[stargazer]

oh gt. reading your story made me think how i was on the phone with a friend's bf and he commented in the middle of conversation that i sounded "white" on the phone. um, how does "white" sound? i guess people assume if you are a person of color you immediately speak slang. dumb.

oh, or that people immediately assume i know spanish. um, i was born here.

crazy.

[girltrouble]

oh hell yeah! i keep wondering what happened to hip hop. were the 90s the end of actual innovation and talent. i keep saying that i should have my own video company and it would have a conveyor belt so that we can just keep churning out the same video and "music" perpetually. it's so damned shameful.
Nas says Hiphop is Dead. Listening to the radio and BET, I believe him. Shit is horrible nowadays. All this southern snap music shit is totally wack. My 2 cents lol.

i am soooo with you. there was a free show a few weeks back and i called one of my friends ( she's awesome, blonde/blue eyed and loves 80's r&b, oldschool hip hop). lifesavas were playing, and we were debating going, and i got all sentemental. i wanted to go but i knew it wouldn't be like the hip hop shows back in the day... you know, they'd play all of this great old hip hop, and the dj would cut the music and everybody would be yelling the lyrics. they would play all those classic songs, krsone, slick rick, delas, eric b & rakim, epmd, mc lyte, gangstarr, x-clan, brand nubian, ATCQ (digital underground) on and on... and everybody had the same musical markers, and was so happy to be there... but now they'd be playing #$@#% fifty cent....grrrrrr!


interacial dating is weird. i had this guy who was crushed out on me, and for a half a second, i was crushed on him, but the more we hung out, the more he tried to be black. he would say things like "call a brotha back" on my vm. ick. he went from crush to flush. my daddy i'm seeing now got my utmost respect because she's done lots of work with the local black community, so much so that some people call her "sister t....." but when she does say something like call a brotha back, it's with irony. she knows she's white but has some frame of reference with my culture.

that said, i've dated outside my race more often than not. but most of the time it was cos we had the same cultural references, i knew things about goth culture, with one gf, she knew lots about jazz and black film, with another, and with one, i loved 80's hair metal as much as she did, and she loved hip hop and 70's soul as much as i.

and oreo, i've had something similar happen to me back when i was a boy. it's always funny seeing how ignorant people can be...

[missladyj]

Moon,
your post made me laugh because the group is called Digable Planets. If it's Digital, it's Digital Underground.

[Moonpieluv]

The only thing I've really noticed in my inter-racial relationship is that other black people stare at him in such a way, treat him with more... I don't know, seem to be more comfortable with him... Not all the time or anything, just a certain "je ne sais quoi"... but that also goes for every other race that sees us walking hand in hand....

a scooby doo look or something. What is so... fascinating? He's a guy that makes me happy happy, is a sweet sweet man, is totally hot... and we just click. And he's black. okay. We have our differences. We use different hair products and lotions/oils, etc. Different references, slang sometimes.... i don't always listen to Digital planets or anything, but we meet in the middle. And it's good. and the thought of one day having a little swirl baby named Ruby has crossed my mind.

BTW Oreo---that is SOO creepy.

[sukouyant]

Mr. Oreo and I ended up going to the vets a few months ago and there was a cuban lady who was very upset about her dog. She engaged me in a conversation and we chatted while Mr. Oreo went back with Oreo. After a while, Mr. Oreo returned and said he needed a cig and went outside. The lady got up and started talking to Mr. Oreo while I went into one of the back examining rooms. After we left the vets, on the way home he told me how the lady said I seemed nice but she hated (insert plural N word). She said that black kids were the ones that hit her dog and kept going. The lady also had asked him if we were dating and how she thought it would be better for him if he dated a latin or white woman because "black people are all the same." Ignorance is definitely where you least suspect it like the people who smile in your face and then talk about you behind your back.

That's so creepy.

[Torch]

oh hell yeah! i keep wondering what happened to hip hop. were the 90s the end of actual innovation and talent. i keep saying that i should have my own video company and it would have a conveyor belt so that we can just keep churning out the same video and "music" perpetually. it's so damned shameful.


Nas says Hiphop is Dead. Listening to the radio and BET, I believe him. Shit is horrible nowadays. All this southern snap music shit is totally wack. My 2 cents lol.

[OreosMom]

In an interacial couple situation you have to see race and understand that as a result you will have to deal with racism.You also need a sense of humor because ignorance can be funny and there is just so much of it. Watching people breaking their necks to stare at you is kinda funny.

Mr. Oreo and I ended up going to the vets a few months ago and there was a cuban lady who was very upset about her dog. She engaged me in a conversation and we chatted while Mr. Oreo went back with Oreo. After a while, Mr. Oreo returned and said he needed a cig and went outside. The lady got up and started talking to Mr. Oreo while I went into one of the back examining rooms. After we left the vets, on the way home he told me how the lady said I seemed nice but she hated (insert plural N word). She said that black kids were the ones that hit her dog and kept going. The lady also had asked him if we were dating and how she thought it would be better for him if he dated a latin or white woman because "black people are all the same." Ignorance is definitely where you least suspect it like the people who smile in your face and then talk about you behind your back.

