tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post8721217771149224165..comments2024-03-25T17:38:55.490-07:00Comments on Dar Kush: DefinitionsSteven Barneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13630529492355131777noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-87555403543772880882009-01-16T17:47:00.000-08:002009-01-16T17:47:00.000-08:00Azrael: I agree with you that Blacks are not actua...Azrael: I agree with you that Blacks are not actually black. But it is also true that Whites are not actually white and also vary highly in skin tone. The terms Blacks and Whites are useful in distinguishing between certain groups of people when having a discussion. There are Black Americans, Black Canadians, Black French etc. and White Americans, White Canadians, White French etc. So in discussions involving race the term Blacks has more general applicability than the term Afro-American. Although I suppose one could use the term Afros to include all Blacks in such a discussion.Marty Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06465745755940914756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-79391393355174421372009-01-16T10:40:00.000-08:002009-01-16T10:40:00.000-08:00>And his election shouldn't be a source of ...>And his election shouldn't be a source of pride and progress because he is half-white?<<BR/><BR/>Oh, while I don't think Obama fits the social construct of the group commonly referred to as "Blacks" I'm very glad that Blacks think he does and am glad that it's a source of pride and progress for the whole of the US (because that advances something I'm in favor of - the continued assimilation of blacks into the mainstream American culture).Mike Rhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13634414529649908616noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-2517406564466113472009-01-15T22:23:00.000-08:002009-01-15T22:23:00.000-08:00I hope I don't offend anybody here, but I have alw...<B> <I> I hope I don't offend anybody here, but I have always felt that referring to people with black skin color as African-American was somewhat PCish. </I> </B><BR/><BR/>Sure, it can be/is PCish. The thing is my skin isn't black.<BR/><BR/>I've always considered African Americans to be Americans of undetermined African descent. But, that's just MY definition. I'd think that an American who knew what COUNTRY their ancestors were from would want to claim the country rather than a continent. And of course a non-citizen from some African country wouldn't be American.<BR/><BR/>I'm more likely to refer to myself as black than African American. However, I like the "American" part of African American and get annoyed when people try to convince me that "black" is a better, more accurate, or whatever term.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-40296285912126744112009-01-15T04:48:00.000-08:002009-01-15T04:48:00.000-08:00Clever of Obama to be born black, sure enough.Goin...Clever of Obama to be born black, sure enough.<BR/><BR/>Going to be an interesting few years.Daniel Keys Moranhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12992599044462413412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-12486679580664499432009-01-14T18:21:00.000-08:002009-01-14T18:21:00.000-08:00There were a few more votes in Chicago if one iden...There were a few more votes in Chicago if one identified oneself as an African-American than if one identified oneself as a bi-racial trans-cultural pacific islander.Mike Rhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13634414529649908616noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-30537257745747009992009-01-14T15:20:00.000-08:002009-01-14T15:20:00.000-08:00Maybe it is best to move on from slavery. Not forg...Maybe it is best to move on from slavery. Not forget it, but to not make it the centerpiece of defining people. Many good people were forced into slavery by slave catchers, war, and lots of nasty practices in the Sub-Sahara and Africa. Unscrupulous people who mashed up their own moral code (usually Christianity) took advantage of a way to get cheap labor for horrible jobs for the god of power and profit. <BR/><BR/>We cannot control or change what our ancestors did (we can lie about it), but we can control and change what we do. <BR/><BR/>I have heard so many slices and dices on Obama's heritage that I am disgusted. He defines himself as an African American. He identifies himself with other people who define themselves that way. He makes to apologies or excuses. For me, this is a central part of his strength and his appeal.mjholthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00626250928180743075noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-4990698755908129742009-01-14T12:51:00.000-08:002009-01-14T12:51:00.000-08:00Maybe "total ignorance" is the right interpretatio...Maybe "total ignorance" is the right interpretation, Steve. To me, it just seemed not to make any sense at all. I couldn't imagine what she intended.Pagan Topologisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01611788563582362688noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-3304011154555303852009-01-14T12:50:00.000-08:002009-01-14T12:50:00.000-08:00This comment has been removed by the author.Pagan Topologisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01611788563582362688noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-78640813207214151932009-01-14T10:30:00.000-08:002009-01-14T10:30:00.000-08:00To me, the usefulness of the term "African America...To me, the usefulness of the term "African American" is in the quick definition of people descended from sub-Saharan Africans, another term for "Black." That means that Scarlett Johanson isn't "African American" by such a genetically influenced definition, but IS by a Nationalistic or place-of-birth designation. This is another example of language only being as useful as the intent and honesty of the people using it. All language can be deconstructed. And my sense is that most of those who disagree with the definition of Obama as "Black" or "African American" don't have positive intents. Splintering an already disadvantaged group into smaller sub-groups is a great way to preserve power, isn't it? <BR/>And his election shouldn't be a source of pride and progress because he is half-white? Jesus. To me, that's just total ignorance.Steven Barneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13630529492355131777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-12985322409612134242009-01-14T09:12:00.000-08:002009-01-14T09:12:00.000-08:00"The definition of an African-American is someone ..."The definition of an African-American is someone descended from slaves." <BR/><BR/>Translation:<BR/><BR/>**so you ni**ers really aren't there just yet on a technical**<BR/><BR/>Plain enough for me to recognize. You MUST be a much nicer person than I am Steve because I'd have called him on it big time AND quickly.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-1637269486771436092009-01-14T07:21:00.000-08:002009-01-14T07:21:00.000-08:00I'm very comfortable with the term Black (please c...I'm very comfortable with the term Black (please capitalize) in reference to myself and Africans in the diaspora, despite the fact that race is a construct, fairly recent I might add.<BR/><BR/>I generally avoid the term African-AMericans in my own lexicon. However, when writing these papers, folk are MOST comfortable with the term, and since i'm a "newbie" i USE, though sparingly. In the spirit of Kujichagulia,self-determination, I prefer AfriKan (sic) to refer to the "descendants of slaves" as well as those who were here and THEIR descendants. ALl of whom were affected by racism, segregation, jim crow, etc. etc. The K homage to the civil rights struggle that began when the first Africans were forcefully immigrated on slave ships. TECHNICALLY, imho, Obama is an Afrikan ("African AMerican"). Even with the privileges he may have been afforded, by all accounts, he still lived the EXPERIENCE of the descendant of a slave. He mentioned in his speech that his grandmother made racialized comments... I assume they were disparaging, about Black people. In that he shared in the Culture (African-American is not a race or ethnicity...) of African-Americans REGARDLESS of his paternal (or maternal) origin...<BR/><BR/>And by the way <BR/>There is No African-American Land, No Black Land (Not even Alkebu-Lan)<BR/>, and CERTAINLY no Negro Land...<BR/><BR/>I wonder if the word Exonymic applies here, culture and ethnicity are inextricably linked to Land Mass... i'm going to ruminate on this a bit more.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-30592038137933848842009-01-14T06:30:00.000-08:002009-01-14T06:30:00.000-08:00I hope I don't offend anybody here, but I have alw...I hope I don't offend anybody here, but I have always felt that referring to people with black skin color as African-American was somewhat PCish. My religion is Judaism, my parents are Polish on one side and Russian on the other side. How should I be referred to. Suppose someone who is white has parents who were born in South Africa and immigrated, are they African-American?Marty Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06465745755940914756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-38447374193478286762009-01-13T18:36:00.000-08:002009-01-13T18:36:00.000-08:00That's honest, and honorable. But to generalize fr...<I>That's honest, and honorable. But to generalize from that to implying that "my definitions are Truth" is a little scary.</I><BR/><BR/>You think there aren't areas where you do that? I'm pretty sure I've done it from time to time.Josh Jasperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08441897278413737658noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-25609953330526757822009-01-13T17:44:00.000-08:002009-01-13T17:44:00.000-08:00The freed populations were composed of recently fr...<EM>The freed populations were composed of recently freed slaves and the descendants of freed slaves, with only a few (rare) exceptions (primarily from the occasional African who joined a US clipper ship as a sailor and then came and settled in the US. </EM><BR/><BR/>And even those occasional Africans would have intermarried with people descended from slaves. I don't see where you could get a lot of black people in the US who are neither descended from recent African immigrants nor from slaves.<BR/><BR/>Heck, I suspect that, among those whose ancestors were in this country during slavery times, way more <EM>white</EM> people than know about it or would like to think about it have ancestors that were directly involved in slavery - even if most of your lines weren't slave owners, the odds that one or another line were are probably not that small.<BR/><BR/>Go back a century and a half, and everyone probably intermarried with pretty much everyone they were allowed to intermarry with, to one degree or another. (And sometimes slept with those they weren't allowed to marry.)Lynn Gazis-Saxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16775215056055972392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-25690454243285842009-01-13T17:43:00.000-08:002009-01-13T17:43:00.000-08:00"The definition of an African-American is someone ..."The definition of an African-American is someone descended from slaves."