What do you think the next suburb to experience white flight will be?

[bungalowdweller]

Originally Posted by edsg25

oh, so we can assess races based on their actions.

well as someone who happens to be "white" (whatever the hell that is) and holds no meaning or importance (and damned well no loyalty) to such an "honor", I'm going to go out on the limb on this one for you, Nature.

So here we go:

Let's look at Mother Earth today although she is a pitiful sight indeed, depleted of resources and with a climate that has gone to hell. Call it global warming, or more acurately, global climate change, or what you will, but it is happening and destroying us. Along with the waste of resources. And the global corporations that make decisions based on their needs rather than what is good for the planet and its inhabitant (human and otherwise).

And then look at the good, ol' USA, a mere 5% of the world's population using and abusing some 25% of its resources, starting wars of economic interest and empire...just like the Europeans who let the model for us.

And guess what that whole thing above has in common and how it relates to what we're discussing here:

THE PEOPLE MOST RESPONSIBLE, IN CHARGE, AND THE MOTIVATION ARE MOSTLY WHITE.

Non other "race" comes near white folks in what they are doing to destroy mother earth (and Asian blame comes just because of their emulation of whites).

Yes, whites are destroying this planet more than any other racial group.

So, though I'm white, I'm sure as hell glad i'm not invested in that "status" because if I were and if I believe in race responsiblity and solidarity, I'd be pretty damned ashamed of being white.

Luckily for me, whiteness means nothing and I know there are plenty of other wonderful white folk as me...not the least bit interested in their skin color and not have the least desire to sort any of us by race.

Again, it's hard to have any hope for a nation that got itself into this incredible mess we're in when one knows, along with all other problems, that in two thousand f-ing nine, there are still idiotic Americans who care about race.

Yes, idiots. And i have no reservation about saying so.

To many white Americans, race means just a color. There are no cultural or ethnic connotations. However, there are many who used to be called "white ethnics". They were first generation, second generation and third generation Americans who were brought up speaking a language other than English. They didn't see themselves primarily as "white". They saw themselves as Irish, Italian, Swedish, Greek, Polish, etc. heritage although they saw themselves primarily American if they were born here.

I understand that "whiteness studies" are a big thing at the Ivy Leagues now. For the uninitiated, the idea is that white people are the cause of all of the evil in the world and that they have contributed little or nothing to culture and civilization. Whites are seen as undesirables to be wiped out.

I am not an idiot because I care about race or my culture. A huge problem in the American black community stems from the fact that black Africans brought as slaves LOST their culture, their language, their ethnicity. It is unfortunate that most don't even know where in Africa or the Indies their people began.

If the struggle of your ancestors means nothing to you that's your business. My culture and heritage mean alot to me. Calling others idiots, however, does nothing to bolster your argument. This board is a civil, friendly one. We can disagree without name-calling.

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by ajolotl

This same argument has been made historically against many groups of people (including the Dagos). It might be correct, but I doubt it. I just judge in my lifetime all of the cerebral things that I was told blacks would never be able to do (quarterback, CEO, manager, coach, mathematician, etc.). They seem capable of excelling in all of these areas. I also don't think that an IQ test measures anybody's innate intelligence.

You can't prove any of this and neither can I. Don't act like you have the facts on your side. It is your opinion. I disagree with it based on what I have witnessed and learned over the past 40+ years. It has nothing to do with Obama so please stop that facile nonsense.

when Italians came to America in large waves between the Civil War and WWI, they were hardly looked at as "white". in fact, the concept of "whiteness" was "granted" to southern and eastern European immigrants for one reason: to spike the "white" population of the US in fear of the black slaves recented freed during the war.

Italians turned to crime for the same reason Jews did (both heavily into organized crime in the US...and aj, while you're Italian, I'm Jewish) because they didn't have the same avenues of making it as established WASPish Americans did. And they were committing plenty of white collar crimes that matched what the immigrants did pretty damned well.

Black Americans went from slavery to a century of Jim Crow to the violent fight of the life-threatening civil rights movement and all the inequity and resentment of that fight for basic human rights generated. Blacks don't have to dig back to Jamestown to find virulant prejudice; many are easily old enough to have gone to segregated schools, buses, and lines for drinking fountains.

Sadly some here wish only to add insult to injury.

But I pity those folks. White America falls to minority status in US public schools in about 2023 if estimates hold up. Those same estimates have whites as a minority in the general population in the early 2040s.

