Why is there "black pride," "Asian pride," "Indian pride," "Latin pride," etc.? If "white pride" is intolerable, can we please stop the double-standard, and end every kind of racial pride? No racial group is inherently better than another.
Acolyte, please re-read what I wrote about the differences in the prides. It is the context that is different. There is no double standard because most browns and blacks don't go think their race should be elevated above all others, as whites often do. What THEY want are equal rights and equal opportunities, without being separate.
I know anectodal evidence will only get one so far, so take this for what it's worth: I
strongly disagree with you here, Myrrh23, and I do so based on my experience attending a predominantly black high school and teaching for seven years in an almost entirely black and hispanic high school. Across-the-board notions of "Black power" and "Brown power" are very much alive -- the latter of which cracks me, a Spanish teacher, up, because it's about the only thing that will unite Mexicans with those whom they call "dirty Salvadorans/Nicaraguans/Guatemalans etc" -- and no bones are made about how anybody identifying themselves as white had better shut up about "double standards." The folks talking about black and brown pride are not interested in equality; they are interested in payback for sins committed against their forbears at the expense of the descendants of the offenders.
This, of course, is not to say that all folks identifying themselves as black or latino feel this way -- far from it. I'm simply saying that those who advance racial pride in the black and Hispanic communities feel very strongly that those identifying themselves as "white" would be wrong to do what they themselves do on the basis of race. It
is a double standard in that sense.
That having been said, the comment contrasting so-called "racial" pride with pride in one's specific ethnic land of origin and said land's corresponding culture was spot on. I am scotch-irish, british, and welsh (far more than anything else, anyways), and I admire very much the great cultural figures within those various histories. Likewise, my family has deep roots in Texas (six generations -- well, now seven with my daughters) and the South in general. The music from those lands, the food, the languages, the advancements they've been known for...these are all things that are a part of who I am. Celebrate those specific lands for the specific achievements that have come therefrom; doing so is much different than bequeathing honor on someone merely for the color of his skin, without regard to his individual character or place of origin.
Though I've come a looong way from where I was, I'm brave enough to admit that I still have racist tendencies at times.
I really appreciate the candor of this post, Gabriel. My time teaching in my urban school has brought out some of mine, as well. I've seen incredibly motivated, hard-working, polite, thoughtful, considerate, and compassionate black and latino students come through my class and come away with insightful appreciation for another language and other countries' cultures. And I've seen the near-illiterate, "thug-life," gang- and drug-affiliated, chest-thumping, loud, obnoxious, selfish, willfully ignorant, and disrespectful stereotype that most racist "whites" probably think of when they envision "blacks" or "Hispanics." The point is that, if a black young man comes into my classroom, I have absolutely no place to assume that he will fit the latter of the two descriptions unless or until he proves himself to be so. However, I have to say -- stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason. Yes, they're wrong to impose on groups as a whole, but if there's enough of a problem within a community that people are no longer surprised when someone with those physical characteristics fits the latter set of personality characteristics...then something needs to be addressed within that community. Bill Cosby's activism is a good example of this. While I know that not all blacks come from broken homes, drug-addicted parents, poverty and gang-riddled ghettos (not by a long shot), when a kid comes in with the tall T that says "stop snitchin'" and addresses me as "Pat-nuh" while he swaggers by, leaving a sickeningly-sweet odor in his wake, I'm no longer scandalized by this. When the handful of kids classified as "white" are all bored in the class because I have to spend so much time with the other students -- I say this honestly -- it's hard to fight back racist tendencies sometimes! You have to do it, of course, but it's tough! It helps to remember (and I'm sure Mr. Y could help back me up on this) that lots of whites are similarly "near-illiterate, Klan- and drug-affiliated, chest-thumping, loud, obnoxious, selfish, willfully ignorant, and disrespectful," and when you find out that one of these white kids lives in a trailer park with his uncle Cletus, well...you're not really that surprised.
So like I say...I appreciate your honesty.
I'm sure many of us have heard the rediculous term 'reverse racism' which is used to describe blacks who hate whites.
Actually...it's giving preferential treatment to people who do not classify themselves as whites simply on the basis of their not being "white." Job quotas via affirmative action, for example, is state-sanctioned racism against whites, but since it is perceived that whites, in general, have more of a history of coming from educated backgrounds and, thus, have a naturally better handle on how to conduct themselves in the business world, thus giving them an upper hand from the start in procuring employment, a little leveling of the playing field by the government is in order and not out of line.
My friends all lament about the fact that here in America, you can have 'African American Heritage Month', 'Latino Heritage Month', 'American Indian Heritage Month', and so on but not 'Caucasion Heritage Month'. I agree that that would be kinda goofy, but the point's not lost on thinking people.
I had to smirk when I read this. Yes, I've heard that question posed. One student asked that one time (she was white), and a latina classmate told her that every other month of the year
is white heritage month. The class roared. But seriously, what passes for black and Hispanic heritage assemblies in my school is just a "talent" show of student acts which, based on its content, does little more than tell the young blacks and Hispanics that they can be any style of rapper or exotic dancer that they care to be when they grow up. Honestly, I think I can live without something like that to "celebrate" being "white" (whatever that means).
We have a Black Entertainment Television network that really irks every other race here. We have the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) that, to my way of thinking is outdated and racist...All y'all know that all hell would break loose if a National Association for the Advancement of White People was looked upon as favorable as the NAACP is.
Again, society has deemed that these things are "owed" to black people because of past hardships. "White people" as a whole are not deemed as needing any such "support," as they, through oppression (whether very real or very imagined -- and both types are mentioned in our society) already have the upper hand in our country without it.
Whether you agree that it's justified or not, the double standard is there; admitting that it's there doesn't mean it's not needed (it may be to a degree), but denying that it's plainly there is nonsense.
