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White Anxiety, and a President Ready to Address It (1 Viewer)

Grand Mal said:
Didn't I expain it clearly enough? Black Americans mostly don't know what their ethnicity is- Wolof, Ashanti, Mandingo, whatever- those identities were taken from them and 'black' is all they have left. It means something in America but obviously it's meaningless in Africa.
Do you know what your ethnic background is? Or are you too reduced to just identifying yourself as 'white'?
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Many black Americans are learning their roots in Africa through ancestry tests now, but I doubt any of them are going to start referring to themselves as Mandingan Americans any time soon.
 
Parrish said:
White supremacy is against the principles upon what this country was founded on. The Tea Party's founding was based on racism and white supremacy.
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What nonsense. It was about taxes
 
dixon01767 said:
Afraid I dont have the slightest idea as to what you are going on about.
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Who dressed up like Indians and tossed kegs of tea into Boston Harbour?
 
pamak said:
I am entrenched to my argument, and I explained it.

You mentioned how whiteness can be used for unification and I told you that this "possibility" for unification is just in your head since "whiteness" is not anchored on a common historical experience.
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And you still haven't explained why being "anchored on a common historical experience" is necessary for a group identity based on skin color.

The simple fact is that because we can sort people into groups of 'white' and 'non-white' your claim that 'whiteness' cannot be used as an identifying criterion for grouping (ie, a group identity), is demonstrated false.

If we can identify a trait (skin color) and group based on that trait (white vs non- white), then that trait can form the basis of a group identity (white people).
 
dixon01767 said:
Sons of Liberty and still have no idea as to what you are going on about
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It's onlytwo sentences. I'm not going to lead you by the hand, but I will paste the sentences here and let you puzzle it out on your own...

Funny how the Tea Party models itself after a bunch of liberals, innit

Who dressed up like Indians and tossed kegs of tea into Boston Harbour?
 
Grand Mal said:
It's onlytwo sentences. I'm not going to lead you by the hand, but I will paste the sentences here and let you puzzle it out on your own...

Funny how the Tea Party models itself after a bunch of liberals, innit

Who dressed up like Indians and tossed kegs of tea into Boston Harbour?
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"Liberal" as it is used today doesnt describe the sons of Liberty. Todays liberals would be fighting for more authority for the king.
 
dixon01767 said:
"Liberal" as it is used today doesnt describe the sons of Liberty. Todays liberals would be fighting for more authority for the king.
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Liberal means the same today as it always has. Conservative, too, means the same as it did when American conservatives were booking passage to Nova Scotia. "Tories", they were called, and still are in Canada and England.
Your confusion is a common one among American conservatives- you don't know what 'liberal' means. You think it's socialism and 'statism' (what a clumsy word!) and progressivism and every other social and political ill you can name. In fact, the entire left, everything left of center, that's 'liberalism' to American conservatives.
Easier that way, I guess. No thinking necessary.
 
truthatallcost said:
I agree with you, but unfortunately the top 1% don't. Which is why you and I will be replaced by a global citizen, or a machine. The center of both the DNC and GOP are in agreement that you and I need to be replaced, and while we were too busy fighting each other, and calling each names, they were busy changing the world to suit their goals.
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The reason we are being replaced is simple...it makes them more money. Until we make it clear to them that that is unacceptable and we will tax those windfall profits to death, the draining of American workers will continue. The was a reason for the 90% top tax rate of the 1950's and it wasn't revenue. It was to control the greed that brought this country down in the Great Depression and make it clear to the wealthy that they must share their profits with their workers. Thee would be no point in outsourcing if all the increased profits were going to the IRS.
 
JMaximus said:
And you still haven't explained why being "anchored on a common historical experience" is necessary for a group identity based on skin color.

The simple fact is that because we can sort people into groups of 'white' and 'non-white' your claim that 'whiteness' cannot be used as an identifying criterion for grouping (ie, a group identity), is demonstrated false.

If we can identify a trait (skin color) and group based on that trait (white vs non- white), then that trait can form the basis of a group identity (white people).
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But does that trait really matter beyond being a superficial trait?
 
JMaximus said:
And you still haven't explained why being "anchored on a common historical experience" is necessary for a group identity based on skin color.

The simple fact is that because we can sort people into groups of 'white' and 'non-white' your claim that 'whiteness' cannot be used as an identifying criterion for grouping (ie, a group identity), is demonstrated false.

