Thanos Thanos:
Tommy Sotomayor also calls out the community on a regular basis for their incessant low-life bullshit routine with a persistent "they think we're all idiots because we keep acting like idiots" truth-to-power commentary. Good stuff and the black political establishment/liberal white-guilt industry also absolutely hates him for it. Here's his YouTube channel for anyone interested.
https://www.youtube.com/user/tnnraw2? I'm not sure from your post if this was expected or not.
BartSimpson BartSimpson:
Thanos Thanos:
I hate football anyway so I really don't care. I only figured that the Super Bowl in San Francisco is one of the few places in the US where a billionaire black female singer can get away no problem with a death-to-the-cops halftime show.
One of the talk show hosts down here commented that Beyonce hates the cops unless they're escorting her Cadillac.
I only really saw commentary pointed at abuse of police power (particularly in shooting incidents) and law enforcement reactions following disasters following Hurricane Katrina when it comes to "hatred" of cops.
Most of the rest comes from a fairly singular and extreme analysis of the black panther uniforms, and frankly I figure when in context with the lyrics of formation it's more about brotherhood in face of adversity above anything else, and against corruption in how laws are enforced as a second. I doubt Beyonce is cheering on people to kill cops.
N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:
It's already bad enough and classless enough that you want to make fun of someone (particularly when reducing a women to) their looks, it's probably even worse when she is objectively better looking (not to mention more successful) than probably everyone who uses this board so it falls flat to boot.
BRAH BRAH:
Beyonce is a Hypocritical Phony Black Activist C***!
Deep.
... I'm kind of hoping "black activist" is a descriptor and not meant to be as insulting as the other three descriptors.
Jin-Gitaxias Jin-Gitaxias:
Preach.
Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:
BeaverFever BeaverFever:
It's not like you guys has to endure actual racism like being systematically persecuted and denied basic rights for hundreds of years.
Given that statement I'm going to assume you aren't Irish Catholic.
If it's been perpetuated for the Irish then it's been perpetuated for African Americans to a greater extent, which I think is a more pointed way of describing it than how BeaverFever did.
After all, one group has a rather bleak history in the Americas, beginning with slavery on plantations, moving through disenfranchisement, into being pushed into ghettos and "separate but equal" lifestyles, and in a generation or two after all these issues (and, let's face it, some oddly racist hold outs about inter-racial marriages in a lot of the States) now face a lot of ongoing demographic problems. I think it's hard to say it's all perpetuated by members of that minority community and that their recent history, hardships and issues don't play a role as well.
A song which commemorates a lot of those recent moments (NOLA, MLK, spate of shootings) is highlighting an issue that already exists in my view. I'm sure some white people suffer (I do, but beating up a gay is probably a bit different), but there is some fairly clear problems down in the States that supercede the racial issues White people face by a fair degree.
The Irish struggles, while no doubt unique and important, are not the same, nor in my view, as pervasive as the struggles black people have faced in America, especially when considering the scope of the struggle of African Americans.
In my view anyway. After all, I grew up in a less than stellar place but it wasn't the projects, a ghetto, or something similar.
N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:
Already in the news, already a tragedy, but also already common. Violence both by cops and against cops need to be discussed. One doesn't minimize the other, however. This isn't "us versus him" or "blue versus black." It's literally "holy fuck that is a lot of corpses."
So far, I haven't seen a single article that has managed to correlate the link any more than "Beyonce sung a song and a cop died." When a culprit says he did it because of Beyonce, then I'll buy it.
GreenTiger GreenTiger:
Morgan Freeman has the best answer to all of this racial Horse Shit.
https://youtu.be/FRnTovm26I4It's kind of funny, because he has a point, in-so-far as if we didn't look at race the police shootings each year would still be considered important, and we'd be viewing it in a very different lens. Yet, because we look at race, it's passed off as "black culture issues" or is treated as a racial issue (with all the charged language thereof) instead of as a real civil issue. It's why I was so impressed when Rand Paul pointed out during a debate how bad it was that places like Ferguson promote fees and such on their mostly black communities as a way to maintain income, because he was talking about changing a civic issue by actually talking about the civic issue.
Likewise, Freeman doesn't view MLK as a black hero because it "dilutes" his impact. He should be an American hero, not a black hero, because it dilutes his impact and limits that identity to on a minority of people.
He talks about that, and why race is still very much an issue
here. He even points to Obama's identity as black mattering
here, where he views black people as the underside of America and groups like the Tea Party driving it. I'd like to see more than a minute snapshot of that interview, to be honest. It seems his stance is a little more nuanced than talking around race.
