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Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 217
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, May 08, 2005 - 12:34 pm: | 
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Via Negrophile, http://www.negrophile.com/phile/articles/if_were_not_counted_theres_no_way_to_re ally_convince_people_that_we_actually_exist.html:
Their disappearance is one of Argentina's most enduring mysteries. In 1810, black residents accounted for about 30 percent of the population of Buenos Aires. By 1887, however, their numbers had plummeted to 1.8 percent.
So where did they go? The answer, it turns out, is nowhere.
...
But two new studies are challenging [historical hypotheses about the disappearance], using distinct methods: a door-to-door census to determine how many Argentines consider themselves black, and an analysis of DNA samples to detect traces of African ancestry in those who consider themselves white.
The results are only partially compiled, but they suggest that many of the black Argentines did not vanish; they just faded into the mixed-race populace and became lost to demography...
I know there are at least two distinct reactions to this:
(1) "SEE! This is what will happen to Blacks here if ______________ continues to happen!"
(2) "So what! That's just [the way of the world/a natural process/inevitible/___________]."
What do you think?
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Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 799
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, May 08, 2005 - 01:09 pm: |
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My first question is this....
"Why isn't it just natural order that the WHITE populations also perish and disappear? Why does WHITENESS thrive and continue on while the Blacks are erased?"
My second question is.....
"How does a whole group of people totally vanish from the earth unless they hated themselves and believed in their inferiority?"
THIS IS NOT NORMAL HUMAN BEHAVIOR.
I am African. We are the first human beings to be placed on earth. Our race in Sudan is 26,000 years older than the 6,000 year old whites. How do we suddenly---after 26,000 years---become "unworthy" of life in the image of our own mothers and fathers? How do we accept the image of our oppressor as our image?
Black Americans have a Self-Hatred that defies sanity...and that is far more deeply imbeded than any other group of Black people on earth.
They make excuses for this bullshit (because they want their grandbabies to have "good hair" and RUDDY nigger-white complexions)----like NAZIs they support it---and they hate their ancestors and they hate Africa and they hate blackness....which is why they fail to see that what happened in West Africa 500 years ago is happening right now today...all over again.
The Blacks in MEDIA/Blacks in Power are the modern day "Slave Traders"......selling us down the river all over again.
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Cynnique
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, May 08, 2005 - 03:32 pm: |
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The problem I have with Kola's vision for African Americans is the sheer magnitude of the logistics involved. In order for her dream to become a reality, every black person in American would have to be in lock step with her, would have to adopt the same mind-set as hers and then agree to modify their behavior in accordance with her plan. To make sure everybody went along with this program there'd have to be a Grand Pubah in charge to keep everybody in line because some individuals might not conform to a robot mentality, or like the idea of being told how to live their lives. Kola is full of fiery rhetoric and dramatic catch phrases, but her oratory is just a spiel. And the idea that black people hate themselve is open for debate. Trying to thrive and survive by becoming a part of the mainstream is not about self hate. it's about self love. Kola is so fixated on a single idea that she fails to consider that flux is a better state that stagnation. |
Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 802
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, May 08, 2005 - 03:47 pm: |
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That's untrue Great Mother.
In a NORMAL society---there is ALWAYS some "race mixing", but because the two sides usually come from an EVEN playing field---the desire for erasure is not there, because the people are "equal", therefore it doesn't jeopardize or destroy either village.
Next up---I am not a nigger-----and as painful as it is for me to write that statement---I realize that it's the truest thing I could say. I have more in common with the White European than I do with the thinking of slaves.
Most importantly----where is the "stagnation" for White People?
Why do they continue to FLOURISH, create and dictate the mainstream and REMAIN FULLY WHITE? Argentina is a noticably WHITE nation, they look like their Spaniard ancestors.....but the blacks are GONE. HOW, I ask, is the "Flux" and stagnation benefitting blacks.....when the WHITES are stronger and more alive than ever?
How does a black woman advance this notion in the face of the facts????
Look at North Africa.
So it's very obvious, Mother Cynique, that the stagnation is on the part of the Blacks not accepting themselves, not demanding that their equality by existing AS THEMSELVES and by not forming their own "group economies" and stategies just as the THRIVING Asians, Latinos and Whites do.
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Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 803
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, May 08, 2005 - 03:50 pm: |
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Also, there is no vision for "African Americans" that will not eventually be global for ALL BLACKS.
If your children die....then so do mines.
And that is why...I am here.
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Cynnique
Unregistered guest
Rating: 
Votes: 2 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, May 08, 2005 - 07:28 pm: |
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You are proving what I said, Kola. You and your ideas are stagnant. There is no stagnation for white people or any other people who go with the flow. The human condition is in a state of flux. That's why the "white river" and all of its tributaries moves ahead, refreshing itself, and surviving. To be mired in an idea that is rooted in failure does nothing but make you a personification of inertia. Where in today's world is there the inspiration to extoll the Africa of our fathers? My children are uniquely my childlren. Not yours or anybody's else. And my progeny will never die because they are not the sum total of their skins. That's something you don't seem to comprehend. Human beings are spiritual entities. Skin color is superficial and the sooner it becomes insignificant the better. And the only way it becomes insignificant is when there is less contrast to it. You don't want to hear this because it bursts your bubble. |
Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 804
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, May 08, 2005 - 08:59 pm: |
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OK
Did everybody READ what Beloved Mother Cynique just wrote?
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Cynnique
Unregistered guest
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, May 08, 2005 - 09:45 pm: |
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I stand by what I said, Kola. I know that you and others might be appalled. So be it. My words point to what might happen in the future if people are left to their own devices. Your words are ones that cling to the past, a past that is colored with frustration and pain. There is no right or wrong here. Just reality. It's hard to stem the tide of change. It's also hard to look at the disease, the famine, the black-on-black genocide, the undeterred exploitation that now exists in black Africa and not think that all of this foreshadows the twilight of a civilization who could not hold its own against those who invaded it. In America who survives ultimately depends on providence. Neither you nor I know what lies ahead. But yours is an uphill climb - if we are to believe what you spew about "self-hating" black Americans. |
Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 230
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, May 09, 2005 - 01:16 pm: |
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Human beings are spiritual entities. Skin color is superficial and the sooner it becomes insignificant the better. And the only way it becomes insignificant is when there is less contrast to it.
