When is WHITE history month?, page 6

reply to post by Sphota

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Black History Month is a remembrance of important people and events in the history of the African diaspora. It is celebrated annually in the United States (US) and Canada in February and the United Kingdom in the month of October.

The goal of Black History Week was to educate the American people about African-Americans' cultural backgrounds and reputable achievements.

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Your view of "Black history month" is different than the view of those all over who support it. Either way you put it, it puts a barrier between people of different skin colors. This is why racism today still exists, because things like this do not make people look at humans as a whole, it makes humans classify themselves into races. Race does not even exist. It should not be looked at as achievements of people of a different skin color. That is my point. It segregates people of different skin colors. It should be looked at as human achievements, not Black achievements.

It very much has to do with skin color, and how you can say it doesn't, is beyond me. Just look at the name. "Black"

Come on.

Originally posted by apodictic
Race does not even exist. It should not be looked at as achievements of people of a different skin color. That is my point. It segregates people of different skin colors. It should be looked at as human achievements, not Black achievements.

Completely agree with you. It's about forced migration and the throwing off of chains, which, in itself, is commendable. And yet, in Haiti, where those chains lay in pieces for centuries, the price of their defiance was never quite paid to the oppressors and they suffer yet.

If anywhere on the globe, black History Month should be celebrated with joy, it's still only toil and tears in Haiti. Way to go, France.

Oh, btw, Charlamagne, I never thought much of your exploits either.

reply to post by apodictic

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You know, this is going to sound offensive, most likely, but whenever I see people getting all starry-eyed and talking about "there's only the human race!" and "we shouldn't acknowledge any ethnic history, just HUMAN history / AMERICAN history / etc" I can always be guaranteed that the person is white. Why? Because whites, being the dominant caste in America, are "generic." They've never been subject to systemic abuse, since they make up the majority of the system. There've never been any needs among the white community to close ranks and self-support against oppression and attacks against their existence, with the short exception of frontier colonists fighting off the people who's land they were stealing. In fact, in the United States, "white" is not so much a racial, much less cultural label, as it is a declaration of being "not-brown."

Basically, white people are the ones most prone to talk about glossing over and ignoring racial differences, because it's never really mattered to whites in America. It's easy to ignore your background when you've never had to pay any price for looking the way you look, and this leads to a sort of cultural blindness, where white people figure that everyone should be just like them (which is, as I'm sure you can tell, ironic as hell.)

Thus the common statement among the rest of us that white people "just don't get it." And you don't. it's really hard to "get it" unless you've lived it. You live in this culture that immensely favors you for being white, and you don't see it, because you've grown up in it and experience it as "normal" and "regular." It's never caused any harm to you, and so it remains invisible. It exists in the media, in the politics, in the education system, even in the arts.

reply to post by TheWalkingFox

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I understand where you're coming from. I do. However, there is only the human race. The only things that have changed are genetic adaptations to climate during our evolutionary and migratory process. Everyone has ethnic diversity. German culture is different from Polish culture. Italian culture is different from English culture, so on and so forth. Culture is NOT to be mistaken for skin color. It has nothing to do with it at all.

People think that creating all these months to honor their ethnic diversity helps their cause. However, like I've stated before, it does nothing but throw barriers up between skin colors. If they were to name it "African culture month," it would be about their culture. Naming it "Black history month," though, only acknowledges the differences in skin color. If anyone doesn't "get it," it would be the people who support this kind of segregation, while thinking it's helping their cause.

Originally posted by apodictic
reply to post by Sphota

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Black History Month is a remembrance of important people and events in the history of the African diaspora. It is celebrated annually in the United States (US) and Canada in February and the United Kingdom in the month of October.

No, this pretty much backs up my point. African Diaspora: As in, the people descended from the slaves in the Americas. The ones in England, I assume, would be from Jamaica and the Lesser Antilles, who have recently moved to England (not meaning all Black people in England - just those who were part of the diaspora).

The goal of Black History Week was to educate the American people about African-Americans' cultural backgrounds and reputable achievements.

Again, this backs up my point. It says that the goal is geared toward the education of Americans about African-American cultural backgrounds and achievements...not all Black people of the United Black Race.

Your view of "Black history month" is different than the view of those all over who support it.

Again, no, look above.

Either way you put it, it puts a barrier between people of different skin colors. This is why racism today still exists, because things like this do not make people look at humans as a whole, it makes humans classify themselves into races. Race does not even exist. It should not be looked at as achievements of people of a different skin color. That is my point. It segregates people of different skin colors. It should be looked at as human achievements, not Black achievements.

I totally agree.

It very much has to do with skin color, and how you can say it doesn't, is beyond me. Just look at the name. "Black"

I totally disagree. Black is the outdated term used to describe these people of African ancestry in the US. They are not ONLY of Sub-Saharan African ancestry. Have you never known anyone with only one "Black" grandparent? Are they Black? Aren't they "White", too?

Why is one-drop the rule?

This is a cultural issue, not a racial one.

I'm not sure how much more I can reiterate this point: Black History Month deals with the descendants of the African Diaspora (meaning slavery). These people did not always come directly to the US from Africa, many having actually descended from people in Haiti or other parts of the Caribbean and especially Brazil for many, many generations prior to working the cotton fields in South Carolina.

Case in point: "Pickaninny" from Portuguese, pequeninho, meaning "little one".

American Black People can technically, to some extent because of mixing, claim ancestry to:

West African Ethnic groups like Ewe, Fan, Igbo, Yoruba, Mende and so on.
Portuguese Southern Africa: Angola and Mozambique
Tupi-Guarani tribes of Brazil
Portuguese
Spanish
Tainos
Arawak
Seminoles
Cherokee
English
Irish
Scottish

Please tell me how people who have come out of such mixing can be considered black and not "Black" (where the capital denotes the ethnically diverse group specific to the US)?