He wants people to stop talking about it, but (and from here on in it's my own opinion, not Freeman's) it's only been a generation or two since "separate but equal." Many are alive who remember it, and many more grew up in situations that are it's offspring, like the projects. These issues need to be talked about in any context. It's also a question of those being black not being considered the same Americans as those who are white for these people. Beyonce is more or less condemning the fact that it seems like it is talked about it in that context in negative ways, and promotes social action to counteract it.
stratos stratos:
$1:
It's not like you guys has to endure actual racism like being systematically persecuted and denied basic rights for hundreds of years.
Nor has anyone alive today. If you can find someone who has been systematically persecuted and denied basic rights along with actual racism for hundreds of years please point this person out.
Because if you want to claim this is suppressed rage for action done in the past. I will gladly go along with that if you allow my 2000+ years of suppressed rage for the actions of the Carthaginians against my ancestors to also be valid.
Any and all grievances leveled against my ... wait none of my ancestors as far as can be determined had slaves. Okay lets see... denied basic human rights I did not deny anyone such things nor anyone in the determination of my family's background. Admittedly we had some smugglers and poachers in our history so you may have a very weak case there at best. Racism.. well not on my part as best as I can tell, this is hard to be claimed against my ancestors for the factors all ready mentioned.
What I am very much in favor of ending racist terms such as Afro-American, Asian-American and such other hyphenated usage. American works perfectly for every single citizen. By adding anything prior to American you are distinguishing yourself apart from the rest. This is a form of racism by promoting said race apart and or above from the rest of the citizenship. I also consider stating that current members of any race are liable and accountable for actions done by pervious members of their race in the past is a form of racism.
So basically it comes down to holding people accountable for their own words and actions. Abhorrence to racism being countered by saying someone is hypocritical for their reaction is latent support of racism.
I think there's a fairly obvious distinction between "the vestiges of it's impact are so recent my Grandma talks about using different entrances so as not to get the hose, and I live in the housing complex they built to keep us in a ghetto back then still" to 2000 years prior.
We don't question the role the holocaust has played in the Israel identity, nor do I think we question the abuse they faced for the few hundred years previous. That said, Jewish identity is not formed by the decisions of Kings centuries past to throw them out of their realms, nor do the Jewish people expect recompense from the decedents of the Galicians or the Vikings who no doubt attacked some Jewish settlements on their way to sack the rest of the known world.
In short, it matters because there are those still alive who faced that oppression, grew up knowing it and living it and learning of how it was even worse from those before. It matters also because the divide still exists in some form (this thread and the various criticisms and support for Beyonce around the US and the world clearly demonstrate that) to this date, and seems to be persisting to the next generation.
That those dynamics are still playing out today means this isn't about "your ancestors owning slaves," it's about fellow Americans facing struggles because the system still is in some ways stack against them and a more powerful people who have a past which did benefit of this divide claiming that because they didn't personally involve themselves in it, they don't need to deal with this ongoing issue.
As an aside, I know my family (who, as mostly rural blue collar folk, didn't have much), who didn't own slaves, probably had benefits and advantages because we were white going back generations to when we were buying sugar and cotton all the way through to competing for jobs in the twenties and that the structural support we have goes back generations, support many people otherwise don't have.
It's not "guilt" for me to recognize it, nor is it guilt for me to recognize I probably benefitted from it tangentially. For the record, my mostly rural blue collar ancestry would probably have liked the same sort of discussion black people want now, dealing with entitled and powerful elites who lived in the cities. From the looks of Trump and Sanders and their narratives of taking back the system, it's a discussion they continue to want today. I'm not surprised that the black community is all on board with that bandwagon.
BartSimpson BartSimpson:
BeaverFever BeaverFever:
It's not like you guys has to endure actual racism like being systematically persecuted and denied basic rights for hundreds of years.
You mean like the Jews?
I could probably make a point of the issues with those Jews of African ancestry and integrating into Israel, but I think something more poignant would be a reminder of the clash between the Ashkenazim (German, East European, liberalism) and the Sephardim (Spanish, Middle Eastern, orthodoxy), and how this separation continues to define politics to this day in Israel.
That a split could exist of mention worthy of Beyonce's song in North America given the history (her song deals with mostly recent history at that) of black and white interaction isn't such a surprise when such tensions even run deep between peoples both troubled by the same oppression.
PluggyRug PluggyRug:
Being born in England does that mean I should call myself Anglo-Canadian?
I take pride in my English culture without having to resort to the hyphenated crap.
