While I was engaging in geek carnality, a fun and potentially useful conversation about the existential and ontological nature of "blackness" was jumping off in our comments section here.
Some of the provocative observations about what constitutes blackness include the following:
D. said:
What defines us is not our color, or our race, but our history. A history that is unique to the Diaspora of the USA. That our history is conflated with our race is only a consequence of America's brutal history, but we cannot confuse the two; we aren't the same as Haitians or Afro-Brazilians.
I reject "Blackness" in that the sole purpose of Blackness is to be oppressed. Let's not mince words; if we continue to define ourselves as an oppressed people I'm afraid we've already lost. Marching will not save us, legislature will not save us, wallowing in our noble victimhood will not save us, but economic and martial power will...
It's metaphorical and based on this quote:
"White" depends for its stability on its negation, "Black." Neither exists without the other, and both come into being at the moment of imperial conquest. -- Frantz Fanon
It cuts both ways; what is Black without White? We weren't Black or Negro before, we were Igbo, Fula, etc. Names that existed wholly within themselves, not as an opposite of another. I'd rather have an identity with or without them.
Nomad said:
'because you can't have black without white'.
Yep that certainly explains why "the sole purpose of Blackness is to be oppressed". Doesn't that phrase sound a bit strange to you? Oops, what am I saying. You already prefaced your hypothesis with the declaration 'I reject "Blackness"'. It just indicates the degree to which inverse racism influences black people today (assuming you are black). Tis a sad legacy of the Civil Rights movement indeed.
Sabrinee said:
Being ghetto is not blackness. Being ignorant is not blackness. Walking around unaware of where you fit into the scheme of things is not blackness. Living life as if you don't care about things that may or may not affect you is not blackness.
That I reject these things does not mean I reject blackness nor does it make me a cheerleader. It just means that I am not willing to accept everything that is ascribed to blacks as blackness.
George Yancy, philosophy professor at Duquesne University, makes a great intervention in these questions of race, identity, the body, and identity in his book Black Bodies, White Gazes. We know that Whiteness is invisibility, privilege, property, and a type of universal norm in modern, Western society.
Moreover, whiteness has been described by historians, social scientists, and cultural theorists as a state of absence typified by a lack of "race." Reflexively, blackness (or racial Otherness more generally) is reified and essentialized as primarily and inseparably about race as a literal thing (bodies and peoples), but also as a set of ideas, assumptions, behaviors, culture(s), and values.
In all, what is blackness? What is it not? And who gets to decide?
And how can you not love Dr. Yancy's allusion to the frameworks known as standpoint epistemology, and the epistemology of ignorance, as they pertain to Whiteness, White cognition, and White humanity?
58 comments:
Blackness was once a fixed object glued to the reality of incarnations often created by whites and others whenever Black people surfaced with a reaction to others interpretation of us it was shaped on their ingredients .
Yet now none of these truths are revelant it is new day and script is being written all of the old words and paradigms are in a state of flux white folks are no longer the masters of the universe, Black folks are now a second tier minority aggregate, the world no longer is driven by tribal rules.
Into this new threshold the script begins with" we open our eyes and then ......
I'm disappointed more people aren't responding to this article. I was hoping to have what is a mystery to white people unlocked. How are we to overcome our "epistemology of ignorance" unless someone who knows explains what blackness is and is not.
I do not mean this as an offense, but I am starting to wonder if black people have an understanding of what blackness is and is not.
I say that because there seems to be different opinions among black members what blackness is and one member even questioning whether blackness exists. Or is it that different black people see blackness as defined individually.
I think that I'm starting to see that there isn't really a set in stone definition of blackness.
sledge, i find it hilarious if you thought there ever was a set definition.
Thinking about that it makes sense. Because I'd be hard pressed to give a set in stone definition of whiteness.
freebones said...
"sledge, i find it hilarious if you thought there ever was a set definition."
