What is appropriate counter-racist logic (thought, speech and/or action) to use among AFRIKAN people to 1) minimize the varying degrees of mental illness we suffer as a result of our exposure to racism AND 2) minimize our participation in the maintenance of this racist (white supremacist) social order?
As I thought more about the question I realized there needed to be some discussion or reference to what RACISM is, and how it operates. Otherwise, how can we effectively counter racism?
Because.......
"If you do not understand White Supremacy (Racism) What it is, and how it works everything else that you understand, will only confuse you" Dr. Neely Fuller Jr. (1971)
"Racist" and "racism" are provocative words in American society. To some, these words have reached the level of curse words in their offensiveness. Yet, "racist" and "racism" are descriptive words of a reality that cannot be denied. African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans and Asian Americans (people-of-color) live daily with the effects of both institutional and individual racism.
Race issues are so fundamental in American society that they seem almost an integral component. Some Americans believe that race is the primary determinant of human abilities and capacities. Some Americans behave as if racial differences produce inherent superiority in European Americans (whites). In fact, such individuals respond to people-of-color and whites differently merely because of race (or ethnicity). As a consequence, people of color are injured by judgments or actions that are directly or indirectly racist.
Much of the attention of the last 20 years has focused on individual racist behavior. However, just as individuals can act in racist ways, so can institutions.
Institutions can behave in ways that are overtly racist (i.e., specifically excluding people-of-color from services) or inherently racist (i.e., adopting policies that while not specifically directed at excluding people-of-color, nevertheless result in their exclusion).
Therefore, institutions can respond to people-of-color and whites differently. Institutional behavior can injure people-of-color; and, when it does, it is nonetheless racist in outcome if not in intent.
http://academic.udayton.edu/race/intro.htm
I found the following commentary on a poster as I searched the web looking for related links.
Everybody knows that racism is
wrong. So why does it still exist? Why
can’t we fix it? Maybe the problem is
too big. Maybe human solutions are
too small. Maybe we need superhuman
solutions, like changed
hearts.
hmmmmm........ from my experiences that sounds like something someone who benefits from rasicm might say, one who has the benefit of 'white priviledge'
I wonder if the hearts being referred to are those of the racists. Certainly, after such consistent exposure to the brutality of racism the hearts of the victims are damaged and broken.
The following is the preface of the significant work by Dr. Frances Cress-Welsing, The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors
We now are nearing the final decade of the 20th century. Recently, there has been an unraveling and an analysis of the core issue of the first global power sysem of mass oppression-- the power system of racism (white supremacy). One the collective victim (non-white population) understands this fundamental issue, the ultimate organizing of all of the appropriate behaviors necessary to neutralize the great injustice of the white supremacy power system will only be a matter of time. The length of time required to neutralize global white supremacy will be inversely proportional to 1) the level of understanding of the phenomenon; plus 2) the evolution of self- and group-respect, the will, determination and discipline to practice the appropriate counter-racist behaviors--on the part of the non-white victims of white.
As I search for actual definitions of racism I am amazed at how this concept, known all to well to people Afrikan descent, has been 'multiculturalized'. It seems to me that the trend these days is to say that 'everyone' has experienced racism in one form or another.....how can that be?
People are even holding conferences to discuss racism..........in South Afrika no less.
http://www.un.org/WCAR/
There is a "Racism....No Way" program in Australia.......isn't the location for the story told in Rabbit Proof Fence?
http://www.racismnoway.com.au/
Powerful true-life account of three Australian aboriginal girls who were abducted as part of the country's internment camp treatment of ‘half-caste' children (Aborigines of mixed race with white) who were raised to be lower class citizenry for nearly 100 years . Set in 1931 the three girls set about their quest to return home to their mother 1,500 miles away with only the titular life-line running across the continent as a guide. The three girls cast are all non-professionals but that doesn't discourage the emotional impact achieved by their heartbreaking performances (particularly Sampi, whose expressive brown eyes conveys volumes of words in simple glances) and Branagh as the perpetuator and self-professed protector of the natives elevates his blind passionate character from becoming an easy villain to loathe.What I'm seeing is a current trend in masking a new-aged racism with enough overcast(e) that no one knows exactly what it is.........consequently no one seems to know exactly how to counter it....Dayum, that was clever!!
I thought this was interesting.... kinda cute huh?
NOT!!!!
I've gotta think about this some more........pull the pieces together.........they've got me looking at the symptoms and not the causes.
PLEASE take a look at this site til I get back to this topic.....
http://academic.udayton.edu/race/
To Be Continued..............