How do we explain various situations throughout history and currently in which "skin colors" were very similar, yet that did not stop groups of people from disciminating against each other--often to the point of war and mass murder?
Cynique, I only wish that what you say is true. I'd be the first person on the train to "Just-Human-Being-ness" if I could be convinced that it were on the track to the Realization of Spiritual Commonality.
So far, I am not convinced.
I do agree, however, that Kola's track is all uphill--for many reasons. But I think yours is, too.
Despite your assertions that your way is the "natural" and "inevitible" and "evolutionary," I see it working only if everybody buys into it.
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Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 231
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, May 09, 2005 - 02:07 pm: |
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More of us folks struggling with this issue... http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2005/05/09/biss_berry/index.html
Was he black or white?
As a middle-class black woman, I've had to deal with the intricacies of racial consciousness my entire life. Now my sons are part of an idealistic generation that believes race doesn't matter. Which of us is right? |
Cynnique
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, May 09, 2005 - 04:16 pm: |
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I am not waging a campaign, Yvettep, so I am not in an "uphill battle." I am a philosopher, not a warrior. And it's an eerie thing. I never know what I going to say when I decide to join in the ongoing discussion on this thorny subject. I just put my hands on the keyboard and it's like something takes me over and thoughts just flow into my head. Am I channeling my persecuted black ancestors or my powerful white ones? |
Mahoganyanais
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mahoganyanais
Post Number: 373
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, May 09, 2005 - 04:31 pm: |
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Cynique: I just put my hands on the keyboard and it's like something takes me over and thoughts just flow into my head. Am I channeling my persecuted black ancestors or my powerful white ones?
Mah: Either way, I doubt they are very proud of your glib and defeatist take on the future. Both sides--neither a monolith--had too much of a vested interest in self-preservation. Not that you give a damn. ;-)
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Cynnique
Unregistered guest
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, May 09, 2005 - 05:27 pm: |
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MAH, surely you are not suggesting that my white ancestors are hanging their heads about my posts on this subject?? And how could you be a constant critic of the white establishmen and not realize that the only vested interest they have in the future is maintaining their power and dominance. And, of course, my ancestors were monolithic! At one time, one was pure white and the other was pure black.(I don't know who's giving my posts those stars but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a white person. heh-heh) |
Cynnique
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, May 09, 2005 - 05:30 pm: |
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BTW, MAH, I'm sure if I espoused you'd point of view, you'd label me "eloquent" instead of "glib". ;-) |
Mahoganyanais
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mahoganyanais
Post Number: 374
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, May 09, 2005 - 05:41 pm: |
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Cynique: MAH, surely you are not suggesting that my white ancestors are hanging their heads about my posts on this subject??
Mah: The lack of your white ancestors' pride I reference is not because you point to an evolutionary process to which whites are the beneficiaries, but rather because in doing so you fail to recognized the MONUMENTAL EFFORTS they found necessary to maintain their privileged position. They didn't sit idly by "and let nature take its course"; they made that shit happen. If this were "natural", slaves would not have required chains and Jim Crow would have been wholly unnecessary.
Cynique: And how could you be a constant critic of the white establishmen and not realize that the only vested interest they have in the future is maintaining their power and dominance.
Mah: My point exactly. Their interest is so vested, they haven't left that shit to chance, natural or otherwise.
Cynique: And, of course, my ancestors were monolithic! At one time, one was pure white and the other was pure black.
Mah: I was referring to "my persecuted black ancestors or my powerful white ones". Not all blacks have been persecuted to the same degree (Clarence Thomas, I've GOT your "high-tech" lynching), and not all whites have wielded the same degree of power. Beyond that, I believe there would be dissenters (from your pov) in each ancestral group, just as there are amongst your contemporaries. |
Mahoganyanais
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mahoganyanais
Post Number: 375
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, May 09, 2005 - 05:44 pm: |
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Cynique: BTW, MAH, I'm sure if I espoused you'd point of view, you'd label me "eloquent" instead of "glib". ;-)
Mah: LOL. Nope. To me, "eloquent" is more about the "how" than the "what." I've had occasion to find you eloquently WRONG before on these boards before. ;-) |
Cynnique
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, May 09, 2005 - 05:53 pm: |
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At least I'm concise and not convoluted. Do you mean to imply that anyone who doesn't agree with you is wrong?? You rarely agree with me but I don't necessarily think you're wrong. I just think you're coming from a different mind-set. |
Mahoganyanais
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mahoganyanais
Post Number: 376
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, May 09, 2005 - 06:05 pm: |
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Cynique: Do you mean to imply that anyone who doesn't agree with you is wrong??
Mah: Not at all. Some things I read or hear (here and elsewhere) are points of agreement/disagreement. Others, however, I think are clear cases of right and wrong. I'm not a relativist. ;-)
Cynique: You rarely agree with me but I don't necessarily think you're wrong.
Mah: Not true. I OFTEN agree with you, but I rarely post ME TOO posts. When either you or Kola head toward what I perceive as the "extreme" ends of the spectrum on this issue, I tend agree less.
Cynique: I just think you're coming from a different mind-set.
Mah: Me too. |
Mahoganyanais
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mahoganyanais
Post Number: 378
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, May 09, 2005 - 06:07 pm: |
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And the star-voting function is another way I register my agreement. ;-) |
Slow Poke
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, May 09, 2005 - 06:52 pm: |
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I'm not white, Cynique. Real brotha here. But I've been ...uh....uhm
giving you some stars.
Just love your posts, lady!!! |
Cynnique
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, May 09, 2005 - 06:57 pm: |
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MAH, I'm tired of the subject.I'm glad you have dismissed this class. |
Cynnique
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, May 09, 2005 - 07:09 pm: |
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Dat's my Slowpoke. Thanks, babe. I guess me and my bile are the next best thing to a gall bladder. Had those stones bronzed yet? ;-) |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 2621
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - 05:06 am: |
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Kola/Mah,
Sometimes I think you’re a bit too talkative for your own good. You need to quiet it down a tad and just...listen. And the wisdom of the Universe will reveal itself to you.
See. Here’s the thing: Cynique doesn’t care whether Black people survive as you or I might want them to. She has sort of a laissez-faire evolutionist viewpoint.