Well, I'm wondering how black people define black culture. You would think if something exists, ie blackness, that it would be able to be defined. Unless it is something that is abstract.
I'm disappointed as well. I thought Thrasher's Disciple would give us something enlightening.
lol, he did D.
He gave you his very best Oswald Bates gibberish signifying the fact that even in his feverish race-trader imagination - it's nothing more than an emotional negroe bargaining chip - the value of which is diminishing faster and more certainly than proven global reserves of sweet, light, crude oil.
Cobb has done contemporary yoeman's work in sorting out the answers to this question.
But truthfully, no one has answered the question any more fully and completely than did George Schuyler in the early 1930's with his deconstruction of the Harlem Renaissance. Once you finish Black Empire, may as well pick up a copy of Black No More and enjoy yourselves...,
@CNu
Thank you for the links. Cobb seems to have a talent for making complex issues understandable.
Thank you for your blog. I must admit that much of what you share is over my head, but I try to follow along :)
I am the white mother of a black son born in Ethiopia. Though he wasn't born in the US, I feel his history is African American US history. His ancestors were not slaves and did not participate in the civil rights movement, yet he will live with the reality of what it means to be black in America.
We appreciate and educate our son about his Ethiopian history, but I feel his understanding of the history of race in America is almost more important.
I would be interested in your take on our situation and how our son's racial identity might be formed.
Christy
@Sledge
So much more where that came from;
An axiom of Cobb is that black culture is transparent. The black internal cultural wars will continue and for now it is clear that the upscale contingent has the upper hand - as it should be. Afronerd must be happy. I'm happy in the way I thought I would be before Obama turned out to me more against my political philosophy than I expected, precisely for this black cultural benefit. Here's what's going on.
From The Last Black Economist - In The Black Endgame I wrote:
What is the black endgame? At what point does one reach zero marginal utility for blackness? At what point in American history will the need for black politics be obviated? When do African Americans drop the hyphenation?
As some inveterate readers of Cobb know, I have written essays every 5 or so years going back to 1984 entitled 'The End of My Blackness'. And each time I surpass what I thought was black, I find a new reason to reinvest. That's just me, but it's clear that some folks, like Ward Connorly for gratuitous example, have stopped reinvesting. I think the answers to these questions will come all in individual packages - there is no one answer for the nation, but that blackness will fade slowly into distant memory like the sound of a dime going down into a pay phone. People will still talk about 'dropping a dime', but nobody will do that literal thing. People will still talk about 'black community' but it won't exist.
Might as well ask, "what is Soul?" Answers to questions like these become abstract very quickly. George Clinton said that Soul was "a hamhock in your cornflakes." (Thanks Questlove, for the memory.)
If there were such a thing as Blackness, and one were curious, maybe an examination of the shared experience of people generally perceived by others to be "Black" would be a good place to start.
"What is the black endgame? At what point does one reach zero marginal utility for blackness? At what point in American history will the need for black politics be obviated? When do African Americans drop the hyphenation?"
Now that would be ironic. That would mean that, ultimately, Blackness desires the destruction or Black and White via integration with Whiteness to yield Americanness. If that is what most Black people want, doesn't that mean that most Black people have contempt for Blackness as well?
(con't)
And more disturbing yet: does that mean that the buffoonish Black Conservative is ahead of the curb in achieving "Normality"?
@D.
This, of course, is easily understood if one stops to realize that the Aframerican is merely a lampblacked Anglo-Saxon.
Schuyler, buffoonish?
The flipside of this 85 year old debate - The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountaintop -Langston Hughes essentialist?
...and these two just argering about cultural production - nothing so serious as economic and martial powerl...
sledge: I still encounter a significant number of "black" people who actually think "blackness" is a biological racial category. I think you're correct when you say that you think that most black folk don't have a deep understanding of what blackness is.
Thank CNu. I appreciate all these resources and your wisdom.