[chinichin]

Hey! A new thread for POC issues ... um, new to me anyway

thanks for starting it up, lilyblue!

There are so many interesting things here that I want to comment on but I have to post on the fly ...

* YES that is what I think about Sarah Silverman too, but couldn't put my finger on it - reliance on being the Pretty Girl, the profanity, etc. ... for me, what stood out was that she was willing to make the jokes but unwilling to discuss what the issues were. Taking all the publicity but refusing to be accountable.

Gah my baby is crying gotta go ...

ETA

Whew she has a cold, so she's waking up yelling!

to continue ...

* Do I feel comfortable identifying as a feminist? Big YES again, partly because I feel that I define what feminism is - only for myself, but still. Other people's definitions of feminism may or may not apply to me, I guess that's another way of saying it. So even if I don't identify with other feminists I still identify with being feminist. Does that make sense?

* "Kill whitey" etc. ... maybe stating the obvious, but it's very different to be challenging the white-centric status quo with an anti-white statement rather than supporting the white-centric status quo by perpetuating racism against POC with an anti-POC statement. Not that I don't still consider that a racist thing to say (though funny in the right context).

* colour-blindness ... this is a pet peeve of mine, that sometimes people hold up their "colour blindess" as a virtue and as proof that they are not racist. IMO most of those statments show that the person, rather than being so extremely equitable re: race that they can't see colour, is actually so ... well I don't want to say, "white-centric" because it's not necessarily about being white ... that the person will accept a POC freely and without reservation as long as they're culturally/socially indistinguishable from Joe Average (who is usually white since European based culture is the North American norm).

[anarch]

Demand for plastic surgery rises among ethnic patients:
"Nose reshaping is the most commonly requested procedure for Asian Americans and blacks, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Breast augmentation leads the pack for Hispanic patients. “Rarely do we find that any of these minorities or ethnic groups want to look like a Caucasian” "

Hmmm. They don't mention the epicanthic eyelid fold thing for Asians that we've discussed here before. (Maybe eyelid surgery happens more in actual Asian countries, overseas?) And in my experience, a flat nose (actually my brother referred to it as "bulbous"...flat and bulbous) certainly was one of the many physical traits that set me and my sibs apart from (below, really) our mostly Caucasian classmates in school.

[missladyj]

Hubby has a Kill Whitey t-shirt. apparently at some point it was a band.

[Moonpieluv]

HA! exactly. we are all aware of it and should be. And yeah.. sometimes we can get nervous in a situation of a mostly one-race and then...you situation. I just think... well, if the reverse were to happen then I'm sure they would feel the same way.... 40 years ago and before is another dynamic entirely.. that's why it astonishes me why people don't cherish or embrace or amalgamate our differences.
But I had a gay white male with a gay black female throwing a booty-dance party called "Kill Whitie" WOW! that stirred some shit up.

We just had a good time dancing all over the place. But they actually had to put a disclaimer outside the club cause it offended someone... they didn't get that humor. It was blatant and satirical.

I'm glad to hear that others giggle about it, but embrace it and love it for it just being good, ya know.

[missladyj]

The supreme court decision has taken us back in time and flies in the face of Brown vs Board of Ed. It is disgusting and basically says that segregation is schools is okay. that is fucked.


I have always thought that not seeing race was tantamount to sticking your head in the sand and pretending that racism doesn't exsist. In an interacial couple situation you have to see race and understand that as a result you will have to deal with racism.You also need a sense of humor because ignorance can be funny and there is just so much of it. Watching people breaking their necks to stare at you is kinda funny.

I went to see the Police concert with my husband ( who is black) and another Latino couple. I was blown away at all the white people. I said to my hubby " What's up with all of these white people. This is making me nervous"
He looked at me and said " It's making YOU nervous?"
then we laughed

[Moonpieluv]

I embrace all the distinctions and differences between the guy I'm dating and me of little pigment. We have more similarities in terms of personality and a real chemistry thus far. There are those differences, and it's not that I don't notice them or mention them in tersm of him saying "thug" or "nappy" or ''yeehaw" or ""hell ya man" etc. very consciously or act like it doesn't exist, and I see how people kinda stare (no matter what color) at us when we go grocery shopping or what not, but who the hell cares when two people are really digging each other. I mean I've got red hair, too. Do you know what they say about red haired girls dating black men? friggin laugh it off as silliness and move on. or at least that what we do.
We have a lot in common and I totally swoon over him. So I'm not colorblind, at all. It's just him. I like him.

Hee hee... i've got a crush, i've got a crush. (sorry...it's been awhile)

But I hear you guys... it's still present in so many ways that I think people blanket over it by calling it something else.

