Posted: Tue 26 Feb 2008 20:41 Post subject: Re: Gates is unrepentant
Powell wrote:
William wrote:
This is a bit off-topic, but Gates seems to have redeemed himself a bit in the second segment of Part 2 of African-American Lives, which I just saw last night. He seems to not object to Broyard's not accepting a Black designation, and even embraces his own Irish ancestry. Maybe he's learning, too. I suppose you can't fault someone for being ignorant initially, but you can only fault them for remaining ignorant.
William, I think you have mistaken damage control for repentance.
Anatole is dead and Bliss is alive. That is usually the great difference between labeling someone "black" or not. Gates knows that the ODR cannot be defended in any logical manner. He is not going to get into a "You're black whether you like it or not" debate with a live person. He will have "redeemed" himself when he renounces the racial kidnapping that he has used to claim Anatole Broyard and so many more.
For another example of this tendency to "blacken" the dead in the name of the ODR but not the living, read Jillian Sim's denunciation of her "passing" paternal grandmother and great-grandparents in "Fading to White." Note that Sim does not call herself, her father or her son "black."
When did this supposed blackening of the dead occur? She discovered her grandmother passed as white in college until she was "discovered" right before she graduated.
Posted: Tue 26 Feb 2008 21:37 Post subject: Re: Gates is unrepentant
anonymouse wrote:
When did this supposed blackening of the dead occur? She discovered her grandmother passed as white in college until she was "discovered" right before she graduated.
You are skirting the edge of The Rules paragraph "2.6 Do not criticize anyone’s choice of ethnic or 'racial' self-identity. — If you disagree with someone’s choice of ethnic or 'racial' self-identity, keep it to yourself. This applies whether they are individuals or groups, and whether they are site members or not." Specifically, if "A" self-identifies as White but "B" insists that "A" is "really Black" despite "A"'s own choice of self-identify, then "B" is essentially "blackening" "A." The site rule exists because "B"'s behavior is consider counterproductive to this site's mission, and those who engage in it are not welcome here.
Powell's point was that ouside of this site, where such behavior is tolerated and often lucrative, its targets are usually dead. This is because it is legally safe to denigrate (blacken) a dead person but legally unsafe to do it to a live one. Specificaly, Powell points out that Ms. Sim criticizes her own grandmother for self-identifying as White despite having known African ancestry, but refrains from criticizing her own children for the very same thing. Powell suggests that this is because it is safe to criticize the dead but unsafe to criticize the living.
Please do not respond that any person in the story was "really Black."
Posted: Tue 26 Feb 2008 22:47 Post subject: Re: Gates is unrepentant
fwsweet wrote:
anonymouse wrote:
When did this supposed blackening of the dead occur? She discovered her grandmother passed as white in college until she was "discovered" right before she graduated.
You are skirting the edge of The Rules paragraph "2.6 Do not criticize anyone’s choice of ethnic or 'racial' self-identity. — If you disagree with someone’s choice of ethnic or 'racial' self-identity, keep it to yourself. This applies whether they are individuals or groups, and whether they are site members or not." Specifically, if "A" self-identifies as White but "B" insists that "A" is "really Black" despite "A"'s own choice of self-identify, then "B" is essentially "blackening" "A." The site rule exists because "B"'s behavior is consider counterproductive to this site's mission, and those who engage in it are not welcome here.
Powell's point was that ouside of this site, where such behavior is tolerated and often lucrative, its targets are usually dead. This is because it is legally safe to denigrate (blacken) a dead person but legally unsafe to do it to a live one. Specificaly, Powell points out that Ms. Sim criticizes her own grandmother for self-identifying as White despite having known African ancestry, but refrains from criticizing her own children for the very same thing. Powell suggests that this is because it is safe to criticize the dead but unsafe to criticize the living.
Please do not respond that any person in the story was "really Black."
I questioned Powell's example of people "blackening the dead" but not the living. According to the article her grandmother was born a black woman but "passed" in order to educate herself. Ms. Sim however was born, raised and subsequently started a family totally unaware of her family's racial makeup. It seems to me that Powell is comparing apples with oranges.
Additionally I never stated nor implied that she was "really black", nor did I criticize her grandmother's self identity. The article itself stated:
Quote:
This fact may have fomented some jealousy in Anita’s roommate, who had begun to have suspicions regarding Anita’s racial identity. Joyce told me that shortly before Anita was set to graduate, the roommate persuaded her own father to investigate the Hemmingses. He traveled to Boston to look up Anita’s family.
He found what he was looking for.
The father of Anita’s roommate returned to Vassar College to drop a bomb: The beautiful and tawny fellow student Anita Hemmings was indeed a Negress.
The students felt betrayed and embittered by Anita’s deceit, and a school board went into special session to decide if Miss Hemmings should be allowed to graduate after perpetrating such a falsehood.
There are no school minutes that survive to tell the tale of that board meeting. But Anita did graduate, and that summer the news of a black woman at white Vassar echoed through major cities in the United States and to “all corners of the globe,” according to one paper covering the scandal.