See now...,
endorsed by sabrinabee and sistahV..,
I MUST BE living right!!!
accept no substitutes....,
p.s., starting my third week meatless, 15lbs lighter, subscribed to your site, and most pleasantly buzzed on quinoa and chia at this very minute. (shooooot, if I had known the secret nutriceutical pleasures of a proper diet - I would have fired meat years ago - but there is powerful truth in the adage that it's harder to change a man's diet than it is to change his religion)
"lampblacked anglo saxon"
CNu, Ok, but I believe both groups have assimilated more than either admits. A "white american" is simply a "whitewashed Ibo" or similar. Once we drop the foolish idea of deep genetic differences between the groups. (Which is like trying to distinguish apples from apples, the genetic variation within continents is 10x the difference between continents. AND we Americans been on the same continent for some while now.)
Actually, I had Herman Cain in mind, and the martial power is a fail-safe for the worst case scenario. I always expect the worst, it's just my nature.
Both Hughes and Schuyler make good points, though for now we'll have to tend to our societal rot and misbehavior. What happens afterwards relies entirely on the White populace. Then we'll know the answer to the 85 year long debate.
A "white american" is simply a "whitewashed Ibo" or similar.
I don't know if I'd say Ibo, but yeah, you're correct.
@D.
What did you think of the radical afrofuture contrived by Schuyler in Black Internationale and Black Empire?
What if anything is stopping us from implementing the hydroponic farms, churches of love, raw diets - and the basic infrastructure of uplift and self-sufficiency that he envisioned 75 years ago?
One wonders at the completeness with which Schuyler and his most interesting Work have been erased from living memory.
@CDV
In all, what is blackness? What is it not? And who gets to decide?
Whoever owns the most memetically successful projects, institutions, and properties branded as "black" defines blackness.
@D
Well this is going to get really interesting. Because I suspect the societal rot and misbehavior is going to grow nation wide and across race lines over the next few years.
How bad things actually get will probably decide whether that helps or hinders the races in trying to achieve actual equality.
By societal rot and misbehavior I'm not saying people will be turning bad. Just doing what they have to in order to survive in some pretty tough times. I think it will apply more to people in general rather than race.
We are living in interesting and historic times. The problems we face will also present opportunities for advancement and change in preconceived notions of the past if we as a total population take advantage of them.
I wish I had a crystal ball to see 30 years into the future. I wonder what I'd see.
@CNu
Some of my views about you are changing. I thought you were intelligent, but I think you're even smarter than I gave you credit for. That crusty edge you adopt at times is a tool isn't it?
What did you think of the radical afrofuture contrived by Schuyler in Black Internationale and Black Empire?
I haven't read it yet, but it seems that he was being facetious. It's likely he thought Dr. Belsidus (Garvey?) was nothing short of a monster. What do you make of his character and Schuyler's PoV?
What if anything is stopping us from implementing the hydroponic farms, churches of love, raw diets - and the basic infrastructure of uplift and self-sufficiency that he envisioned 75 years ago?
Willpower, or lack thereof.
Always good to return to the scene of the crime and examine the remains..
Blackness as I noted earlier clearly has a fixed legacy in America . It has a reactionary and progressive ethos as well as a raw reality and endless pragmatic moments and era's..
For many our trademark is our music, civil rights,underclass and external duality of being once in our nation a part of the furniture..
As I noted all of these various incarnations of Blackness have a reality and of course a continuing presence even in the post racial era of Obama..
Yet this story continues to unfold and this is where I argue the best is yet to come Instead of Blackness being teathered to the past and all of our creative, soulful, revolutionary, outlander mode I have opine in many venues the views of my mentor Mr. Thrasher who constructs a Black zeitgeist that is liberated from our negro and colored folks past..
Mr. Thrasher in his lectures inserts ideas and themes which suggest we are a instant moving target facing the new world free and liberated from all of our costumes and past. He articulates that this new persona makes it possible to construct new protraits of Blackness that has nothing to do with anything but the expression of the moment and realities of our present state of being whether it is a singular Black person or a Black community model..