<BR/><BR/>Ah, the velvet rope approach to blackness. Similar to skin-tone, manner of speech, etc, etc. So different from the one-drop-makes-you-whole embrassingness (is that a word? It is now). I just don't see a point in the additional divisions when there is so much to accomplish.Reluctant Lawyerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06840736619081764445noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-39780872335983163072009-01-13T15:37:00.000-08:002009-01-13T15:37:00.000-08:00>i'd imagine there are more than 100,000 bl...>i'd imagine there are more than 100,000 black people with no history of slavery, not counting african immigrants.<<BR/><BR/>I assume you mean "black people in the US" here, but what do you mean by "no history"? Personal history? Sure, slavery been illegal in the US for 144 years so no black in the US today has a personal history with legal slavery (although there are a handful who's parent's did). Family history though, I don't see where you would find 100,000 black Americans who are not immigrants from Africa (or their descendants) and who do not have slavery somewhere in their family history. <BR/><BR/>I stand behind my claim that "When you [talking to Steve Barnes here] were born, for instance, the entire African-American community who were not the descendants of slaves could have fit in a single football stadium, and it wouldn't have had to be a large stadium either." <BR/><BR/>Looking up the census figures we see that there were around 880,000 Americans who had emigrated from Africa in the US as of 2000;<BR/><BR/>http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/stp-159/STP-159-africa.pdf<BR/><BR/>Around 150,000 of them entered before 1980 and the rest are post-1980. Steve was born in the 1950's and while a quick google search did not give me the exact number of Africans in America in the 1950's, given my knowledge of US immigration policy in the 1914-1965 period (not very open compared to today) I feel safe in assuming that most of those 150,000 came after he was born. In his lifetime we've gone from a situation where African immigrants were not part of the nation in any significant degree to one where they number over a million people. It's a significant change and it's really not surprising that it should have effects on how the non-Black population views blacks. Or even how blacks view blacks. "Race" is just a social myth we tell each other after all, and myths frequently change when situations change. <BR/><BR/>>there was a sizeable freedmen population in the north, and there were freed populations in the south as well.<<BR/><BR/>The freed populations were composed of recently freed slaves and the descendants of freed slaves, with only a few (rare) exceptions (primarily from the occasional African who joined a US clipper ship as a sailor and then came and settled in the US. There are instances of that happening in the antebellum period, but it was _very_ rare and was not statistically significant.)Mike Rhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13634414529649908616noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-71119817934625285842009-01-13T14:28:00.000-08:002009-01-13T14:28:00.000-08:00michigan holds 100,000 people in it. i'd imagine t...michigan holds 100,000 people in it. <BR/><BR/>i'd imagine there are more than 100,000 black people with no history of slavery, not counting african immigrants. there was a sizeable freedmen population in the north, and there were freed populations in the south as well.<BR/><BR/>west african immigrants have about as much in common with black americans as german immigrants have with german americans. so depending that could be a lot (my wife consistently is mistaken for ethiopian even though her family is from tupelo mississippi) or very little.Lester Spencehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02545778619369769610noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-30429920872555609872009-01-13T12:56:00.000-08:002009-01-13T12:56:00.000-08:00I find it way too counterintuitive to disqualify A...I find it <EM>way</EM> too counterintuitive to disqualify Americans who actually immigrated from Africa (or are children of such) from being African-American. Although I suppose you could also call Obama Kenyan-American or Luo-American. Still, not African-American because your father came from Africa? Too weird.Lynn Gazis-Saxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16775215056055972392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-47912025861874800942009-01-13T10:50:00.000-08:002009-01-13T10:50:00.000-08:00>When you get right down to it, if the human ra...>When you get right down to it, if the human race began in Africa, as many authorities believe, don't all of born us in these parts qualify?<<BR/><BR/>I got a genetic test recently, and on my father's male line, I have my first African ancestors around 30,000 years ago. I'm still not going to be checking "African-American" any time soon. <BR/><BR/>If you want to take the really long time scale, everyone in America is actually a Prokaryote-American.Mike Rhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13634414529649908616noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-89792082154346441062009-01-13T10:41:00.000-08:002009-01-13T10:41:00.000-08:00Little late here, but;> 1) What do you want to ...Little late here, but;<BR/><BR/>> 1) What do you want to accomplish in the next 101 days in the arena of your body?