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Thread: How Black Americans View Their Racial Identity

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    How Black Americans View Their Racial Identity

    This is kind of interesting and may explain why many do not understand blacks or really think in terms of modern race (skin color).

    Personally, I don't see myself as white. That means next to nothing to me. I'm German and Irish, with a bit of Scotch. And, historically, prior to modern scientific classifications, those were once seen as races. Race has a blurb on this:

    Drawing on sources from classical antiquity and upon their own internal interactions – for example, the hostility between the English and Irish powerfully influenced early European thinking about the differences between people[41] – Europeans began to sort themselves and others into groups based on physical appearance, and to attribute to individuals belonging to these groups behaviors and capacities which were claimed to be deeply ingrained. A set of folk beliefs took hold that linked inherited physical differences between groups to inherited intellectual, behavioral, and moral qualities.[42] Similar ideas can be found in other cultures,[43] for example in China, where a concept often translated as "race" was associated with supposed common descent from the Yellow Emperor, and used to stress the unity of ethnic groups in China. Brutal conflicts between ethnic groups have existed throughout history and across the world.[44]

    OK, so to the interesting and explanatory article: How Black Americans View Their Racial Identity:

    ...This heightened sense of black identity does not appear to be a particularly recent phenomenon — or one that was inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, which began to emerge in 2013. In 2012, about 70 percent of black Americans said that being black was either extremely or very important to their identity, about the same proportion as in 2016, according to surveys conducted as part of the American National Election Studies. In both years, black Americans expressed much greater ties to their identity than white or Hispanic Americans did.4

    Part of the story here is about ethnic and racial groups other than black Americans — why aren’t an overwhelming majority of white, Hispanic or Asian Americans saying that their race or ethnicity is very important to their personal identities? This is not a simple question, and we won’t try to unpack it all here. Penn State political science and African American studies professor Candis Watts Smith, who has written extensively about identity, said that “Asian” and “Hispanic” aren’t really the identities that some people who fall under these groups associate themselves with. Hispanic Americans, she argued, might think of themselves as Cuban or Mexican but not embrace the broader Latino or Hispanic labels. Similarly, some Americans of Chinese or Japanese ancestry might not describe themselves as Asian or feel much attachment to that identity. White Americans, Smith said, tend not to think of themselves racially, she said, because “whiteness is viewed as normal by white people.”...
    Or maybe that's an "African American studies" view of things that aren't that way at all, that aren't at all about whiteness, but just how other "races" like the Germans, the Irish, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Cubans, the Mexicans view themselves.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    This is kind of interesting and may explain why many do not understand blacks or really think in terms of modern race (skin color).
    Personally, I don't see myself as white. That means next to nothing to me. I'm German and Irish, with a bit of Scotch. And, historically, prior to modern scientific classifications, those were once seen as races. Race has a blurb on this:
    OK, so to the interesting and explanatory article: How Black Americans View Their Racial Identity:

    Or maybe that's an "African American studies" view of things that aren't that way at all, that aren't at all about whiteness, but just how other "races" like the Germans, the Irish, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Cubans, the Mexicans view themselves.
    Interesting. It seems to expand it's self in the belief that one drop of Black blood, and one is 'Black'. That it makes them 'different'.

    I still think back to a statement that a character on Law & Order made... 'was he an attorney that happened to be a Black man, or was he a Black man who happened to be an attorney'. To me it highlights how one views themselves, and by extension how they expect others to view them.

    Those that put their physical characteristics foremost, are devaluing who they are as individuals and humans.
    "I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." -- James Madison

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    History has solidified the significance of the "one drop rule". When Obama was in office, whenever the right wanted to say something negative towards him, they would refer to black stereotypes towards him or his wife, and whenever something positive was identified the first thing out of the right's mouth was "he is only half-white/black". The same phenonomon is noticed whenever riots or protesting are occurring...when black folks are breaking bad, everyone involved is immediately classified as black, regardless of the skin tone or even if white folks are involved.
    “Conscientiously believing that the proper condition of the negro is slavery, or a complete subjection to the white man, and entertaining the belief that the day is not distant when the old Union will be restored with slavery nationally declared to be the proper condition of all of African descent, and in view of the future harmony and progress of all the States of America, I have been induced to issue this address, so that there may be no misunderstanding in the future”