Blackness is besides a state of mind and fixed reality it is also a blank canvass and a series of real time interactions shaped by so much and so many things all operating now..
" In all, what is blackness? What is it not? And who gets to decide?"
I suppose it's an individual choice. What do we choose to accept as the definition of blackness? We know that it can be assigned. Just as the example of the woman in the elevator confiscated his blackness and assigned mistrust to it. It has been for years. The author could have gone two ways, accepted that he appeared threatening to the woman and adopted a threatening pose or made a comment that confirms her fears or continued to maintain the posture he had upon entering the elevator regardless of the woman's position. Too many of us opt for the former. Accept the negative view and turn it something to be proud of.
These days the negative projections are marketed to us in addition to being assigned. Someone singing of their life in the ghetto " slinging drugs" and " getting locked up" or "bootylicious" is marketed to blacks, and those who want to experience blackness, then is absorbed into the culture and is defined as black. From these come phrases such as "it's a black thing" or "earning street cred" These consequences of poverty are not unique to blacks so why should we carry the burden of them upon our identities? Why should we claim them as being unique to our culture? The Italian mafia didn't do so. The Irish gangs didn't do so. Their impoverished ghettoes were just as brutal both here and abroad.
We can claim whatever we want without concerns about shame or judgement.People like you amaze me always trying to avoid the underside of Blackness and then issuing indicting them for the oppression they react to caused by whiteness.
How come you did not approach this very question with the same analysis you invoke about Irish and Italians? Where we're your laments about the very nature of this question at end of the day you are just another version of CNu without his depravity
I haven't read it yet, but it seems that he was being facetious
Oh no.
MUCH too tightly crafted for that.
I think you'll be pleasantly shocked by its simultaneous audacity and plausibility.
Schuyler and his publisher obviously needed to entertain, however, the high regard in which they held the audience for whom this serial was intended is plainly evident.
It's likely he thought Dr. Belsidus (Garvey?) was nothing short of a monster.
I'm fairly certain he thought Garvey was a clown, but then, he had up close and personal contact with and knowledge of the UNIA - and if the baselines he set forth for Black Empire in his serial are any indication, I'm guessing he believed that Garvey was an incompetent clown. This is just my own imagination talking now, but if I was made god for a day, I would cast William Marshall (voice and stature) or Calvin Lockhart (looks and swagger) at their absolute peak of freshness in the role of Dr. Henry Belsidus.
What do you make of his character and Schuyler's PoV?
Belsidus is a superman, singlemindedly intent on the uplift of the afro-saxon to worldwide scientific, economic, and military domination by any means necessary.
Schuyler clearly appreciated the ponerological nature of governance, what was required to obtain power and what would be required to retain/maintain it, as well.
@sabrinabee
So are you saying that a large portion of the negative and positive self image of many blacks is something actually cooked up in the minds of some clever marketers?
All in an effort to sell more of their product, item , music, or whatever to an audience that is told they need it because it represents blackness?
@ Anon
So if your Mr. Thrasher says in essence today is a new day with a new canvas on which to paint the picture of what being a black American is. What does he say is on the canvas now and what will it look like ahead?
That is actually a liberating and inspiring tack for your Mr. Thrasher to take.
" We can claim whatever we want without concerns about shame or judgement."
Why would you want to?
"People like you amaze me always trying to avoid the underside of Blackness and then issuing indicting them for the oppression they react to caused by whiteness. "
Why do you find it amazing that I refuse to claim an underside as a characteristic of "Blackness" rather than an underside of human nature, especially when it is impoverished? Why is it important to you to have a negative trait as a symbol of "blackness"? Where is your praise for the opposite reaction to oppression, a desire to prove them wrong?
"How come you did not approach this very question with the same analysis you invoke about Irish and Italians?"
Their racial identity is not tied in with the negative aspects of their culture. They are not being shot down in the street because they are Italian or Irish. Seems our situation is more pressing. Don't you think?