So basically Cynique believes we slow, ignant Kneegrows deserve to get what’s comin’ to us. If we’re all White as sheets come the next century, then just that’s a part some inevitable human progression.
As pissed as that makes you, tuff! You got to live with her right to feel that way.
But now, hold on. Isn’t this the SAME Cynique who ALSO advocates a curbing of “indiscriminant breeding” amongst (certain) Black foks.
Hmmmmm?
Executive Summary: So basically Cynique thinks people should be permitted to do whatever and WHOMEVER they want...provided they have the RIGHT background.
Now ladies. Ladies!...LADIES!
Do you REALLY wanna continue to pour your mighty brain, heart and guts into debating issues of color with such an ‘eclectic’ mindset? |
Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 232
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - 09:01 am: |
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I appreciate Cynique and others who keep forums like this from turning into an echo chamber. I have heard her state that she is quite comfortable challenging others to see another pov and question their own assumptions. Other than saying that, I'm sure she'll chime in if she sees fit to directly address ABM, me, Mah, others.
Having said that, I think those of us who perhaps subscribe to the first "strong position" in my initial post to this thread have not been creative enough. We have based too many of our assumptions on what has gone on "before" in this country or "before" in other countries or cultures...
To turn a phrase from Stevie Wonder, we've been spending most our days living in a pastime nightmare.
What do possible disconnects from the past and present tell us about the possible states of future race relations? I am not saying that there will not be continuity--in fact, the longer the historical outlook the more continuity will be evident, no matter how "new" and "different" things may seem at any given time.
But I do think that our downfall may come as much (if not more) from failing to have a sufficient degree of imagination about possible futures as from failing to have sufficient knowledge of the past(s).
For example, here is an image of something I saw at an art exhibit a few months ago. (Is this "Kolaesque?  )
Or, another from the same artist (not from the exhibit, see Artfacts web site: http://www.artfacts.net/index.php/pageType/artistInfo/artist/5059):
What do these images say to you? (Besides, perhaps just being somewhat disturbing.)
To me they point to an argument against one Cynique has made, that the natural state of evolution may be towards the gradual "tanning" and mixing of all or most folks. (If I have misinterpretted you, let me know!)
No. Instead, much of what seems to be happening on the edges of genetic and reproductive science seems to point towards some people (guess which people) taking decisive, "unnatural" means to preserve a certain progeny that look not "tan" at all.
What might this mean for people without access to such technologies as consumers; and without skills to shape such technologies as analysts, scientists, venture capitalists, etc?
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.
.
But before we start yelling about the Man or the State or the System, what responsibility might we have--those of us who have concerns about these potential situations? What can/should these people do?
Hint: A March on Bethesda (home of National Institutes of Health and other funding agencies of biotech ) is likely not an effective option...
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Mahoganyanais
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mahoganyanais
Post Number: 382
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - 09:14 am: |
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ABM: As pissed as that makes you, tuff! You got to live with her right to feel that way.
Mah: LOL. ABM, why you always stirring up some MESS!? I got the same amount of sleep last night as I always do. I'd defend Cynique's right to feel that way every day of the week. I love Yvette's reference to the alternative--this place becoming an echo chamber. |
Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 808
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - 11:53 am: |
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YVETTE--
Your African ancestor, King Kashta said:
"There is no such thing as the past, the present or the future....for they are all simultaneous."
________
And although you and I are certainly on the same page and I agree with EVERYTHING you're writing.......the one thing that keeps annoying me about your posts is that you act as though a "tanning, mixture" of the races would be anymore acceptable than a purely WHITE one.
I am an African woman. I cannot accept a world without charcoal, ebony, chocolate and nut brown colored children in it. An evolution into "tanned, mixed people" is the EXACT SAME, to me, as a world full of Whites Only.
How can you be HUMAN BEINGS and not acknowledge the most Authentic Human, the First Human---the Charcoal colored Nilotic?
What happened in Argentina--where the blacks were wiped out, is the same that happened in Libya, in Egypt, in Morocco, in Palestine----I KNOW BETTER THAN YOU BLACK AMERICANS what can happen to my black babies if someone doesn't fight for their right to exist. And it's utter and total bullshit----that these BREEDER GENOCIDES against "black skinned" humans are nothing more than "natural evolution".
Only a nigger or the bastard child of a nigger would grasp and accept such racist, evil thinking.
If "natural evolution" ever DID take place---it's the weak genes of the WHITES that could not withstand the "mixing".....it's their blood that would be blackened and overrun with death. The White Race would perish from the earth.....if "natural evolution" took place on a level playing field. But this why the "LIGHTEST" of blacks are elevated above the authentic blacks....to make sure that the playing field is NOT level.
PROOF:
In the 1920's, 1930's and 1940's United States....millions of Charcoal Blue Black WOMEN went without having any children, because the black community was against them---not choosing them for marriage, casting them off to become lesbians......because their SEED is the STRONGEST.
Whites would prefer that we all mate with LENA HORNE, thereby weakening our genetic advantage.
Today we have Tiger Woods mating with a pure Blonde to make WHITE children.
We have Michael Jackson's mating process.
We have Dark Chocolate men like TAYE DIGGS almost NEVER marrying a black woman of any real color.....to breed out that rich royal chocolate color.
We have a new MINORITY MAJORITY---the Latinos, who are 9/10ths White.
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Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 809
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - 11:59 am: |
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NOTE:
King Kashta and his son King Piankhy were BOTH jet black CHARCOAL colored and married women that same color.
The woman you call Queen of Sheba (Kentake Abu CanCollo Makeda)....was bluest Charcoal black with a BALD HEAD, fierce cheekbones and in her day was considered----"The most beautiful woman on earth".
The HOLY BIBLE speaks of the 3 African women (all 3 were blacker than nightwater) who were the lovers of KING SOLOMON in the book "SONG OF SOLOMON". These women were:
Sholoongo, a banker from Punt (Somalia).
UhSoora, a Kenyan farm girl.
Kentake abu-CanCollo Makeda, the Queen of Sheba.