I also take pride in the fact that I call myself Canadian. I think your point is moot.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but being an anglo-Canadian or a Franco-Canadian is already a thing here (I'm pretty sure I read at least one of those words a few times a week). The only difference is we don't always need to hyphenate when we reduce our French community to pretty much complaining about Quebec, and there's no hyphen in the province name.
We talk about French problems all the time on this forum. It's hyphenation-lite.
stratos stratos:
BeaverFever BeaverFever:
stratos stratos:
Nor has anyone alive today. If you can find someone who has been systematically persecuted and denied basic rights along with actual racism for hundreds of years please point this person out.
Because if you want to claim this is suppressed rage for action done in the past. I will gladly go along with that if you allow my 2000+ years of suppressed rage for the actions of the Carthaginians against my ancestors to also be valid.
Any and all grievances leveled against my ... wait none of my ancestors as far as can be determined had slaves. Okay lets see... denied basic human rights I did not deny anyone such things nor anyone in the determination of my family's background. Admittedly we had some smugglers and poachers in our history so you may have a very weak case there at best. Racism.. well not on my part as best as I can tell, this is hard to be claimed against my ancestors for the factors all ready mentioned.
What I am very much in favor of ending racist terms such as Afro-American, Asian-American and such other hyphenated usage. American works perfectly for every single citizen. By adding anything prior to American you are distinguishing yourself apart from the rest. This is a form of racism by promoting said race apart and or above from the rest of the citizenship. I also consider stating that current members of any race are liable and accountable for actions done by pervious members of their race in the past is a form of racism.
So basically it comes down to holding people accountable for their own words and actions. Abhorrence to racism being countered by saying someone is hypocritical for their reaction is latent support of racism.
Can you please clarify exactly what year racism ended in America?
once you show me someone who has "endure actual racism like being systematically persecuted and denied basic rights for hundreds of years. " walking around the US today.
I'll also point out I've never said it died out or has stopped. What I'm saying is that there is 1) A history of white's being enslaved, discriminated against and denied human rights. That most want to ignore and or deny 2)that claiming whites are not discriminated against even today is a lie and that we have as much right to be offended as any other race 3) that a lot of this racism junk can go away here in America when we quit talking about ourselves and others under terms such as Afro-American, Asian-American and so forth and just consider all citizens as Americans.
If you accept that, then you have to accept issues black people face are very real. Again, it's not an "us versus them" problem. Point to white people being oppressed and we'll work to fix it just as much as we should work to fix issues facing the black community.
Funny thing is, talking about it or not, we'd have to do a lot of stuff that the community needs done. Beyonce is highlighting that it's
not happening, and it's
not happening along racial lines, so clearly there is still an issue of race there (in her view). The "colour blind" people should be just as on board with correcting these issues as Beyonce is.
ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:
He's offended for minorities even when they find no offense. It's the soft core racism of the white left wing. Only they can be the arbiters of what is offensive....because they truly believe they are the only ones correctly indoctrinatededucated.
Come on Shep, this thread is literally "people are offended because Beyonce wrote a song about being offended as a representative of a community who probably has reasons to be offended but do so in a way that offends others for potentially offensive reasons." No one is the arbiter of everything here because everyone has representatives of their political leanings who are offended on their behalf.
Seriously. This entire debate has had offended people from the crazy gutters of the political spectrum all the way to the centrist-left and centrist-right people. It's an offense palooza. Offense for all. All offend. Rah rah rah, and so forth.
BeaverFever BeaverFever:
Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:
WTF does any of that have to do with your theory that only people of colour experience racism?
Well it's about disenfranchisement which is not commonly forced on th white race. Maybe in Zimbabwe but I can't think of anywhere else. I'll answer the complaint about Blacks being racist to whites with a snippet from an article about a similar argument how women are sexist to men. Just substitute the word "race" for "gender", "men" for the word "white" and "women" for "black". You get the idea.
EDIT: Okay, the Carribean point has been discussed, but I have another set of examples.
Any example of intersectionality, Israel and the Jewish diaspora, and other WW2-esque examples spring to mind as examples. Like I said above, though, I don't view the existence of disadvantaged white people to in any way minimize the existence of disadvantaged black people, nor do I think we can effectively compare any minority groups against each other on some "suffering meter" so I kind of find most of this topic about "but what about other groups" to not really matter with regards to Beyonce.
Any suffering by a human being is something we should consider rectifying, and the fact that the black community has a prominent recent history of significant suffering that probably impacts them to this date is something we can't afford to forget.
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