Finally!!

About time. I've long said that my fellow Jews have to move beyond the evil the Nazis did to them, and stop building museums to their evil. And now the author of this article hits at the biggest guilt trippers in the States. Black politicians and their politically correct running dogs.

This is long overdue. Bravo!!

Blacks should get over slavery when the whites stop waving the dumb confederate flag reminding them of slavery!!

And the pasty-looking poms should get over being an inferior race and bow to the fact that they foolishly sent all the worst people to the best place, thus ensuring that it would become one long party.

Good post! Enough is enough!

Ruvy - practice what you preach - "Jews have to move beyond the evil the Nazis did to them". Pretty funny coming from you the "King of The Cult of Victimization"

JOM

This article is extremely well argued. Though I agree with your points, it needs to be said that self responsibility is a quality that is lacking throughout America. It's not race-specific.

People in general look to blame others for their lot in life. But it's my experience that you get to where you are by the choices that you make. If you make bad choices and end up suffering because of them, you have two options: wallow in your misery and look to blame someone, or forget blame all together and move on. Most of the time, the only thing that's stopping you is you.

Everyone needs to get over themselves. Boo hoo, your life sucks. Do something about it.

"...it needs to be said that self responsibility is a quality that is lacking throughout America. It's not race-specific."

Quoted for Truth!

"This article is extremely well argued. Though I agree with your points, it needs to be said that self responsibility is a quality that is lacking throughout America. It's not race-specific."

Comment: The same whites who argue that blacks are not well qualified for higher education run away from schools that are heavily Asian so that they dont have to face serious competition.

Paotie

you clearly have no idea or frame of reference to what Prof. Williams is talking about. Please reread the article and pay attention to what he is saying. Particularly lines like the following:

...they should know that their actions mean little in dealing with the day-to-day plight of many black Virginians -- which has nothing to do with slavery.

"...it needs to be said that self responsibility is a quality that is lacking throughout Israel. It's religion-specific."

This is validated by Israels dependence on the US for financial aid, weapons, security, foodstamps and free cheese right Ruvy!

Quoted for Truth!

"...they should know that their actions mean little in dealing with the day-to-day plight of many black Virginians -- which has nothing to do with slavery."

Comment: Like the neo-confederate thugs reminding them of slavery...try these thugs at..

www.cofcc.org

If you can convince these white southern thugs to stop waving the confederate flag, blacks should forget about slavery and reparations...it is a two way street.

I would encourage those commenting to reread the article which is greatly misinterpreted by Paotie.

Prof. Williams is saying that apologies are a big waste of time. Focus on schools and crime prevention instead.

I think nobody really disagrees with Prof. Williams - they have just misunderstood his words.

Of course, the context of any writing depends on whom is reading it. Mr. Williams demanded the Virginia legislature to fix societal problems that are not specific to just blacks, though his article is entirely focused towards blacks.

Either way, enough's enough. If Mr. Williams wants equality throughout the country, then demand the Virginia legislature to fix problems relating to crime for ALL citizens - not just blacks.

As usual, when a person challenges the status quo for black thinking, s/he is viewed as racist or misunderstood, presumably because only blacks would understand Mr. Williams' argument.

Wrong.

Anyway, the beauty of America is that it's just my opinion. If you don't like it, write to your local Congressman/Congresswoman.

:o)

Paotie

"As usual, when a person challenges the status quo for black thinking, s/he is viewed as racist or misunderstood, presumably because only blacks would understand Mr. Williams' argument."

Comment: As usual when a person challenges the white thinking they stonewall and do not respond. Black demand is a two way street. When whites stop waving the confederate flag and stop celebrating the confederate dead and join the Union, blacks should stop demanding apologies for slavery and stop demanding reparations.

Paotie,
I am not sure what race/ethnicity you are but I have to assume you are white, because that is the unmarked category of race/ethnicity in this country. What about Deaf individuals who are also People of Color, you never referenced them in your response to the original article. Even though deafness is what unites (most) in the Deaf community race/ethnicity is still what separates them, your response to Mr. Williams article is yet another example.

Comparing the opression of the d/Deaf community and African American community is not a productive conversation. While we both face discrimination they are not comparable, and get us nowhere. The larger issue is whiteness/white privilege and the notion of able bodies being the norm. This is where we should be focusing our energies in combating, not other marginalized groups.

I would suggest you do some research into Whiteness Studies, you then will be able to understand the legacy of white privilege and how you, even as a deaf person, are benefiting from that privilege. Theories on color blindness will also be able to help you understand the larger picture as well.

The only way a person can learn is to put themselves out there so I commend you on that. Never stop learning.

"I would suggest you do some research into Whiteness Studies, you then will be able to understand the legacy of white privilege and how you, even as a deaf person, are benefiting from that privilege. Theories on color blindness will also be able to help you understand the larger picture as well."

