

 

[billc]

Only from certain people who probably know how worried I am about those looks.

 

[elder999]

Using African-american, latino-american, mexican-american, irish-american, is one way politicians line us up against each other. they use group politics to keep us angry at one another, which lets them step in and use our tax dollars to reward their favored groups, punish their opposite groups and keep us from being at peace with each other. one of the best comment I have seen on this came from the Actor Morgan Freeman in an interview about Black History month. I will try to find it.

Morgan Freeman on how to end racism.

Seems like this comes up every couple of years. No surprise, I think you-and Morgan Freeman-are completely wrong. I said as much in this thread, five years ago:

Does Black History Month actually separate us as Americans?

Not if it’s done right.

Freeman is hardly the first African American to gripe about Black History Month.

Funny story:

About 15 years ago, I was working in the training department at a commercial nuclear power plant, back in New York. I was partnered with a Caucasian fellow named Bob, who was and is simply one of the most upright, kind and completely unflappable people I’ve ever dealt with. We had lots of fun conversations in what was essentially a boring job-at least, it was supposed to be boring; when it was exciting, there was usually something terribly wrong.

Anyway, one day in late January-and remember, this is winter in upstate N.Y., cold to rival Alaska-I jokingly said, And what is up with giving us February? I know what it was, ‘they want their own month now? Let’s give ‘em February, and there’ll be no marching….” Bob looks right at me, deadpan, doesn’t miss a beat and in the utmost sincerity says, “It’s not your Black History Month; it’s all of ours.”

To which I could only say he was right-he was, like me, usually right….

More seriously, an uncle of mine used to complain, “Why do we get the shortest month?” Why, indeed?

It was Carter G. Woodson, a great black historian educated at Harvard and the University of Chicago who initiated what would become Black History month with “Negro History Week,” in 1926. He used to complain about it, too. He hoped the event would eventually put itself out of business by promoting the respectful integration of Negro history with everyone else’s history. In many ways, black history studies have made a lot of progress since those days. In many other ways, we’re still waiting.

Woodson chose the second week of February so the big week would coincide with the birthdays of Frederick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. If Frederick Douglas, who escaped slavery to become a pioneer journalist, diplomat and advisor to Lincoln, were anywhere near as well integrated into American history studies as he is into African American history studies, there would be no need for Black History Month.

And the fact is, most Americans have at least a vague idea of who Douglas, G.W. Carver and Crispus Attucs were, and that’s about as far as it goes-they may have heard of these men, or even remember them in detail, but what they really remember is Paul Revere, and “two if by sea,” even though it didn’t quite happen that way. Sadly, there are numerous other African Americans throughout American history who made substantial contributions to America, and odds are good that without Black History Month, many of you would never know about them..

Fact is, there isn’t one aspect of today’s American culture that hasn’t been informed by or some form of a response to the presence of African Americans (and yes, that is a challenge), in spite of my famous joke about convening a meeting of ‘the Society of African American Nuclear Engineer..”(you know, as I’m heading off to sit on the toilet….)-and yes, along with my usually more noted American Indian heritage, mine is essentially an Anglicized African American name, and I am descended from freed slaves-who went on to rather famous success in shipping, agriculture and commerce, though one ancestor was burned alive in the slave riots of new York in 1712…..things you probably didn’t read about in American history class, but should have…..

Morgan Freeman offers a delightfully enlightened viewpoint on how to perceive people as individuals, but as far as eliminating racism goes-and it still exists-I’ve never known a problem to go away by not talking about it. The French sort of tried that: they swept their race problems under the rug in the spirit of “liberte, egalite, fraternite”, and refused, as a matter of French law, to recognize that different races exist, which made it hard, if not impossible, for the law to deal with decades of racial discrimination. Long standing racial and ethnic grievances led to the recent uprisings by poor, largely unemployed Arab and African youths in towns across France, just as they led to riots throughout American history.

We Amercians need not, and should not run from our own racial past. It is very much a part of our turbulent history, from the great debate the Framers of the Constitution staged over how to count slaves for purposes of reapportionment (“three-fifths of a person”??) to today’s first black woman Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice.