"Where we're your laments about the very nature of this question at end of the day you are just another version of CNu without his depravity"
Is this a question or a statement?
@Sledge
I will have to ask him to forecast the future more importantly I think he reasons that Blackness is a space and place that allows for panafricanism to integration to whatever.
I think he would have been offended by this very introduction of this question.
Blackness Is ....
@sabrinabee
"So are you saying that a large portion of the negative and positive self image of many blacks is something actually cooked up in the minds of some clever marketers?
All in an effort to sell more of their product, item , music, or whatever to an audience that is told they need it because it represents blackness?"
I'm saying that negativity sells. I am saying that marketers promote negativity because it sells. Be it the dark mugs hot of the criminal du jour or the rapper draped in gold and jewels selling soda. I'm saying that those who don't know a thing about being black take what is commercially available, however superficial that may be, and assign it to the meaning of blackness.
I'm saying that these things are not only applicable to blacks but are characteristics of impoverished cities worldwide regardless of nationality or race and are therefore symptoms of impoverishment not blackness. I am not saying these things don't happen in black communities but that we should not accept them as identifiers.
Sabrinbee,
I want the freedom to declare whatever /whenever
The Irish & Italians have a legacy of being demonize in the streets long before they purchased whiteness
Blackness just like human nature has a negative feature why should I reject this truth just because it shames you and others.
Why should be compelled to validate my existence to the arbiters of whiteness. I have no desire to be noble to prove anything to whiteness. Why are you under such a burden and duty to appease them or seek their approval?
As I posted your analysis reflects the same themes of CNu which is to find fault with Blackness instead of the forces which created the decay etc
" I will have to ask him to forecast the future"
You are sitting here criticizing and exposing and don't even have a clear definition of what it is you're promoting? You have to ask for clarification on what it is you're promoting? Really?
Anon said..
"I think he reasons that Blackness is a space and place that allows for panafricanism to integration to whatever."
From some articles I was reading earlier today I don't think that panafricanism will work with modern day black Americans. I could be wrong.
I know there is a heritage that is celebrated. But there seems to be a lot of differences between Africans and Black Americans as for as their interests, loyalties, belief systems and the like.
In essence I opine that all the behavior good or bad are identifiers of Blackness and instead of running from this reality and obstructing some noble firewall that creates a blindspot that we instead acknowledge these truths and continue to live and evolve.
This need by CD and people like you and CNu is not productive and at end of the day is esoteric exercise in wasted analysis .
I rather acknowledge this reality and proceed accordingly rather than spend endless chatter on the nature of ontological matters of Blackness
@sabrinabee,
The question was posed to my mentor not me you need to slow down and read instead of offering up form driven boilerplate posts...
@sledge
The same can be said of any other immigrant groups..There is also a shared body of themes between Africans and Black Americans of course I understand your inability to grasp these nuances . You display that shortcoming often in this forum....
" Blackness just like human nature has a negative feature why should I reject this truth just because it shames you and others."
You can argue there is a difference between blackness and human nature. I say, human nature just is and it doesn't matter what the race is. Negativity and positivity exists in humans. Why do you want to separate blacks from humans? Does it make you feel special in some way?
"
" Why are you under such a burden and duty to appease them or seek their approval?"
I don't seek the approval of whites, I seek not to be classified as less than I am capable of. What was the Civil Rights movement about? Equality. We wanted to be viewed as equal not lesser. What happens when we claim the mantle of all that appears to be negative? We accept the lesser view. We separate ourselves from our ability to be equal and create an unrecognized level of expectation.
" The Irish & Italians have a legacy of being demonize in the streets long before they purchased whiteness."
This, I don't even understand what you are arguing here. Are you saying that it should be okay for us until we are able to "purchase whiteness?"
That said in my previous post. IF I was a young educated black man with a fire in my belly and something other than a liberal arts degree. I'd be on a plane to Africa in a heartbeat. There are going to be financial empires built there.