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Cynnique
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - 01:59 pm: |
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As I said, folks, I'm tired of the discussion. It's going no where. I ain't trying to convince anybody of anything. And I knoooow you aren't trying to make me change my mind. So talk amongst yourselves. |
Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 235
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - 02:54 pm: |
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"There is no such thing as the past, the present or the future....for they are all simultaneous."
I like this, Kola.
I am still trying to push us beyond the kind of thinking we keep making our way to, however. Lena, Tiger, MJ blah blah blah. Cynique is certainly correct, IMO, that talking about them does not advance us anywhere. (Actually, I guess she's tired of the whole discussion. Hopefully she'll be back anyway, tho.)
I generally feel it is unproductive to attempt to mandate if folks have kids and who they have them with--whether we're talking trying to stop "indiscriminant breeding" or stop Tiger from having kids with his ex-nanny super duper White wife.
It's not that I think the latter is "acceptable"--I just don't think it is productive to rail against it.
Now. Trying to re-make the wider envirnment so that people make reproductive choices that are not based on a "fear of a Black planet"--that's fine with me. And I acknowledge that this task is harder as many folks seem to be compelled to procreate based on just this fear.
But in the end, I can only influence the marriage and/or childbearing choices of those closest to me. And then, only to a certain, limited extent.
More interesting to me is to look at those cases I have brought up here, in an attempt to stretch my imagination a little. I feel that these cases are still largely about race, or about race and class. But because they have new twists to them, our old ways of responding, what I call the MBP-Solution (marching, boycotting, pontificating), are not gonna work.
For example, here is a real life situation:
A while back some British IVF clinics were about to destroy some cyropreserved embryos that were unclaimed by the patients that produced them. There was public outcry in many quarters. A convent of nuns (I think in Italy) offered to have their wombs implanted with all the embryos and give birth to the resulting children.
Is this about race? Should Black leaders or others have been involved in this discussion? If so, what should they have said or done? If not, why not?
On the surface this has absolutely nothing to do with "charcoal black" people. But I wonder if, in the long run, the implications from this case and others like it are farther reaching than who Taye Diggs hooks up with? |
Cynnique
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - 02:55 pm: |
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As an after thought, I would suggest that ABM's whole argument is predicated on what he says Cynique thinks, using this techinique to make his rebuttal. The problem with this is that what he thinks Cynique thinks is not what Cynique thinks. Inasmuch as I did not make a value judgment, he distorted my position. MAH and Yvettep, I do appreciate your intellectual approach to a philosophical ethic that lends itself to many points of view. Kola? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know. |
Mahoganyanais
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mahoganyanais
Post Number: 383
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - 03:49 pm: |
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Cynique: MAH and Yvettep, I do appreciate your intellectual approach to a philosophical ethic that lends itself to many points of view.
Mah: You're welcome, Cynique. And I thank you for always keeping a sistah on her intellectual toes. |
Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 237
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - 03:50 pm: |
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Maybe, as Mah said, ABM was just trying to "start some mess," dunno. He's been kinda hit and run posting recently so I can't tell what gives there. LOL
And I just looked up that story--It was TWO nuns, not a whole "convent" of them as I exaggerated above! (Though many other women--non-nuns--also stepped forward offering their uteruses...)
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Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 238
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - 03:51 pm: |
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Teacher Mah, or is it "uteri"?
LOL
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Mahoganyanais
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mahoganyanais
Post Number: 384
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - 03:56 pm: |
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Either is correct, Yvette.
Class, Yvette gets the gold star for the day. |
Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 239
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - 03:57 pm: |
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{{smile}} |
Class Clown
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - 04:00 pm: |
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Yvette is a teacher's pet!!!! *snort* |
Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 240
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - 04:01 pm: |
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Don't hate, appreciate! |
Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 812
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - 05:15 pm: |
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Yvette, there you again.
WHO SAID that I want or advocate "controlling" who anyone sleeps or mates with????
What is CLEAR...is that the current "Think-SET" already Advocates and Controls such sleeping/mating....via the VEHICLES of racism/colorism/classism and with MEDIA as a kind of syringe to infect and inject the IMAGES that are "acceptable"----which are overwhelmingly "tanned, mixed" and NOT significantly black.
And yes...for the record....blackness as ITSELF can be "significant".
T.V., magazines, countless celebrity role models and every other POWER TOOL of the West dictates "WHO" we should be sleeping with and MATING with 24/7......
Isn't that Correct?
But yet and still, when a single African woman with NO POWER stands to voice her objections---there's the rebuttal from the fields: "It's not right to tell people who to mate with."
WHY NOT?
Why doesn't Cynique and all the "intelligent" women like yourself ever level such a charge at the MASS MEDIA who has REAL POWER and who dictates these decisions....everyday?
Why is there such COMPLACENCY about the value and worth of Black Skin and Black looks?
MY CHILDREN...were on this planet FIRST.
So anyone with an ounce of common sense could well expect that I don't support any "Cultural Acculturation" that could casually breed them out of existence----nor do I believe that the "Humanity" in so called human beings could be at peace in a world where their genetic origins have been barred from existing.
And just as importantly, I'm so sick and tired of BEING FAIR in a world that has NO CONSIDERATION----NONE-------for my womb and my children.
WHY SHOULD I?
___________
And please understand one FACT:
I could NEVER envision a world without WHITE PEOPLE or without MIXED PEOPLE or without ASIANS or without INDIANS.....anymore than I can envision one without MY CHILDREN.
I write that in blood.
Kola Boof
_________________________________
Yet not a single person has acknowledged that the AUTHENTIC BLACKS "must exist"........or even alluded to it.
This has been mostly not even thought about, as I notice that Americans have this attitude that a Mixed Part Black Person is "black enough" to fill their racist QUOTA and that's all the representation black folks need.
There keeps being this remark: "Natural course of things....natural order...natural..."
YEAH.
In many subtle ways, this thread BELIES my point that Black Americans, In General, really do hate the PHYSICAL APPEARANCE of their ancestors, do not cherish it or wish to reproduce it---and mainly because they've been conditioned to believe that just anybody can be black. Such as someone like LENA HORNE. Which is exactly "WHY" it's so important to ask the so called Black People of today why her life is SO IMPORTANT
and this woman's is not:
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Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 242
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - 05:43 pm: |
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Kola, I was just looking at this post with my ill daughter on my lap. I scrolled down to the image you posted and she removed her fingers from her mouth and said "Mommy she is very pretty."