If we can identify a trait (skin color) and group based on that trait (white vs non- white), then that trait can form the basis of a group identity (white people).
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Because I have not seen any example to to show that you can form such group based on skin color without creating some historical context. And as long as you are unable to provide such example, you cannot convince people. What you think you can use as classification is irrelevant.

You may think as well that eye color can be used to classify people in groups without historical context. And as long as you are unable to provide such example, you cannot convince people.
 
Grand Mal said:
Liberal means the same today as it always has. Conservative, too, means the same as it did when American conservatives were booking passage to Nova Scotia. "Tories", they were called, and still are in Canada and England.
Your confusion is a common one among American conservatives- you don't know what 'liberal' means. You think it's socialism and 'statism' (what a clumsy word!) and progressivism and every other social and political ill you can name. In fact, the entire left, everything left of center, that's 'liberalism' to American conservatives.
Easier that way, I guess. No thinking necessary.
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First corrupt the language, and what naturally follows is the corruption of thought. That's a paraphrase from Orwell.

While the denotation of "liberal" may be the same today as it was in 1787, the connotation has evolved, thanks in large part to clowns like Rush Limbaugh and others who have spent decades demonizing the word.
 
JMaximus said:
And why is that important?
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For the same reason friendships ae formed based on some type of common experience.. For the same reason national identities are formed based on a common historical experience. This is human psychology.
 
Grand Mal said:
Didn't I expain it clearly enough? Black Americans mostly don't know what their ethnicity is- Wolof, Ashanti, Mandingo, whatever- those identities were taken from them and 'black' is all they have left. It means something in America but obviously it's meaningless in Africa.
Do you know what your ethnic background is? Or are you too reduced to just identifying yourself as 'white'?
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I'm Spanish, German, English, French, Irish, and probably a few others. Should I call myself all of those things? Or I could call myself white. Or, since it's more informative, why don't I just call myself Catholic?
 
Thoreau72 said:
First corrupt the language, and what naturally follows is the corruption of thought. That's a paraphrase from Orwell.

While the denotation of "liberal" may be the same today as it was in 1787, the connotation has evolved, thanks in large part to clowns like Rush Limbaugh and others who have spent decades demonizing the word.
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It's odd, too, considering the USA was founded by some of the first liberals, the first really effective ones anyway. And every one of the rights and freedoms conservatives are proud of were won by liberals. They had to fight against conservatives every step of the way, too, and when conservatives find themselves in power one of the first things they do is start to roll back those rights.
 
phattonez said:
I'm Spanish, German, English, French, Irish, and probably a few others. Should I call myself all of those things? Or I could call myself white. Or, since it's more informative, why don't I just call myself Catholic?
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Pick one. If you consider your race to be your identity, have it. But if you consider 'Catholic' to be more informative (which wouldn't be a consideration in my choice) I have to wonder why you'd consider identifying as 'white'.
I wonder, too, if people who like the term 'white identity' aren't just pushing back because they feel like 'black identity' excludes them unfairly.
 
phattonez said:
I'm Spanish, German, English, French, Irish, and probably a few others. Should I call myself all of those things? Or I could call myself white. Or, since it's more informative, why don't I just call myself Catholic?
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You call yourself based on the narrative that you have adopted. Which history is more familiar to you? Is it the Spanish, German, English, French, Irish or the American one? And sure, calling yourself a Catholic is a different form of identity which is ALSO based on a common, religious in this case, historical narrative. Of course that Catholic narrative ties you also to a non-white Catholic from Mexico.
 
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Grand Mal said:
Pick one.
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But I'm all of them.

If you consider your race to be your identity, have it. But if you consider 'Catholic' to be more informative (which wouldn't be a consideration in my choice) I have to wonder why you'd consider identifying as 'white'.
I wonder, too, if people who like the term 'white identity' aren't just pushing back because they feel like 'black identity' excludes them unfairly.
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You just told me that I had to pick one ethnicity and exclude all of the others. Is that fair?
 
pamak said:
You call yourself based on the narrative that you have adopted. Which history is more familiar to you? Is it the Spanish, German, English, French, Irish or the American one? And sure, calling yourself a Catholic is a different form of identity which is ALSO based on a common, religious in this case, historical narrative. Of course that Catholic narrative ties you also to a non-white Catholic from Mexico.
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I have no problem identifying more with a Mestizo Catholic than with a white atheist.
 
phattonez said:
I have no problem identifying more with a Mestizo Catholic than with a white atheist.
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Exactly my point throughout this thread.

The skin color cannot provide a unifying group identity without a common narrative.
 
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