“Society and educational circles in this city,” wrote the World, “are profoundly shocked by the announcement in the local papers to-day that one of the graduating class of Vassar College this year was a Negro girl, who concealing her race, entered the college, took the four year’s course, and finally confessed the truth to a professor a few days before commencement.
Posted: Tue 26 Feb 2008 23:16 Post subject: Re: Gates is unrepentant
anonymouse wrote:
fwsweet wrote:
anonymouse wrote:
When did this supposed blackening of the dead occur? She discovered her grandmother passed as white in college until she was "discovered" right before she graduated.
You are skirting the edge of The Rules paragraph "2.6 Do not criticize anyone’s choice of ethnic or 'racial' self-identity. — If you disagree with someone’s choice of ethnic or 'racial' self-identity, keep it to yourself. This applies whether they are individuals or groups, and whether they are site members or not." Specifically, if "A" self-identifies as White but "B" insists that "A" is "really Black" despite "A"'s own choice of self-identify, then "B" is essentially "blackening" "A." The site rule exists because "B"'s behavior is consider counterproductive to this site's mission, and those who engage in it are not welcome here.
Powell's point was that ouside of this site, where such behavior is tolerated and often lucrative, its targets are usually dead. This is because it is legally safe to denigrate (blacken) a dead person but legally unsafe to do it to a live one. Specificaly, Powell points out that Ms. Sim criticizes her own grandmother for self-identifying as White despite having known African ancestry, but refrains from criticizing her own children for the very same thing. Powell suggests that this is because it is safe to criticize the dead but unsafe to criticize the living.
Please do not respond that any person in the story was "really Black."
I questioned Powell's example of people "blackening the dead" but not the living. According to the article her grandmother was born a black woman but "passed" in order to educate herself. Ms. Sim however was born, raised and subsequently started a family totally unaware of her family's racial makeup. It seems to me that Powell is comparing apples with oranges.
Additionally I never stated nor implied that she was "really black", nor did I criticize her grandmother's self identity. The article itself stated:
Quote:
This fact may have fomented some jealousy in Anita’s roommate, who had begun to have suspicions regarding Anita’s racial identity. Joyce told me that shortly before Anita was set to graduate, the roommate persuaded her own father to investigate the Hemmingses. He traveled to Boston to look up Anita’s family.
He found what he was looking for.
The father of Anita’s roommate returned to Vassar College to drop a bomb: The beautiful and tawny fellow student Anita Hemmings was indeed a Negress.
The students felt betrayed and embittered by Anita’s deceit, and a school board went into special session to decide if Miss Hemmings should be allowed to graduate after perpetrating such a falsehood.
There are no school minutes that survive to tell the tale of that board meeting. But Anita did graduate, and that summer the news of a black woman at white Vassar echoed through major cities in the United States and to “all corners of the globe,” according to one paper covering the scandal.
“Society and educational circles in this city,” wrote the World, “are profoundly shocked by the announcement in the local papers to-day that one of the graduating class of Vassar College this year was a Negro girl, who concealing her race, entered the college, took the four year’s course, and finally confessed the truth to a professor a few days before commencement.
Just in this excerpt alone, it appears to me that Anita Hemmings was "one-dropped" into the Black category. It's too bad that she's no longer available to tell us today how SHE self-identified. I don't see any quotes where she embraced a Black identity but I do see where this is being imposed on her from the outside regardless of how she identified inwardly. By the way, Anita Hemmings was the great-grandmother to J. Sim. She was a quadroon who basically lived as a white woman after graduating from Vasser. She married a man who appeared white but was legally forced into the Black category. Anita and her husband raised their daughter, Sim's grandmother, to identify as white and the grandmother did marry a white man and live as a white woman.
A reminder that the assignation 'black' has varying degrees of association and understanding meaning the USA definition of black will be at odds with the Mexican representation of it. Guerrero was tri racial (trigueno) so in that sense he was not black in the USAmerican sense if it.
1. He does fit black description in the ODR sense but again that ODR does not apply to Latin America.
2. Black (negro) is many cases referes to 'pura sangre' (SSA) and in both Latin America and the US since said phenoptype would be both ID'eed as such for all parties.
3. Based on Mexico's indigena base, Guerrero would appear to fit the 'indio' stereotype since it is only Guerrero's closest compatriots who would know his African ancestry.
4. Google his name and you will see the various descriptions assigned to him and his ethnicity. Of course, the controversy continues.
well, according to the US, if you have one stint of black, you are black. So in that sense, he is black, considering he has African genes. I'm not familiar with the term pura sangre. Either way the guy has African genes, so poo to all the people who want to reject that because they hate African-descended people.
This would make most Puerto Ricans who live in places like New York and other northeastern cities black. Generally they are not seen and do not see themselves as black, even if they freely acknowledge having African ancestry. So, it isn't axiomatic that anyone with African genes is seen as black in the U.S., and it certainly isn't the case in many if not most places outside of the U.S.