I said, "Yes, she is, isn't she."
I am raising my own children to believe in their hearts and their heads in their own beauty and in the beauty of people who look like this woman.
I never said it is not "right" to tell people who to have children with; I said I think it is counterproductive. To "mandate," to "advocate," even to "object."
I am wide open to discussions about how folks like me--and like all of us--can impact media images, research agendas, policy decisions, etc. I do not think complaining about interracial couples, however, is an effective way to do this.
If we're just talking, letting of steam--then fine. We certainly have that right, and I imagine this is a good place to do that with "digital family" in all out diversity.
But I also long for discussions that stretch beyond the same talk I can have on any given day in any given barber shop, Black baptist church, or my own family reunion.
What's so wrong with thinking outside the box a little? |
Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 814
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - 06:21 pm: |
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YVETTE: I do not think complaining about interracial couples, however, is an effective way to do this.
KOLA: You're right.
YVETTE: What's so wrong with thinking outside the box a little?
KOLA: That's hilarious as I've been accused of being the ultimate "out the box" thinker. But then---you haven't read many of my views on religion, sexuality and alternative lifestyles---for instance, after Marvin X said that Black Women of the future will have to "share" men, my assertion was that if there's a "man-shortage", then many women might be better off having MULTIPLE BOYFRIENDS (for assorted needs) and get their intimate, spiritual needs met by having closer-knit relationships with other women. In other words---use men for sex, since the men don't need "relationships" anymore and aren't available for many women----and put more bonding/value into your Best Friend(s).
LOL
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Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 244
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - 06:43 pm: |
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Ohhh, Kola, I have read some of these posts! LOL. You are definitely an out-the-box thinker regarding issues about sexuality: what would a beyond-Kola view of these types of racial matters look like?
For example, you say you don't "mandate" such things as who folks date/have children with--Well, what would such a thing look like? I know all you creative types can speculate about that.
In fact, remeber a movie a while back (I think Spike Lee produced it, but I don't remember the director) where Black people who had "sold out" were kidnapped and "re-educated"? How might a program like that look like? What about a genetic enginering facility where "charcoal black" embryos are produced and implanted into low income Black women...
I'm not advocating these types of extreme views. I do find that imagining scenarios involving them might lead us to new directions.
At the least, it might be fun!
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Cynnique
Unregistered guest
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - 11:47 pm: |
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Kola asks in response the charge that she "dictates" who people should reproduce with:
"Why doesn't Cynique and all the "intelligent" women like yourself ever level such a charge at the MASS MEDIA who has REAL POWER and who dictates these decisions....everyday?"
Cynique replies:
The mass media doesn't dictate anything. It concocts an image, and its audience has a choice as to whether or not to emulate this image. You never talk about the females who reject the hype, who are not slaves to the media, who don't strive to look like Beyonce or J-Lo or Paris Hilton. There are plenty of ordinary hard-workin sistas who go about their daily lives, not dying their hair blond, or bleaching their skin or wearing glitzy clothes or popping diet pills or getting breast implants or having botox injections. These are women who are getting by on their own personal assets and they come in all colors. |
Cynnique
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - 11:57 pm: |
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Yvettep says in regard to AMB's rants:
"Maybe, as Mah said, ABM was just trying to "start some mess," dunno. He's been kinda hit and run posting recently so I can't tell what gives there."
Cynique says:
Come on now. We all know ABM has to get up the middle of the night and sneak over to his computer and do his thing, furtively hoping that "you-know-who" doesn't wake up and catch him. ROTFLOL.
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jackie
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 12:05 am: |
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Cynique...class is over, remember ? Go home.
LOL |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 2632
Registered: 04-2004
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 06:38 am: |
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Mah: LOL. ABM, why you always stirring up some MESS!?
ABM: Oh, PULEASE! You know you LOVE my “MESS”!
Cynique: “As an after thought, I would suggest that ABM's whole argument is predicated on what he says Cynique thinks, using this techinique to make his rebuttal. The problem with this is that what he thinks Cynique thinks is not what Cynique thinks.”
ABM: I wonder does even “Cynique” herself know what “Cynique thinks”. I also wonder does “Cynique” know she’s hilariously referring to herself in the third person.
Cynique says:
Come on now. We all know ABM has to get up the middle of the night and sneak over to his computer and do his thing, furtively hoping that "you-know-who" doesn't wake up and catch him. ROTFLOL.
ABM says:
Don’t hate. Congratulate.
I haven’t been as available lately because me and the missuhs have been too busy doing some thangs that...well...YOU have NOT been ‘agile’ enough to do since the Kennedy Administration. |
Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 250
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 10:52 am: |
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The mass media doesn't dictate anything. It concocts an image, and its audience has a choice as to whether or not to emulate this image.
Hear, hear.
This is a huge battle, as a parent, trying to go up against the images my daughters are bombarded with every day. Sometimes I hold firm ("NO Disney Princesses nightgowns"), oftentimes I compromise ("...But you can get the Dora the Explora ones") and every once in a while--not often enough--I get the nagging feeling that I could be doing a LOT more to take proactive steps to create more possitive images ("...Hmmm...I wonder what it would take to create a line of nightgowns with beautiful African queens on them...")
But in the meantime, I do the best I can. My husband and I try to support that which reflects our cultures and values positively, and deconstruct with our daughters that which reflects negatively. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 2641
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 11:04 am: |
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'Vette,
I disagree with Cynique's "the mass media doesn't dictate anything" comment. The media is dictating EVERYTHING about our lives.
Yes. We have SOME degree of control over the manner and extent we're being dictated to. But we all are profoundly affected by it.
Because even if I am the most responsible of parents, my children are going out into a world that isn't even remotely as attentive. This is a society where +70% of Black children are in fractured households; where the radio, TV/Cable and the Internet are their guardians.
An to learn, prepare and grow; my children must interract with these people almost every day of their young/impressionable lives.
So I agree with you it is a "huge battle". Its one that few hope to really 'win' but rather one where at best you hope simply to 'survive'. |
Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 818
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 11:35 am: |
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ABM:
'Vette,
I disagree with Cynique's "the mass media doesn't dictate anything" comment. The media is dictating EVERYTHING about our lives.