Of course, so many whites intermarry with Asians, Hispanics, and...OMB....blacks, that whites are shriking so much by assimilation that nobody is going to notice the demographic change when it occurs.

So for those you still cheering for white America: enjoy. Your days are very, very numbered. And as a white American, all I can say is damned good. We'll be better off when race doesn't exist.

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by bungalowdweller

If the struggle of your ancestors means nothing to you that's your business. My culture and heritage mean alot to me. Calling others idiots, however, does nothing to bolster your argument. This board is a civil, friendly one. We can disagree without name-calling.

so where did I say that the struggle of my ancenstors meant nothing to me? Nowhere.

What I will say is there is no such thing as a common "white culture". That culture isn't white, it is main stream American, designed to give a special status to white Americans over the "minorities". No, Bungalo, blacks didn't want to be excluded from this little club; the decision to keep them out came from their "betters". Down through the years, white Texans have done a similiar exclusion of hispanics while white Californians have the same to Asians.

Whites from England, Russia, Greece, Italy, and vast other parts of Europe and adjacent areas had no common culture. Their lives were vastly different from each other. I'm Jewish. I'm white. White Germans put white Jews in ovens....called them a different race (had a book to tell them how to classify), but it was still whites putting whites in ovens. Now what do I think about Germans after all that: I think Germans are......are.....great. I mean in the majority. What a magnificent people: after WWII, the youth of Germany was appauled at their elders actions, called them to task, and wanted them to be held responsible for what they did. Germany earns endless praise for me on that one.

African Americans, on the other hand, have a shared exerperience. They can trace their roots to the same coastal region of west Africa and have shared 100s of years of slavery in the colonies and the US that replaced them, plus the whole Jim Crow experience. There is nothing comparable for whites.

Of course, you can feel free to give me one example of "white culture" that comes inherently from whiteness/European background as opposed to mainstream American status that a white majority was able to foster (this being a nation that once used the quaint expression that you can do what you wish to in America if you are "free, white, and over 21.)

Look at Hispanics. It is as meaningless a connection as "white". Technically anyone from a Spanish (or Portuguese) speaking nation is labeled "hispanic" for demographic purposes...be he a very white Spaniard, a very black Hatian, or a virtually pure blooded Indian from Bolivia.

That's the model for white America. It isn't for black America.

So, yes, bungalow, call me an ass, call me a jerk, call me an idiot, but I'll stick to what I say:

anyone who cares about racial differences as a means to divide, assess, and separate is a total and complete jerk.

[BRU67]

Originally Posted by promis1

Well, I guess the majority of this country are total idiots. Reality is that race will always be a factor until certain undesirable races start to take responsibility for their actions and stop laying their bad decisions on the rest of society.

Eeek! Who did you tell me to vote for again, so I can avoid voting for that person?

[edsg25]

I feel a need to explain myself here and perhaps apologize for how angry I have come across on this thread. They is a reason why i have appeared angry here:

I am angry.

I love my country. Always have and always will. And I am proud of the progress we are made. But I still have anger for how we have treated our fellow Americans and how that treatment, as evidenced here on this thread (thank you BRU67 for the way you, too, exercised your level of disgust) still is being dished out today.

I am angry that centuries of slavery, Jim Crow, and civil rights fighting still doesn't register with forumes here who fail to realize that it is not only injustices in the distant past but in the near past (and present) that have African Americans down, degraded, and margainized.

My anger is there for our Japanese Americans who were put in internment camps during WWII when German Americans and Italian Americans (whose ancestors also came from Axis powers) received no such treatment. i wonder why? What could possibly have been the difference between Japanese Americans whose rights were taken away and the German and Italian Americans whose rights weren't? It's coming to me...give me a minute.

We literally grabbed land from weakened Mexico to fulfill our manifest destiny and comlain how those very same Mexicans (who we imported here to pick our crops, water our lawns, and clean our homes) seem to be returning California, Texas, and the Southwest to Mexican property (the nerve of them).

I won't even get into the injustices served on our native Americans whose land was taken away from them, their population decimated, their lives trapped on reservations. Then again, I suppose, we did make it up to them in casino ownership, didn't we? Ka-ching.

[jessiegirl_98]

OK, so first this no longer has nothing to do with Chicago. And it's gotten completely out of hand. Feel free to take it to P&OC or even maybe the great debate.

This thread is closed.