Everyone talks about China as a rising market but not enough is said about South America and Africa. The truth is that China's blazing growth will come to a screeching halt if it doesn't tie up Africa. They are spending like crazy trying to do just that.
India see's it too and is trying to block the Chinese as is the U.S.
But the U.S. is too over extended and won't be able to continue the effort to block the Chinese for more than a couple of years.
Money is going to continue to flow into Africa resulting in a rising market and power in it's own right.
By the end of the century look for Africa and South America to be dominate or close to dominate powers on the world stage.
The U.S. will succumb to it's debt and loss of world currency status while India and China will succumb to their over population problems.
" Mr. Thrasher in his lectures inserts ideas and themes which suggest we are a instant moving target facing the new world free and liberated from all of our costumes and past. He articulates that this new persona makes it possible to construct new protraits of Blackness that has nothing to do with anything but the expression of the moment and realities of our present state of being whether it is a singular Black person or a Black community model.."
If this were true, then you'd know his position on the future. You need to slow down. You offered the above piece, which is vague. You offer no examples on his views in case someone wants to read up on them. Then when asked for clarification you toss out an 'I'll have to get back to you' . Jeez dude, if you're going to play message board Rambo, at least have your ish together.
@Anon. 1. What is this "new" blackness that is following a new script. Can you please clarify?
@Sledge. Black is, Black ain't as the joke goes...
@Christy. Nice to see you chiming in. I am sure you have much to offer these conversations from your position. How are you assisting your child in their navigating the colorline? Also, the ethnicization of blacks in America is a relatively new thing. Be sure that he is not a free rider who distances himself from American blacks while standing on our shoulders--a common thing these days, especially among many black immigrants.
@Anon again--"Yet this story continues to unfold and this is where I argue the best is yet to come Instead of Blackness being teathered to the past and all of our creative, soulful, revolutionary, outlander mode I have opine in many venues the views of my mentor Mr. Thrasher who constructs a Black zeitgeist that is liberated from our negro and colored folks past.."
Beware cults of personality. They will be your undoing.
@Sabrina. What are the limits of black radical autonomy in a white supremacist society?
@Sledge. I am a black nationalist. I am not a cultural nationalist. I have no interest in or love of Afrotopian myths of "mother Africa." I am an American. I simply want my fair fruits of democratic citizenship and the country we built and made here.
That is one of the oldest, if not most authentic strains of black nationalism...one not too distant from black liberalism in many regards.
@Fred. On soul. Are there some white people with more soul than some black folks like Wayne Brady for example? Where does it come from? Culture? Social milieu? Melanin count?
You are sitting here criticizing and exposing and don't even have a clear definition of what it is you're promoting? You have to ask for clarification on what it is you're promoting? Really?
coffee.straight.thru.the.nostrils.this.morning laughing out loud at this graceful cross-examination...,
sabrinabee is truth!
accept no substitutes...,
Re: Soul. In the historical New York of my youth, Soul was Representing, representing Blackness, or Puerto Rican-ness for that matter. It was pride. These days I think of it more as a letting go, any performance that is not holding anything back, total emotional commitment. Why do you think most (sensible, realist) people's list of great singers has mostly Black names on it? They don't hold back, they pour everything into the song. Not to mention 'Trane, or Jimi, or Bird.
On the Black/White Soul thing let me just suggest that it is statistically conceivable that there are some Whites that have more Soul that certain Blacks. That's as close to controversy as I want to get on that one. Chet Baker had soul though, "Blame It On My Youth" indeed.
Re: Anon May 7, 11:17 pm . . . "all the behaviors good and bad are identifiers of Blackness." Oh, God no, let's not even go there. The Irish have been mentioned in this column, that's my group, and I'd say that we've left our ghetto life, our thug life, and yes, our Coffin Ship Death Transport behind us, through gracious fate and our basic paleness. Those are no longer identifiers of Irishness, nor should they be.