------
Hear, hear
And since I KOLA actually CREATE ALTERNATIVE MEDIA and make myself heard rather than just musing "occasionally when the issue is raised"---I find it so disheartening to constantly run into the brick wall that is the Black Woman----both American and Foreign.
I am not talking about Yvette here, but am talking about the MAJORITY out there---the ones who lean closer to Cynique's thinking (because it's easier and has been ordained by the general society) or the black church women who think we just need to "wait on God"---and you look at them, they've been at the bottom waiting their whole lives, because they get on God's fucking nerves more than anything else----or the Black women who are just too "inferior" and "meek" to stand up for themselves, let alone their children or the image of their ancestors.
Just typical weak ass Black women, who the MEDIA has always referred to as "strong black women" as a kind of Psyche-Out.
Women who make excuses for the media...or behave as though what THEY DO/THINK in their home is significant enough, when what we really need is to form groups and connect with others to effectively DEMAND CHANGE as "A people".....something that Black Women in the 1950's and 1960's were quite successful with in gaining what little positive exposure we have today.
Black People, in general, are notorious for UNDER-ESTIMATING the actual power and influence that MEDIA IMAGES have on all human beings. And now more than ever, the MEDIA is used specifically as a tool that instructs Black People WHAT TO THINK about certain issues ("there is no more racism"), who is best to mate with (images of Black men with Non-Black women are PROMOTED and REPRESENTED 4 times more than images of Black men with black women----and when a black man is shown with a black woman, she almost always is LIGHTER SKINNED, reinforcing the visual CONDITIONING that it's "abnormal" for two pure black people to love each other-----as two pure White people are shown EVERY DAY, ALL DAY, in love and unity).
How dare any intelligent person CLAIM that this is a coincidence.
The fact is---the images are PURELY "white supremacist"----but Blacks, ESPECIALLY "successful, educated blacks" are weary to rock the boat and are the main ones who will ignore the HISTORY of how "thinking is cultivated" and pledge their allegience to the society while ignoring VERY HARMFUL, Destructive Pathologies in MEDIA that are literally ripping the humanity right off the backs of our people.
The so called BLACK MEDIA is just as destructive and filled with self-hating images....."mores and folkways", they teach you in Sociology (I slept with many Sociology Professors) that are FORMED by Black children internalizing the messages and images they receive from the DOMINANT CULTURE.....as their black parents fail to construct SOCIAL, not personal, but SOCIAL groups and apparatus to DECONSTRUCT those mores and folkways.
I am doing my part...big time....and paying a heavy price for it.
It doesn't matter how right or how wrong I am.....what matters is that I am DOING SOMETHING that is "alternative" and that is "black" and that promotes SELF-realization in black people.
Earlier I quoted King Kashta.
But now let us remember the creed of the TRIBE itself:
"God is NOT.....an individual."
_________
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Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 2644
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 12:32 pm: |
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Kola,
The woman is your "Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - 05:15 pm" is absolutely GORGEOUS!
If you know here personally, tell her ABM says..."DAAAYAAAMMM!" |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 2645
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 12:34 pm: |
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Uh....I meant:
"Kola,
The woman is your "Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - 05:15 pm" POST is absolutely GORGEOUS!
If you know HER personally, tell her ABM says..."DAAAYAAAMMM!" |
Cynnique
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 02:33 pm: |
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Cynique observes, but doesn't necessarily opine. That's why she often refers to herself in the third person. It's also why she has a fit every time her personal profile is exposed. Cynique is a catalyst for debate and an alternative to black politically correctness. It all has to do with "my" natural-born Zen tendencies. You guys have the words and I have the space between the words, and this is personified in the polemicist known as "Cynique."
As for the mass media being so influential, it's the degree to how much it dictates. There are those who are gullible and those who aren't, and this includes children. Thank goodness for anybody who doesn't believe that fairy tales are true. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 2658
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 02:39 pm: |
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Cynique,
HAHA!
I'm sorry. But the 3rd person thing get's me almost every time.
Hey. Ask "Cynique" what's wrong with the Cubs this year. And don't let her give you a b*ll$#*+ answer, like 'she' often does. |
Cynnique
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 02:46 pm: |
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BTW, there isn't anybody who wouldn't be impressed with the portrait of the stunning black woman Kola posted. There are aesthetic standards for beauty which are universal. e.g. perfect complexion and good facial contour along with symmetrical features. |
Cynnique
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 02:51 pm: |
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Why don't you tell me what's wrong with the Cubs this year, ABM, since you are good at "supplying" answers - or at least what you purport to be answers. Both me and Cynique would opine that the Cubs are lousy, as opposed to the White Sox who have the winningest record in the league. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 2661
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 02:55 pm: |
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Cynique,
Indeed. But now, how OFTEN do we see someone like HER brandished in the prevalent media versus, say, Beyonce, J Lo or Julia Roberts?
THAT inequity, Oh Great High Yellowness, is the issue Kola has bravely asserted. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 2662
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 02:56 pm: |
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Cynique,
Thanks for the answer about the Cubs. Thanks you too..."Cynique". |
Cynnique
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 03:30 pm: |
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Like anybody had to be told what Kola bravely asserted. We live in America so the majority rules. If people in the minority can't prevail then they should found their own nation and set their own standards. Either that, or adjust - by any means necesssary. By the way, couldn't you find a woman to marry who looked like that picture instead of your "carmel" colored wife?? (Heaven forbid using the word "brown" and have people think that it might mean dark brown. heh-heh) |
Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 254
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 03:39 pm: |
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what matters is that I am DOING SOMETHING that is "alternative" and that is "black" and that promotes SELF-realization in black people.
Kola, I agree with this 100%. My hat is off to you and others--on this board and elsewhere--who are offering up alternative images.
Also, hats off to those who are working within systems to transform images. (I'm blanking on the name of the Black woman involved in children's programming...she's the creator of "The Backyardigans" and worked with Cosby on "Little Bill"...But she's a good example.)
I reacted strongly and positively to what Cynique said because I do not feel powerless against "the Media"--even as I struggle to equip my own daughters to be empowered.
Media react to society as much as they shape it: If not, how do you explain the on-the-sly, might-be gay and lesbian couples cropping up here and there in ads, or the cute little Asian kids with White parents...