[sukouyant]

i just have to vent. i just heard the lady who did the sueing that got the supreme court to say that race should not be used to decide what kids go to what schools.

now this lady, a title i use only in the loosest sense, had the unmittigated gall to get on the radio and say that seattle schools are MORE diverse since seattle started using a non-race based school choosing method, which, is HORSESHIT. lady, your daughter is 22 now. she hasn't gone to seattle schools in probably 3-4 years.

i've never, ever been so shocked by a set of schools that i am in seattle's school system. i have an ex who is a teacher in the system who discribed schools that are not just segregated, down to two races, more or less with a few white kids here and there, but on top of that, strattified, with black kids mostly staying on one floor and the other races on another. i have another friend who was a youth councelor at the schools and he told me even when he grew up in the south over 40 years ago, it wasn't as bad as this.

and this in supposedly liberal seattle.

all i can do is shake my head.

how can these people have that shit flowing out of their mouths? saying that we need to be colorblind. of course we should, and we need to be colorblind now, when all the white kids have all the advantages.

and you wonder why there is such anger about immigration.

i hate to be racist, but sometimes the only thing i can think, is, fucking white people....

I was brought up 'colour blind' and it only made the racism I experienced more painful, so I agree, it's not something that can be ignored yet. You cannot truly be anti-racist and be 'colour blind'.

[girltrouble]

i just have to vent. i just heard the lady who did the sueing that got the supreme court to say that race should not be used to decide what kids go to what schools.

now this lady, a title i use only in the loosest sense, had the unmittigated gall to get on the radio and say that seattle schools are MORE diverse since seattle started using a non-race based school choosing method, which, is HORSESHIT. lady, your daughter is 22 now. she hasn't gone to seattle schools in probably 3-4 years.

i've never, ever been so shocked by a set of schools that i am in seattle's school system. i have an ex who is a teacher in the system who discribed schools that are not just segregated, down to two races, more or less with a few white kids here and there, but on top of that, strattified, with black kids mostly staying on one floor and the other races on another. i have another friend who was a youth councelor at the schools and he told me even when he grew up in the south over 40 years ago, it wasn't as bad as this.

and this in supposedly liberal seattle.

all i can do is shake my head.

how can these people have that shit flowing out of their mouths? saying that we need to be colorblind. of course we should, and we need to be colorblind now, when all the white kids have all the advantages.

and you wonder why there is such anger about immigration.

i hate to be racist, but sometimes the only thing i can think, is, fucking white people....

[sukouyant]

Don't die Bustie's of colour thread..

I am not sure whether this will generate more interest in the "O yee of little pigment thread" or here, so I'm double posting it.

It's a series of vignettes with commentary meant to educate about assumptions and racial mindsets. Some of it inspires eyerollys, other parts are maddeningly close to home.

http://learningdiversity.com/vigsandcomments.htm

[mouni4]

I don't know if someone has already seen it, but the Youtube Video (Tony Royster Jr) I posted 2 days ago; a black kid, 12 years old!!!, playing a drum solo that sounds to me world-class is a very good example of what white people should never forget: Without all the riches of black culture, and one of the most obvious examples is music culture, white music would never have evolved anyway.

[stargazer]

i kinda feel that imus has said worse things and this statement was used as a way to get rid of him. he's an idiot anyway.

[lilyblue]

ok busties, here's a topic for ya: don imus, racism, sexism and black culture.

here's my take. imus was stupid as hell for what he said. it was racist and sexist to be sure. i don't think he's sorry that he offended, i think he (like michael richards and isiah washington) is sorry that the got called out. my issue is that there are black folks saying the same thing and they get a pass. why? why is there always excuses made for this kind of stuff?

i've had a hard time with the whole "black folks can say n---a, but others can't" line of thinking. everytime i have heard a justification, it has never sat well with me.

for me, knowing how shitty it feels to be made to be an outsider because of my sex/gender, my race or my size, i work hard to be better than that. i work hard to try not to do it to others. to say that there is one standard of behavior for one and another standard for me is bullshit. i can't stay silent on it anymore. it is a double standard.

[stargazer]

lily, you should really read bell hook's talking back, talking black book. it is an excellent read and very informing of feminism and the role of minority women in the movement. more so about how we have different alliances than white women do.

it is harder to pull towards feminism because we do not want to go against the men of color who need our support. i still feel that white women have a sense of entitlement in this country. even young women. i still experience this feeling on a daily basis. i think the character of sandra bullock in crash was a great depiction of this feeling.

besides feeling i'm still straddling 2 cultures, i feel the same way about feminism. and even though i despise labels, i know that sometimes they are needed to make a point. i call myself a feminist. i think in a world of paris hiltons and lindsay lohans...this word is still needed to wake up america.

but, i'm more provocative and in your face about things. i know not everyone is like that.