There are some less than desirable aspects adrift in Black American culture today, but let's not award them permanent status, let's not do that. They'll fall away in time.
Brothers and sisters, my sermon tonight is the Blackness of Blackness. In the beginning there was blackness. And the sun was bloody red. Now black IS! I said black IS! An' black ain't. Black will git you...An' it won't! It DO! An' it don't. It'll put you, glory, glory, Oh my Lawd, in the whale's belly. An' make you tempt...Old Aunt Nelly!
Black will make you...or black will un-make you."
For those of you unfamiliar with black literature don't start with Schuyler. Go to the classics first. You'll get a better understanding of "blackness". Go to Ralph Ellison and those low class jiggaboos James Baldwin and Richard Wright.
As I have expressed in my previous post I will continue to reject counter posts which seek to defeat my comprehensive constructs about Blackness..
I will reject Sabrina's myoptic and insular protective views of Blackness
I will reject fred's hollow and defensive insights about the legacy of the Irish and his related Black talking points
I will always reject CNu'anal driven dogma about Black folks as a rule
I will reject CD's paternalism as well..
Moving forward Blackness is and will always be a moving construct full of legendary events, people and anchors..It can encompass those who seek to remain in the past and those who have moved on
Blackness because of it's inate genius and iconic being does not warrant any apologies or long winded judgemental swipes and posturing.
Blackness because it lives and breaths 24/7 is all that and much more..
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Oswald "Thrasher" Bates - The character protrayed by Damon Wayans in the sketch comedy In Living Color who talks nonsense using a lot of big words and has no idea what he's talking. He usually talks to himself with gestures and facial expressions as if he is arguing with someone else.
"First of all, we must internalize the 'flatulation' of the matter by transmitting the effervescence of the 'Indianisian' proximity in order to further segregate the crux of my venereal infection. Now, if I may retain my liquids here for one moment. I'd like to continue the 'redundance' of my quote, unquote 'intestinal tract', you see because to preclude on the issue of world domination would only circumvent - excuse me, circumcise the revelation that reflects the 'Afro-disiatic' symptoms which now perpetrates the Jheri Curis activation. Allow me to expose my colon once again. The ramification inflicted on the incision placed within the Fallopian cavities serves to be holistic taken from the Latin word 'jalapeno'." -- Oswald "Thrasher" Bates, In Living Color season 1 ep 3
@Fred
I could say a couple of things about that Irish thing. In a, shall we say, indirect way, I'm Irish too.
Howdy, cuz.
Dudes! Me too. Top o' the morning to yez.
Hey, maybe we can set aside a day to celebrate our heritage. Wear green or something.
@Sabrina. What are the limits of black radical autonomy in a white supremacist society?
The limits are that black radical autonomy is reduced to spectacle. Mere words but very little action. It is villified. If it looks in any way to be gaining a following, then it becomes the target of investigation, with criminality being the ultimate goal. Pressure is applied until it cracks or goes underground. Unless, radical is used in the sense of ideas but not necessarily a physical (economic) threat, then I tis merely left impotent.
CNu aka John Dogget continues to contaminate this forum with his backward negritude ...lol lol lol
Proud to know you, Nomad. I'd love to know more about that blending, either anecdotaly or by recommended reading.
By the way, I'm never seeking equivalence when I mention the Irish. The oppression and discrimination suffered by the Irish diminished and finally became irrelevant because there was no visual information to support it. The nature of Blackness and the fact of anti-Black discrimination is a more intractable problem because the visual information is unavoidable.
@Fred
You know how I do. Tongue in cheek. The only thing Irish about me is my name.
Sorry to lose you to the green. Maybe we still have Tommy Flanagan, may he rest in peace.
Well, you know I'm ambivalent about it. Whoever gave my family that name was a slave owner. I myself am the son of a sharecropper who fled the farm from the wrath of whites. His crime? Standing up for himself. So I don't really celebrate my Irish heritage.
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