And of course, the more racist and hurtful images are not a coincidence--But just as well, they are often not part of an intentional plot, carried out by an organized cabal of image-makers. Rather, the racism and racial hurtfulness has largely been institutionalized, meaning that even just going along unconsciously with "business as usual" will likely result in the same effects.
This, to me, is a lot more dangerous than a picture of a group of powerful White men sitting around the board table at UPN making specific plans.
In the end, I do not by any means discount the hard--and frustrating--work of folks who are actually doing something. Like I said, I often am aware that I wish I were doing a lot more than I am, at least currently. (I didn't feel this so much when I was teaching.)
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Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 2666
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 03:45 pm: |
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Cynique,
All the women I've loved have been light to dark skinned with not apparent bias that I could discern (Well...big tits and pretty eyes were a premium.). I suppose I could/would have easily married a woman who looks like the woman above if our personalities clicked and we met at the right times in our lives. But, honestly, whom I chose to marry was as much as act of divine province as much as it was that my own.
Cynique: "Like anybody had to be told what Kola bravely asserted. We live in America so the majority rules. If people in the minority can't prevail then they should found their own nation and set their own standards. Either that, or adjust - by any means necesssary."
ABM: Now foks. Re-read Cynique's spiel. Then read the propaganda of the Klan, Neo-Nazi, the White Front, Whiteguysrule.com, etc. It's like deja vu all over again. |
Cynnique
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 04:03 pm: |
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Read what I wrote as it is written and not as ABM has refigured it to make his point. What I suggested is also what Afro-Centrics and Black Muslims have been known to say. Once again I offered choices. Not something white supremists and Klan members do when they demand that blacks go back to Africa because they don't want them in the main stream. |
Cynnique
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 04:21 pm: |
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And, ABM, am I to actually believe that you chose who you married because - dare I say, she appealed to you??? How terrible that other black men would want the right to make this choice. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 2667
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 04:34 pm: |
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Cynique,
There were times when it was the "choice" of some people to own slaves. But others "chose" to fight to disallow such.
Thus, I do not believe those words are, in of themselves, virtuous. Especially if they are the product of 100's years of bias, racism, subjugation and even rape.
You, of course, may "chose" to believe whatever it is you prefer.
Yes, my wife physically appeals to me. But so do many other women. I'd like to think my love for her is free of some coloristic bias. But I'm also willing to concede it may not be.
I wager, however, we've STAYED together for MANY reasons OTHER than whether and to what degree either of us appear Black, White or other. |
Anonymous
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 08:42 pm: |
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Abm: I have a neice that looks like 5-10-05
LiLi |
Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 823
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 09:43 pm: |
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ABM, you know full well that you're my Hero-Guy.
But when you say that given the circumstances---you would have married a woman who looks like this:
I just don't believe you.
I'm sorry, but I just don't.
Men usually "seek out" the type of woman they want to marry....and IN PLACE are social structures (such as, certain kinds of women generally hang out with other certain kinds of women---other kinds are "excluded"----even in da club, there are "cliques").....and so on.
I'm not saying that you're not a fantastic black man (to me---you most certainly are one of my 5 favorites I've ever met in my life)...but I just don't believe that you would have accepted a woman who looks like NoorPanis as your wife, to take around your friends, to present in front of other American women.
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Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 258
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 10:01 pm: |
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Kola, no comment on ABM's dating preferences...
But what makes me so sad about this young woman is that there are lots of other girls who looked similar to her, girls who I knew growing up and visiting "the 'hoods" in Gary, East Chicago, 5th ward-Houston, Roxbury-Mass, wherever.
But though they may have looked as this woman looked as young girls, they likely look nothing like she does now as grown women.
They have gotten beat down. They have bought years of being told they are "ugly." They have not cared properly for themselves (due to all sorts of circumstances). Their skin is beyond hope for ever being "flawless" due to smoking and other abuses.
Meanwhile, many girls who looked lighter and brighter have come to carry themselves differently, believing in a "beauty" that was reflected back to them at many turns...
I do recognize that this happens. And it does make me very sad.
I do hear you all who are saying there is power in the images we are fed, and that these images can be powerful forces in this "beat down" process. And I admit that very often the personal--once aggregated--becomes political.
Once we begin breaking it back down at the personal level, however, we get resistance ("Oh, but I married my wife out of Love, not cuz she's light...").
I just don't know how to get around this fact. I don't know how to get to the point where calling folks on their personal choices in dating, marriage, and childbearing will actually yield the results we seem to want (e.g., greater acceptance of dark skinned women as love-objects).
If I am missing something, please let me know. |
jackie
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 10:28 pm: |
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Yvettep: Meanwhile, many girls who looked lighter and brighter have come to carry themselves differently, believing in a "beauty" that was reflected back to them at many turns...
Well I've seen a lot of TOE-UP looking "light skinned" women who don't keep themselves up as well, although they were once pretty little girls...but then experimented or got involved with drugs, crime, domestic abuse, self-hatred, mental illnesses etc.
I know many "dark skinned" women who don't have one hair out of place, happy, sexy, beautiful complexions, shape, etc.
It has alot to do with self-esteem and self-determination. However, I'm not negating the fact that society does uphold the "lighter is better" agenda. |
Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 828
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 10:31 pm: |
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But YVETTE,
Until you make EVERYONE in the society seriously "question" themselves----you won't see "some people" change.
OTHERWISE....we would still be in slavery in the U.S.
The Abolitionists did the same thing I'm doing now----they forced people to look at certain "nuances" in daily living, choices, etc. that CHALLENGED the way people thought.
The Bible was once USED to justify slavery....until considerable amounts of people challenged it.
PLEASE TAKE NOTE.....
.....that Steven Spielberg was determined to tell "Celie's story", because his White Jewish mother raised him on stories about how "SHE" was not accepted and rejected and mistreated by JEWISH MEN.....for having a big Jewish nose, broken skin and thick dark eyebrows and other MIDDLE EUROPEAN features that are considered inferior to NORDIC or BOLSHEVIC or SCANDANAVIAN features. Because of his MOTHER----he determined to give "CELIE" a voice.
MANY people who have REAL POWER (like Spielberg) are greatly influenced not by the MEDIA....but by sensitive, vigilant people in their lives who POINT OUT and COMMENT on these injustices.