5 comments:
"[T]here is no doubt that the overwhelming majority of white Americans desire that
there be as few Negroes as possible in America. If the Negroes could be eliminated from America or greatly decreased in numbers,
this would meet the whites' approval--
provided that it could be accomplished
by means which are also approved."
--Gunnar Myrdal, AN AMERICAN DILEMMA
http://www.jbhe.com/features/42_Myrdal_symposium.html
A MUST read!!!!!!!
It has been said that some people in the United States think of black folk as something akin to crabgrass, a pesky intruder that is a big nuisance in our country.
In his landmark 1944 study The American Dilemma, Swedish scholar Gunnar Myrdal wrote that "the overwhelming majority of white Americans desire that there be as few Negroes as possible in America."
Regarding the difficulties posed by the 'problem' of Negro population, Myrdal states on page 170 that....
In our further discussion of the means in Negro population policy we ought start out from the desire of the politically dominant white population to get rid of the Negroes. This is a goal difficult to reach by approved means, and the desire has never been translated into action directly, and probably never will be. All the most obvious means go strongly against the American Creed. The Negroes cannot be killed off. Compulsory deportation would infringe upon personal liberty in such a radical fashion that it is excluded. Voluntary exportation of Negroes could not be carried on extensively because of unwillingness on the part of recipient nations as well as on the part of the American Negroes themselves, who usually do not want to leave the country but prefer to stay and fight it out here. Neither is it possible to effectuate the goal by keeping up the Negro death rate. A high death rate is an unhumanitarian and undemocratic way to restrict the Negro population and, in addition, expensive to society and dangerous to the white population. The only possible way of decreasing Negro population is by means of controlling fertility. But as we shall find, even birth control -- for Negroes as well as for whites -- will, in practice, have to be considered primarily as a means to other ends than that of decreasing the Negro population.
After a lengthy discussion of the reasons for promoting birth control among people of African descent (and to a lesser extent among poor people generally), Myrdal then endorses, on page 178 of the book, 'extreme' measures in this direction:
The chapter on 'population' begins by advising that, until about the 1930s, the growth of the black population lagged far behind the increase in white population. Not only fertility, but immigration as well, tended to support a phenomenal rise in the numbers of white U.S. residents between the end of the 18th century and the early 20th. However, birth rates among both black and white people had fallen in the years prior to Myrdal's research, to the point that black fertility had for the first time become measurably higher than white. This information on demographic trends begins on the first page of the population chapter, page 157 (citations omitted):
There were about 17 times as many Negroes in the United States in 1940 as there were in 1790, when the first census was taken, but in the same period the white population increased 37 times... Negroes were 19.3 per cent of the American population in 1790, but only 9.8 per cent in 1940.... [The relative change in proportion] has been governed by the national increase of the two population stocks, by expansion of the territorial limits of the United States and by immigration.
At page 160 (re census figures):
Despite the errors in the data, it is possible to derive the following tentative conclusions: (1) that Negroes, like whites, are not reproducing themselves so rapidly as they used to, (2) that probably their rate is now higher than that of the whites, and (3) that this differential is a new phenomenon, at least in so far as it is significant. If such a differential continues into the future and if it is not fully compensated for by immigration of whites, the proportion of Negroes in the American population may be expected to rise, though slowly.
Half way down the next page (page 161), Myrdal observes:
...Negroes are no longer reproducing themselves at a lower rate than whites. In fact, the figures suggest that they are reproducing themselves more -- thus reversing the position they held in 1930 and before.
As to future trends, the author includes a veiled hint about the potential for intervention on page 163:
It must be remembered, however, that future change in fertility and mortality will change the entire pattern.
At page 165, Myrdal points out the inconsistencies in various popular beliefs about the black population:
Popular theories on the growth of the Negro population in America have been diverse. At times it has been claimed that Negroes 'breed like rabbits,' and that they will ultimately crowd out the whites if they are not deported or their procreation restricted. At other times it has been pronounced that they are a 'dying race,' bound to lose out in the 'struggle for survival.'
Myrdal writes that it is common among 'liberal' white Americans to rationalize the depopulation of persons of African descent on the grounds that there will be less prejudice as the size of the black population diminishes But this is clearly not the perception of the black community. Writes Myrdal (at the bottom of page 168), 'I have never met a Negro who drew the conclusion from this that a decrease of the American Negro population would be advantageous. Indeed, says the very same paragraph (on page 169): 'almost every Negro, who is brought to think about the problem, wants the Negro population to be as large as possible.'
http://www.via3.net/pooled/articles/BF_DOCART/view.asp?Q=BF_DOCART_106258
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