The bad old days of separtism tried to erase black folks from American history. Black History Month , if only for that month, puts us back in. It is not “:ridiculous” to study the tragedies and triumphs of the many, many people who made this country what it is. They have a lot to teach us. We need Black History Month. We don’t need to limit it to blacks only-or to only a month.

]America's greatness comes from its celebration of diversity, our embracing of it-from the variousw Chinatowns and Korea towns, to Milwaukee's (and others) Poland town, and New York's Little (by now, very little) Italy, people here have always gathered with their own ethnicity-whether by choice, lack thereof or force, and our culture has always been an amalgamation of those separate cultures, a trend that continues today, through things as diverse themselves as fashion, music, sports, cuisine and language. The words we use to denote ourselves-and, make no mistake, I prefer "black," to "African-American," I've always been black, and I prefer "Indian" to "Native American," I was Indian first-are part of how we hold onto those old places our ancestors came from, even when it's physically apparent in one way or another, but especially-for you dominant paradigm (European descent)-when it isn't.

 

[5-0 Kenpo]

Seems like this comes up every couple of years. No surprise, I think you-and Morgan Freeman-are completely wrong. I said as much in this thread, five years ago:

I think both of you are right and both wrong, though I agree with Freeman as the ultimate ideal.

In our society today, it may be necessary to have a Black History Month. The reason being that the Black contribution to American society is often left out of regular history. I mean, we'll hear that Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, but we don't hear about how Charles Drew was revolutionary in developing large blood storage facilities (blood banks). They are both equally momentus accomplishments, but we often only hear about the one and not the other.

The key, then, is not to pull out one groups accomplishments and put them to the forefront for a month, but to seamlessly integrate them into normal historical education and teaching.

America's greatness comes from its celebration of diversity, our embracing of it-from the variousw Chinatowns and Korea towns, to Milwaukee's (and others) Poland town, and New York's Little (by now, very little) Italy, people here have always gathered with their own ethnicity-whether by choice, lack thereof or force, and our culture has always been an amalgamation of those separate cultures, a trend that continues today, through things as diverse themselves as fashion, music, sports, cuisine and language. The words we use to denote ourselves-and, make no mistake, I prefer "black," to "African-American," I've always been black, and I prefer "Indian" to "Native American," I was Indian first-are part of how we hold onto those old places our ancestors came from, even when it's physically apparent in one way or another, but especially-for you dominant paradigm (European descent)-when it isn't.

I can agree with that, but only if that were the main way that it is used. That has not been my experience among certain communities.

 

[granfire]

I think both of you are right and both wrong, though I agree with Freeman as the ultimate ideal.

In our society today, it may be necessary to have a Black History Month. The reason being that the Black contribution to American society is often left out of regular history. I mean, we'll hear that Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, but we don't hear about how Charles Drew was revolutionary in developing large blood storage facilities (blood banks). They are both equally momentus accomplishments, but we often only hear about the one and not the other.

The key, then, is not to pull out one groups accomplishments and put them to the forefront for a month, but to seamlessly integrate them into normal historical education and teaching.



I can agree with that, but only if that were the main way that it is used. That has not been my experience among certain communities.

I think it has ebbed down in the last few years though. But it is really sad that you still need the special month to honor people who have contributed to mankind. You know, those usually left out, for no good reason.

However, there is also a bit of an unfair treatment of the other 'minorities': I know they have a month, but could not name it for you if you beat it out of me...

 

[billc]

I used to think of myself as a German/Irish american because that is the way everyone looks at themeselves. Where did you ancestors come from. Having looked at that over time I came to realize, being American is really more accurate and should be emphasized over where one's ancestors came from. the Irish-american, black or African-american, polish-american and so on does nothing but focus on differences that really have no meaning today. Sure, celebrating different cultures is fun, but the focus should be on the fun and not on the "we are different from you" aspect. It is really time to move on and just be Americans. Phase out Black history month and fix the history books, that will help heal the racial divide.