    - Jefferson Davis

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    Quote Originally Posted by Safety View Post
    History has solidified the significance of the "one drop rule". When Obama was in office, whenever the right wanted to say something negative towards him, they would refer to black stereotypes towards him or his wife, and whenever something positive was identified the first thing out of the right's mouth was "he is only half-white/black". The same phenonomon is noticed whenever riots or protesting are occurring...when black folks are breaking bad, everyone involved is immediately classified as black, regardless of the skin tone or even if white folks are involved.
    You have to admit that the protest, riots and looting (which are separate from the protest) are all done in the name of the black community. And yes, now most of the riots and looting are being done by Antifa and we all recognize they are mostly white who like Charles Manson are simply attempting to start a race war.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Collateral Damage View Post
    Interesting. It seems to expand it's self in the belief that one drop of Black blood, and one is 'Black'. That it makes them 'different'.

    I still think back to a statement that a character on Law & Order made... 'was he an attorney that happened to be a Black man, or was he a Black man who happened to be an attorney'. To me it highlights how one views themselves, and by extension how they expect others to view them.

    Those that put their physical characteristics foremost, are devaluing who they are as individuals and humans.

    That seems to be the point, that blacks, and I mean some, many?, see things in terms of race, in the modern sense, as color of skin. At least the author of the OP article seems to think so and so too the black studies prof.
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    I don't think black and white culture will ever merge. Neither side wants to give in to the other. We both like who we are and what and how we think. We will forever be like the Sunnis and the Shiites, at each other's throats. One or the other of us will have to destroy the other completely.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Safety View Post
    History has solidified the significance of the "one drop rule". When Obama was in office, whenever the right wanted to say something negative towards him, they would refer to black stereotypes towards him or his wife, and whenever something positive was identified the first thing out of the right's mouth was "he is only half-white/black". The same phenonomon is noticed whenever riots or protesting are occurring...when black folks are breaking bad, everyone involved is immediately classified as black, regardless of the skin tone or even if white folks are involved.
    Using Obama as an example of how 'the right' viewed his actions, is a blanket statement. Or, in modern terms, paintbrush much? I am conservative on most subjects, but middle liberal on others. I don't view people by skin color, but Obama himself, and a majority of his supports, referred to him as 'the first Black President', as though his skin color was of the ultimate importance. Perhaps for some it likely was. Didn't matter to me.

    Obama is of mixed heritage. OK, so he has mixed heritage, but by his own declarations, it is the Black heritage that has meaning. Last I heard, people with dark skin procreate the same way as people with white, yellow, green or orange skin. It's the results of nature, not some blessing or curse to be born one way or another.

    Those that applied the stereotype, to Obama or anyone else, are using a limited means of classifying individuals to address a subject. While I don't agree with it, it is common, for all groups to identify 'other than' as a solid group.
    "I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." -- James Madison

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    Quote Originally Posted by Safety View Post
    History has solidified the significance of the "one drop rule". When Obama was in office, whenever the right wanted to say something negative towards him, they would refer to black stereotypes towards him or his wife, and whenever something positive was identified the first thing out of the right's mouth was "he is only half-white/black". The same phenonomon is noticed whenever riots or protesting are occurring...when black folks are breaking bad, everyone involved is immediately classified as black, regardless of the skin tone or even if white folks are involved.


    Finally. You finally got the concept I've been trying to get through your head for three weeks.
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    The ones really being harmed by this is the black communities. You have cops say in Chicago that use to rush on a shots fired call, will say now, let them shoot it out. The last two to three weeks you can see the big difference. They set a record the other week of black people killed. It's not those white liberals getting shot. The little 9 year old girl that was shot by a drive by in her room, are they saying, say her name. No not important to them.

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    Quote Originally Posted by nathanbforrest45 View Post
    I don't think black and white culture will ever merge. Neither side wants to give in to the other. We both like who we are and what and how we think. We will forever be like the Sunnis and the Shiites, at each other's throats. One or the other of us will have to destroy the other completely.
    But what is "white" culture? I understand German culture, Irish culture, Mexican culture, Puerto Rican culture, etc. Do all those compile together to make white culture?
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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