<BR/><BR/>I want abs. I, of course, have abs right now, but you can't see them, and I can never remember a time in my life when I could see them. I've always had a gut, and even today, when I'm at 16% body fat and have a great ass and great legs I still have that darn gut. If I'm good for 101 days, there is no reason I couldn't get my body fat down enough that I look not just good but great. <BR/><BR/>> 2) What do you want to accomplish in the next 101 days in the arena of your career?<BR/><BR/>Finally finish my thesis and get my master's degree completed. That sucker has been being held over my head for far too long. Also, to write at least 5 short stories, preferably 10, and submit them all. <BR/><BR/>> 3) What do you want to accomplish in the next 101 days in the arena of your emotions?<BR/><BR/>Get into a regular meditation routine, and decrease my anxiety. I'm pretty darn happy with my marriage, so generally I want to keep it as strong as it is now, but if there is room for improvement I want to find it.Mike Rhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13634414529649908616noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-13090529367256451392009-01-13T10:00:00.000-08:002009-01-13T10:00:00.000-08:00Not to be particularly contentious here, but the t...Not to be particularly contentious here, but the term "African-American" is imprecise, and the definition of it depends on who is offering it.<BR/><BR/>Like "Native American." Yes, I know what most people think it means -- those folks who were here when the boats from Europe landed, the indigenous tribes -- but since a native is somebody who was born in a certain place, then anybody born in the U.S.A. is a native American.<BR/><BR/>Does African American mean sub-Saharan only? Would not a person whose family was from Egypt or Syria which were, last time I looked, on the African continent, qualify? <BR/><BR/>When you get right down to it, if the human race began in Africa, as many authorities believe, don't all of born us in these parts qualify?Steve Perryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12079658447270792228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-90888732166219184532009-01-13T09:49:00.000-08:002009-01-13T09:49:00.000-08:00>"The definition of an African-American is...>"The definition of an African-American is someone descended from slaves."<<BR/><BR/>For most of US history there just were not enough people of African decent who were _not_ slaves or the descendants of slaves for this definition to exclude very many people. When you were born, for instance, the entire African-American community who were not the descendants of slaves could have fit in a single football stadium, and it wouldn't have had to be a large stadium either. Up until you were in your 20's assuming that someone who was black in America was the descendant of slaves had over a 99% chance of being correct. <BR/><BR/>But within the last generation we've started to get significant numbers of immigrants from Africa and it won't be long until there are over a million of them. The term, "Blacks" or "African-American<BR/> is a culturally construct, so it shouldn't be surprising that when the culture change so does the cultural construct. <BR/><BR/>Myself, I don't see why the two groups should be considered one. Culturally speaking, African immigrants and their descendants have had a very different history than that of blacks. Their quantifiable statistics are very different from that of the traditional American black community. They don't have similar rates of education, crime rates, or marriage patterns. At all. The rates of college degrees among African Immigrants and their descendants, for instance, are more different from the black community than the black community is from the Asian community.<BR/><BR/>Also, genetically speaking, virtually every member of the traditional black community in America has some European and Native-American genes in their mix, and that's just not the case with recent African-Immigrants and their descendants. <BR/><BR/>About the only thing the two groups share is the level (whatever it is) of bigotry that exists against people with high levels of melanin in America, from around 1990 to now (The majority of the African migrants and their descendants in America date from post 1990), and I just don't see that as enough to bond the two groups. <BR/><BR/>Putting them together makes about as much sense to me as lumping German-Americans and Indian-Americans because they are both "Aryans".Mike Rhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13634414529649908616noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-50344731792193740212009-01-13T09:46:00.000-08:002009-01-13T09:46:00.000-08:00You can find people who make whatever interpretati...You can find people who make whatever interpretation you might imagine. One white female student said to me recently that Obama's election was not a step forward for "civil rights" at all, since he is half white. I have no idea why she thought this important, but she very clearly did.<BR/><BR/>There is no way to come up with definitions that everyone will be pleased with. As someone who loves language, I find this sad, but nothing can be done about it, apparently.Pagan Topologisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01611788563582362688noreply@blogger.com