"I realize that I'm black, but I like to be viewed as a person, and this everybody's wish."
-Michael Jordan
Let me just say that I generally hate the glorification of anti-intellectualism regardless of race...I think there's an unspoken class-element to it, too, but there's
definitely a strong anti-academic, anti-intellectual flavor to the
average black community in the U.S. Quite honestly, being accused of "acting white" is one of the most ridiculous statements one could ever make. Dressing in a manner befitting a young man, having a job, going to school, speaking proper English, having a diverse taste in music, not having 20 kids, having a diverse group of friends, reading books, hell anything that could lead one to live a better is considered acting like a white person. Black people will downright SHAME you for trying to be better. This has caused many black people to not even bother trying to reach their full potential. This phenomena is even evident in kids; young black students condemn academic success as a rejection of their cultural identity. It's kind of too bad most kids who struggle with peer pressure issues don't know that
the majority of their peers won't amount to shit in adult life.
The thing is, there are people who gave their lives for us to have equal rights. Even
worse, some people straight up had their lives stolen from them just for
doing the things that we are free to do now. Things are not perfect for
black people in America and I am obviously not saying they are. I know the
plight of Troy Davis, Trayvon Martin, myself and all of the other
black people I meet day to day. We are still facing discrimination in this society, BUT we shouldn't have to experience it from our own people
too.
First-generation, black, African immigrants to the United States have,
on average, better career chances than African Americans. This leads me to believe that one of the biggest problems for the black community
in the United States is the perception that studying hard, working
diligently and careering in ways other than becoming an NBA player, rap star, or drug dealer are "white". It's easy to blame whites for every little thing but a lot of social and
especially economic discrimination is self-inflicted.
The thing that pisses me off about black culture is that we have
stupid fucking qualifiers for being 'really' black. You wanna know what
the qualifier for being 'really' white is? It's that you don't have a
lot of melanin. Rednecks, WASPS, the 1%, Whiggers, and every other
subset of whites are still white. Meanwhile, black people are shamed
into faux-ghetto aspirations in order to be seen as not acting white. Do
you think so lowly of your own culture that when you see a black
person following societal norms and speaking English properly it is
foreign to you?
No ranting today. Just a couple of thoughts.
No ranting today. Just a couple of thoughts.