Denzel Washington married a woman who LOOKED West African---because his mother, aunts and his Pastor Father talked openly about "colorstruck people" in the church he went to as a kid. SOMEHOW---most of the boys at that church ended up marrying women who looked more like their mothers, because the issue was raised.
And still, as Denzel pointed out, SOME boys married light skinned girls----and because the playing field was so EVEN---nobody even questioned when a boy married a light skinned girl, because EVERY COLOR of girl had been dated and given consideration and Vice Versa. There was no LOP-sided situation where almost ALL the males were jockeying for any light skin they could pair up with......as is usually the case.
Toni Morrison....a high yellow woman with thick Negroid features.....wrote "THE BLUEST EYE" because she was appalled when a jet black girl stood up in her 9th grade class and stated that she wanted "blue eyes". Morrison writes that after hearing such a thing---she looked around and suddenly noticed how the thing that was MOST BEAUTIFUL TO HER (blue black girls)....were the most despised, ignored and unloved people in her community. These girls started out young and beautiful---but wilted into oblivion. Amazingly, nobody noticed this but her.
Still, she spoke up and spoke up LOUD.
The fact is, YVETTE....
WE HAVE TO SAY SOMETHING and START SOMEWHERE....even if innocent people are made to feel guilty for no reason----even if guilty people are made to feel embarrassed and unfairly attacked for their choices.
Black people---ESPECIALLY---have to be taught to QUESTION "why" they think, feel whatever it is they "think and feel".
This goes BEYOND just colorism. We are sick PERIOD from our experiences being black in a world that hates us.
As Barbra Streisand sings: "Children Will Listen"
And SOME little black boys today....who are hearing the heartbreak and feelings of "betrayal" in the VOICES of their mothers, aunts and grandmothers...WILL CARE and WILL resolve not to be like their colorstruck heroes. Some others won't.
But the fact is....many more little Black Children TODAY are being "openly told" that it's wrong to be colorstruck.....than there have EVER BEEN.
In fact, as Oprah and Maya Angelou and Alice Walker have all pointed out......there was a time, very recently, when you didn't DARE discuss this subject on either side----because EVERYBODY, both dark and light, were FOR IT.
You simply didn't talk about "colorism" in the past.
But today.....as Black Women face statistics that say 42% of them will never marry....and 70% of Black children live in Single Mother homes.......it's becoming increasingly clear that the REALITY of the Pink Elephant in our community MUST BE....at last.....confronted, talked about, fought about and GRADUALLY....exorsized.
We can't exist if we don't come up with a NEW STANDARD that is more "natural" based to our own genetic makeup.
One thing we do have the power to do as black folks.....is to make something IN STYLE (Cool).
And I predict that in the next 2 decades....OUR CHILDREN, because we "wished it"......are going to make NOORPANIS....."IN style", COOL.....in a serious, tangible way for the first time in 500 years. And in doing so, will resurrect our Real Mother, our true beginning----the ROOT-----of our family tree.
And without the ROOT.....a Tree eventually dies.
As your African ancestors said when battling Red Ant armies in the jungle:
"Kill the Queen---the nest will die."
And that is what's going to happen to us, both physically and culturally, if we don't save NOORPONIS.
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jackie
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 10:34 pm: |
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one note: I didn't mean to minimize the seriousness of domestic abuse and mental illness. Actually please strike that from the record. The point I'm making is that there are many "light skinned" black women who have neglected themselves as well. |
Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 260
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 10:41 pm: |
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Here is an idea. Let all us web-savvy folks find some sites dedicated to Black men (and/or Black women) in search of White/other non-Black partners for sex/love/marriage/whatever. I know these sites must be out there. Let's get on them and question these folks directly, try to persuade them directly. I would be interested to hear what they have to say.
...Might not lead anywhere, but might be fun...Kindova web-based "Drop Squad." (THAT was the movie I was talking about earlier.) |
Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 830
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 10:47 pm: |
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YVETTE,
ABM...
is a good example of a Black Man who can be made to become VERY SENSITIVE about this issue and to sincerely CARE about this issue.....once it was constantly presented to him (by me, of course).....and 4 years ago, he was not as nice and understanding and agreeable as he is today......MAINLY BECAUSE, it was something that just never crossed his mind. Nobody ever "pushed him" about it or challenged him in a serious way.
But look at him now.
I truly believe that he CONCIOUSLY chooses not to be "colorist" in his daily activities and he is now QUICK TO NOTICE it when he does encounter it in the society---even if he never thought of himself as (or ever was) colorstruck before.
I'm NOT SAYING that he was colorstruck before, mind you....just that he's INCREDIBLY sensitive and well informed about the issue NOW.
The fact is.....he's FIRMLY against it now and when confronted with it, is more likely to comment negatively on it....rather than wink and let it pass.
I also get the feeling that his wife is VERY CONSCIOUS about this issue and she has indicated to me that she is in agreement with MOST of what I've said/espoused on the issue.
Now imagine if we had 10 million ABMs to influence our sons, make decisions in Black Media and to influence young black girls about their self worth.
I believe the world be better for both dark AND light girls then. And of course, because we ALL come from Africa---we would begin to look more "uniformed" in our coloring---moving towards a "common brown" (as Randall Robinson said/wished) and would be genuinely pleased with that.
-----------------
GREAT IDEA about the DROP SQUAD thing.
Only I have to admit---I'm too depressed and preoccupied with my career dangers at this moment to embark on the kind of ROUGH FIGHTING that would surely occur once I entered a chat area for White Women/Black Lovers, etc.
I would be too upset.
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Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 831
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 10:48 pm: |
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LMAO
at Yvette's DROP SQUAD proposal.
This girl is CRAZIER than I am!!!
LOL
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Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 261
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 10:57 pm: |
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"Come back, brother..."
--Drop* Squad, 1994
(*"Deprogramming and Restoration of Pride") |
Mahoganyanais
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mahoganyanais
Post Number: 397
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 10:59 pm: |
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Oh, my! The jpegs too???
Kola, what have you DONE??? lol |
jackie
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 11:01 pm: |
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That's it...I was trying to think of the name when u(Yvettep) mentioned it too... I'm usually pretty good with Spike's movies. Oh well. |
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