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Politics : Israel to U.S. : Now Deal with Syria and Iran -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: geode00 who wrote (6353)	12/2/2004 4:00:39 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22250

Re: What is your point? You want to shun black people as a group? No, my point is that, for every society, group, country,... gregarious behavior is the name of the game. You blame African-Americans seeking to turn their grievances and political struggles into a collective agenda/bargaining. You say that it's bad and unfair for black people --and other minorities?-- to somehow stick together and further fellow blacks for the mere reason that... they're black! Personal achievement, individual merit and self-made "hardwork" should be the only criteria to promote anyone --whether black or not. Pure meritocracy across the board! Problem is, there ain't such a thing as "pure, color-blind meritocracy"! Whites stick together, Jews stick together, white males stick together, white-angry-churchgoers stick together, the wealthy stick together... heck, even gays and lesbians stick together --and twist and bend the meritocratic rules to spare their mates... So why couldn't blacks do likewise? Or any other minority, for that matter? Of course, that's quite a subversive viewpoint for most brainwashed Americans: after all, you've been told all along that "class struggle" doesn't exist, that it's a noxious fantasy hyped up by commies and other unAmerican lost souls --everyone's on his/her own in America! Everybody can make it, however far down the social ladder he or she starts up, eh? Whatever his or her complexion, persuasion, wealth, etc. So, why do you (negroes, gays, muslims,...) want to ORGANIZE??? Do we hardworkin', churchgoin', gun-totin' whites ORGANIZE ourselves? Militia nuts? Unions? the KKK? the Beltway lobbies? Oh, that's just "innocuous socializing"! Open-door get-togethers! Gus

To: geode00 who wrote (6353)	12/2/2004 4:56:50 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22250

Follow-up to my post #6361: Alienable Rights: The Exclusion of African Americans in a White Man's Land, 1619-2000 Francis D. Adams & Barry Sanders HarperCollins Hardcover 368 pages November 2003 The title tells it all. Despite the rhetoric and despite our wish that it not be so, White America has consistently chosen the exclusion, when possible, of Black America, and when exclusion proved impossible, then White America looked to legal remedies, then to social machination, and when all else failed, to illegal tactics and thuggery. The authors have put this ugly story in a long scholarly timeframe, facts at their fingertips. It will strike a note of agreement with all but the most hardened and radical opponents of its views. From its earliest days, America was a blancophilic society, as evidenced in such early statutes as this from Maryland in 1639: ..."Inhabitants of this Province being Christians (Slaves excepted) shall have and enjoy such rights liberties immunities priveledges and free customs...as any naturall born subject of England." Paradoxically, as authors Adams and Sanders rightly point out, there was a sense that "God had truly selected the America to lead the struggle for human liberty and provide an example for oppressed people everywhere." This was the revolution in "the hearts and the minds of the people," a phrase coined by John Adams himself. Therefore, as we all recognize, it was that much more difficult for these erudite, religious men, feeling the fire of fate in their every action, to make peace with the notion of slavery. Nearly all the founding fathers knew, in their best "hearts and minds" that slavery was godless and would fall, or be the downfall of those who practiced it. But they did nothing to stem the engulfing tide. Then came the Civil War and a nation divided, a nation that couldn't and wouldn't stand unless blood was shed. Lincoln proposed the emancipation of slaves, finally, as a "strategic act aimed at prosecuting the war rather than a moral choice in favor of black freedom." There was a movement to send blacks to Liberia, the results of which today scream across the headlines. There was every dodge imaginable to stave off the inevitable - the recognition, in law and in social and moral fact, of the human equality of all America's people. But the dodges continued. In the face of black enfranchisement, "state election officials chose...a series of race-neutral qualifications and voting procedures that effectively excluded blacks from casting their ballots..." These included poll taxes to be paid as much as a year in advance "with interest accruing on the unpaid amounts." If all that wasn't sufficient, there was fear, with the Klan as its long and brutal arm. For every Medgar Evers or Martin Luther King seeking power for his people, there was a George Wallace or a George Bush, newly elected in Texas, wielding political clout and willing to undercut any efforts to make the laws stick. When the laws were made to stick, there was another subtle maneuver, defined best by Ronald Reagan: "never speak ill of blacks in public - and defend yourself against charges of prejudice by taking shelter behind that old rampart, individual freedom." Which is where, at this time, the matter rests. An uneasy truce and a feeble appearance of intent. A record of shameful loss and a promise of more to come. Only on an individual basis, where we meet in person and in brief touching interludes, is there much real racial betterment going on in America. We look for a last, hopeful chapter but find none. © 2004 by Barbara Bamberger Scott for Curled Up With a Good Book curledup.com