The skin color is not prevalent here. It is a semantic quirk in the language.

reply to post by tom goose

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How about instead of celebrating a different skin tone, how about we celebrate our evolution as a species, just because one group of people have a different genetic trait, doesn't give anything to fight or celebrate over.

The evolution of our species is still ongoing, let us celebrate the times ahead, good and the bad, because in the end that is what makes us who we are. Human

Lets celebrate the international human evolution achievement, we are still here and alive, that is something to be thankful and celebrate for.

To answer your question, whites people don't have the greatest or even human friendly history. Celebrating a different skin tone only seeks to divide the people.

Originally posted by apodictic
reply to post by TheWalkingFox

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I understand where you're coming from. I do. However, there is only the human race. The only things that have changed are genetic adaptations to climate during our evolutionary and migratory process. Everyone has ethnic diversity. German culture is different from Polish culture. Italian culture is different from English culture, so on and so forth. Culture is NOT to be mistaken with skin color. It has nothing to do with it at all.

In terms of biology, you're absolutely correct. We're all so interbred that trying to draw any biological meaning from race would be a fruitless exercise. It'd be like trying to pick a "best in breed" contender from the county pound; what breed?

However, we're NOT talking about biology here. We're talking about culture, as experienced by actual people. And in the United States, cultures tend to fall along lines determined by skin color. This is due to the active and often brutally enforced racial segregation in our nation's history.

Down in Brasil, multi-racial monoculture is more of a reality, because whites, blacks, and natives were never strictly separated down there. Over in Finland, where everyone looks nearly the same, there are still five distinct cultures (Sami, Russian, Karelian, Swedish, and Finnish). Where the divisions of raceand culture fall really depends on where you are.

People think that creating all these months to honor their ethnic diversity helps their cause. However, like I've stated before, it does nothing but throw barriers up between skin colors. If they were to name it "African culture month," it would be about their culture. Naming it "Black history month," though, only acknowledges the differences in skin color. If anyone doesn't "get it," it would be the people who support this kind of segregation.

edit on 13-2-2011 by apodictic because: (no reason given)

No, it doesn't. As a native American, I feel no division with my African-descended cousins this month. Nor do I feel particularly divided from my European cousins for any of the twelve months of the year that revolve around them. As far as I can tell, the only people who are throwing up barriers, are the white people who feel that they're missing out on something because they don't get any exclusively "white" month. This could be rectified very easily if they would just take the time needed to educate themselves about what's going on, and why these observances are useful for our overall American culture.

As for your specific, in the US, "black" means "African American." I've seen people of all stripes get very confused on how to refer to a person from say, Lagos or Havana; they're obviously African-descended, but they're not "African-American," and "black" means "African-American" so the wheels start spinning, and it ends up being "That Cuban guy" or "That lady from Nigeria." It's kind of funny to watch internal culture conflict.

Hank Hill: So are you Chinese or Japanese?
Minh Souphanousinphone: No, we are Laotian.
Bill Dauterive: The ocean? What ocean?
Kahn Souphanousinphone: From Laos, stupid! It's a landlocked country in South East Asia between Vietnam and Thailand, population approximately 4.7 million!

Hank ponders this for a few seconds.

Hank Hill: So are you Chinese or Japanese?

reply to post by Sphota

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Okay, I will clarify again. What I'm trying to say is that the name gives people a false sense of what it is about. When people hear "Black history," they tend to think of achievements by....wait for it.....people with black skin color. MOST of the world does not look at black people as being ethnically mixed. The point I am making is that the title "Black history month" is misleading, and does not appear to be about anything regarding culture (i.e. customs, clothing, food, etc.) Only that their skin is black, which leads me back to my point that this sets up barriers. If the name were altered to pertain to culture or customs of people from a COUNTRY on that continent, it would be understandable. However, the name pertains to the color of one's skin.

reply to post by TheWalkingFox

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Don't get me confused with someone who supports there be a "white history month." I don't think there should be any history month based on skin color. Culture could be practiced by people of any skin color. If I wanted to, I could practice Asian culture, even though I am white. Culture is not limited to the color of one's skin, it's simply just a way of living. I think a lot of people's views pertaining to culture and skin color are skewed. I do not support any barriers between people of different skin colors, nor do I feel any separation between people of different skin colors.

Originally posted by Frankenchrist
*Side note.

I have noticed alot of black people like to identify themselves as decendents of Egyptians for some reason. But most Egyptians I have seen look like people of Arab decent.

You mean decendents of ancient Egyptians? Yes, there are black people who like to make that connection, even if it hugely incorrect.

I read recently about another Cleopatra movie, and some commentators decrying the lack of black actresses for the role! As we all know, Cleopatra was a Ptolemy, who were Greek and ruled after Alexander the Great conquered Egypt.

The only ancient Egyptian dynasty that was black was the 25th or Nubian dynasty, who were, to put into context, around roughly 2000 years after the Pharoahs who built the Giza Pyramids. So by all means, make a connection to the 25th Dynasty, but the larger ancient Egyptian culture, religion and temples have nothing at all to do with black Africans.

reply to post by tom goose

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Let's be honest for a sec, okay?

It's really derogatory that Blacks are given a special month. Such individual recognition denotes an inferiority, and is thus compensated with a month that recognizes their "accomplishments" despite being part of a society that has shown them so much hatred and racism.

It's kind of like slapping a medal on a mentally challenged kid. (note; I'm not expressing any racism towards anyone, just an example of how such a distinction can be seen as anything but special recognition)

The fact that you're complaining about Blacks having a special month for recognition, kind of puts you beneath even those retarded kids on the short bus.

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