Re: The burn-off of twenty million useless eaters and "minorities"

[Tyler Durden]

Tim May wrote...

"It was clear to me at the time that the focus on "black pride" was destructive of _real_ pride."

Against my better judgement, I find myself agreeing with this statement on one level.

However, it should be noted that the "Black Pride" movement of the late 60s and early 70s was a necessary reaction to years and years of negative messages sent towards the notion of being African American. "Black Pride" was probably the most valuable for nothing else than being a political movement that asserted that asserting such a thing was possible or desirable.

However, this notion of "Black Pride" eventually on some levels reinforced an almost ghettoization of black culture, both by blacks as well as Whites. As a simple example, we still use the term "African Americans" to refer to 'black' folks (which seems to mean any person with even a single gene inherited from the African continent), even though the relationship between black folks and Africa is probably not any closer than black folks and Europe. (Likewise, White folks partake daily of the fruits of African culture in our lands, the most obvious example being music.) So we still maintain that there's American culture, and then there's African American culture, a dichotomy that is reflected in the equally racist notions of "black" and "white" people.

The sad thing is that this marginalization/ghettoization extends even to the absolute highest arts. A couple of years ago I caught Wayne SHorter and Herbie Hancock, and their performance was as abstract, complex, and multi-hued as anything this overly cutlured NYC boy has experienced. And I don't remember seeing a single black face in the audience. So now Jazz is "white", despite its profoundly African roots, while many (of course not all) black folks are willing to settle for either overproduced muzaky trash, or mindless rap (Not that all rap is mindless by the way, but less and less of it is of the caliber of Public Enemy or Grandmaster Flash.) I would presume that one reason for this has to do with the fact that real Jazz is no longer perceived by most black folks as being black, so it is largely ignored.

However, that this pack mentality for many black folks exists should be no suprise, as there's strength in numbers and as my father says, "Where there are two or more Americans gathered have ye a lynch mob". So its dangerous in this country to be marginalized, for to be marginalized means to be largely disempowered. It's something of a mistake, tis true, but its probably the universal human reaction to years and years of oppression and hate.


"I think of it as evolution in action. Of course, sometimes evolution needs to be helped along a bit."

Uh, Ok whatever. I'd point out that the genetic diversity of African Americans is such that they are probably genetically superior to most whites. Don't think that being fantastic at sports is some indication that black folks are merely big, dumb graceful animals. If those same kids had the same drive to excel in mathematics or science, they'd do extremely well.

In the 80s I worked in one of the toughest High Schools in the country, in Brooklyn. One of my students was brutally murdered, and throughout a semester several would be "out sick" due to being atacked with knives. (This was in addition to fireworks being set off regularly in the halls, gang fights, rampant vandalism and recreational "fires" and so on.) And yet it was quite clear to me that the intelligence level of these students was by no means much less than that of whites at good high schools (I attended a famous Science and math HS in NYC.). The sad thing was that these kids really had never been exposed to the "why" of education, and asked me regularly about the basic math I was teaching them: "Why do we have to learn this? We'll never use this in real life." More than this, they couldn't even really conceive of a life without the ubiquitous violence and filth around them. There was no real reason to do well or get a good job. In the end, it not only felt futile to work there, it was depressing.

Was this "black people's" fault? Nah. It's all of our fault.

-TD











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