Mentioning Guerrero's African ancestry would probably be unsettling to many Mexicans and Mexican Americans.
G-Man I remember you said though that many Puerto Ricans with very obvious SSA features would be seen as Black outside of the Northeast in regions like Middle America for example.
This Puerto Rican boy in the pic for example would be in for a surprise if he moved to a state like Tennessee for example where he would be eyeballed as Black by both Anglo Saxons and African Americans even though he is not part of the AA community. G-Man do you disagree or agree that he would be seen as such in Middle America ?
A reminder that the assignation 'black' has varying degrees of association and understanding meaning the USA definition of black will be at odds with the Mexican representation of it. Guerrero was tri racial (trigueno) so in that sense he was not black in the USAmerican sense if it.
1. He does fit black description in the ODR sense but again that ODR does not apply to Latin America.
2. Black (negro) is many cases referes to 'pura sangre' (SSA) and in both Latin America and the US since said phenoptype would be both ID'eed as such for all parties.
3. Based on Mexico's indigena base, Guerrero would appear to fit the 'indio' stereotype since it is only Guerrero's closest compatriots who would know his African ancestry.
4. Google his name and you will see the various descriptions assigned to him and his ethnicity. Of course, the controversy continues.
well, according to the US, if you have one stint of black, you are black. So in that sense, he is black, considering he has African genes. I'm not familiar with the term pura sangre. Either way the guy has African genes, so poo to all the people who want to reject that because they hate African-descended people.
This would make most Puerto Ricans who live in places like New York and other northeastern cities black. Generally they are not seen and do not see themselves as black, even if they freely acknowledge having African ancestry. So, it isn't axiomatic that anyone with African genes is seen as black in the U.S., and it certainly isn't the case in many if not most places outside of the U.S.
Mentioning Guerrero's African ancestry would probably be unsettling to many Mexicans and Mexican Americans.
In this post you said some would acknowledge their African genes, and then you said that it would be quite unsettling for Mexicans to know that Gurrero had African ancestry. Why would it be unsettling?
In this post you said some would acknowledge their African genes, and then you said that it would be quite unsettling for Mexicans to know that Gurrero had African ancestry. Why would it be unsettling?
I think that the difference was between Mexican-Americans, most of whom have bought into the White Anglo-American tradition that a touch of African ancestry is somehow shameful and to be denied, and Puerto Ricans, most of whom have not.
G-Man I remember you said though that many Puerto Ricans with very obvious SSA features would be seen as Black outside of the Northeast in regions like Middle America for example.
This Puerto Rican boy in the pic for example would be in for a surprise if he moved to a state like Tennessee for example where he would be eyeballed as Black by both Anglo Saxons and African Americans even though he is not part of the AA community. G-Man do you disagree or agree that he would be seen as such in Middle America ?
I am less "black-looking" than that kid and I'm seen as black pretty much everywhere in the U.S. So, it is likely he would be seen as black in the U.S…..Maybe Puerto Rico as well, but I’m not sure.
To me, however, he looks very Puerto Rican, “blackness” notwithstanding. I’ve seen more than my fair share of Puerto Ricans who look like this.
Earlier when I mentioned Latinos in New York with obvious African ancestry not being seen as black, I mean obvious in a broad sense, not in a narrow sense as someone with apparent predominant African ancestry. Such people, in my opinion, would include the following:
By the same token, I have obvious European ancestry, but I am not the least bit white looking, and no one would mistake me for a white person or European in the U.S. or elsewhere.
Posted: Thu 13 Mar 2008 17:55 Post subject: Re: "Black" Mexicans
Powell wrote:
Don't you think Mexicans are reluctant to mention their African ancestry precisely because they are aware of the ODR in the United States?
I doubt that. I think its just that they are not aware of having any african ancestry, or of there ever being an african presense in Mexico. Its not common knowledge.
Posted: Thu 13 Mar 2008 19:02 Post subject: Re: "Black" Mexicans
Phil345 wrote:
Powell wrote:
Don't you think Mexicans are reluctant to mention their African ancestry precisely because they are aware of the ODR in the United States?
I doubt that. I think its just that they are not aware of having any african ancestry, or of there ever being an african presense in Mexico. Its not common knowledge.
A touch of Negrophobia has alot to do with it too, especially with Chicanos (Mexican Americans).
Posted: Fri 14 Mar 2008 00:43 Post subject: Re: "Black" Mexicans
G-Man wrote:
Phil345 wrote:
Powell wrote:
Don't you think Mexicans are reluctant to mention their African ancestry precisely because they are aware of the ODR in the United States?
I doubt that. I think its just that they are not aware of having any african ancestry, or of there ever being an african presense in Mexico. Its not common knowledge.
A touch of Negrophobia has alot to do with it too, especially with Chicanos (Mexican Americans).
According to a research paper presented at the colorism conference that Mary Lee and I attended in Los Angeles last year, that attitude is very common among California Chicanos.
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