No need to do any research or academic work...just look at these groups:

League of the South

Council of Conservative Citizens

hdc -

You presume too much. I have a white Deaf friend who attended a school for the Deaf, and the lad has no proper English writing skills; lacks the appropriate ability to do simple math, and in general, has very poor communication skills. Of course, we could argue that his ASL background is the culprit here, but that's for another day and another topic.

So, I'd love for you to meet him and explain to him how his dependency on Social Security benefits, food stamps, and a general inability to find jobs that are not labor-intensive are somehow not because of the fact he's white. Where is the benefit for him being white?

At least if you're black in this country, you've got countless self-advocacy groups willing to step to the plate for you. If you're deaf, you're lucky to get an advocacy group to go to bat for you. Deaf/disabled groups sit on the fringe of society, as do most disabled/deaf people.

Anyway, if everything taught in academics was easily transferable to real-world applications, then all graduates of MBA programs should be CEOs or CFOs right after graduation. But, that doesn't happen (or rarely does). So, you can keep your "whiteness" studies; I'll research more materials as I deem appropriate.

In the meantime, don't forget: intolerance begets more intolerance. People would do well to learn to tolerate others, even if their opinions sharply differ from their own.

:o)

Paotie

G. Chell, I'd never really looked at the League before you mentioned it. I went to the website and found the statement on racism. So what was your point exactly?
League of the South
Statement on "Racism"
The League of the South has never before issued a statement denying that it is "racist" because racism is a wax nose charge. Those who resort to this charge can never be satisfied. The more we deny it, the more we will be forced to deny it, until at last all that we will have time to do is to repel the latest charge of "racism." However, we make this one statement, to satisfy strangers of good will, that we bear no ill will or hatred to any racial, ethnic, or religious group.

We believe that Christianity and social order require that all people, regardless of race, must be equal before the law. We do not believe that the law should be used to persecute, oppress, or favour any race or class.

We believe that the only harmony possible between the races, as between all natural differences among human beings, begins in submitting to Jesus Christ's commandment to "love our neighbours as ourselves." That is the world we envision and work for.

We believe that the politics of race -- baiting whites against blacks and blacks against white has been profitable for politicians but catastrophic for the South and Southerners.

We believe that black Southerners want and need what we want and need: a safe country for their families, liberty, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We believe that the last thing the South's enemies want is to see black and white Southerners sitting down together to determine their common destiny and work for authentic harmony, a just social and economic order, and an independent South. We can't foretell precisely what that order will look like, but certainly it will not make room for diversity police and political correctness. Rather, we hope it will bring the greatest freedom for the greatest number of all races, and good will among them all.

The League of the South Board of Directors
21 June 2005

Paotie, I appreciate your intended point, but you are completely 100% misinterpreting Walter Williams. He was coming in a slightly backwards way to the same point.

Dr Williams is perhaps the most renowned black conservative academic in America, give or take Thomas Sowell. I promise that Walter Williams is NOT whining about slavery. His article is NOT all about black folks. That was the whole point of invoking every other kind of injustice like the Holocaust: Pretty much EVERYBODY has had horror and injustice in their ancestry.

Indeed, if you read up on Dr Williams, you'll find that he's absolutely a pariah in the black professional victim community. His name would be a curse word to the likes of Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton.

paotie: "At least if you're black in this country, you've got countless self-advocacy groups willing to step to the plate for you. If you're deaf, you're lucky to get an advocacy group to go to bat for you. Deaf/disabled groups sit on the fringe of society, as do most disabled/deaf people."

ok, paotie... you do know that your whining sounds like the whining you accuse blacks of... just with more hypocrisy mixed into it.

so, this is what i hear: "stop whining, african americans, it's my turn to bitch!"

it does nothing for your argument other than defeat it.

zingzang -

Awww .. touched a nerve, did we?

:o)

Paotie

Paotie,

You need to go back and read the Williams article several more times; until you understand it.

You've got it completely wrong; you say:

If Mr. Williams wants equality throughout the country, then demand the Virginia legislature to fix problems relating to crime for ALL citizens - not just blacks.

that's EXACTLY what he IS saying; read this (from the article):

The General Assembly's statement of regret for slavery means absolutely nothing to me. If anything, it's nothing less than a cheap insult and capitulation of white delegates to black h u s t l e r s. Possibly, the whites who voted in support of the declaration were mau-maued into it or they felt guilt over our history of slavery.

...The U.S. murder rate is 5.6 people per 100,000 of the population. In the Commonwealth of Virginia's capital, Richmond, where the General Assembly meets, the murder rate is 43 people per 100,000 of the population, making Richmond the city with the third-highest murder rate in the nation, according to a 2005 FBI report.

No race specificity there. True, later he says that the Legislature should apologize for crime on Blacks, but that's an ironic statement, made in the context of the Legislature's current resolution.

On education, he points out the serious failure of the Virginia educational system vis-a-vis Blacks, but here again also makes a side remark indicating that education for whites is below par as well.

As Maurice wrote above. the main point of Williams' article is "Forget the apologies, stop crime and fix the schools instead", good advice regardless of race.

no, you just look like a hypocrite.

no problem. lots of hypocrites out there.

22 was for 20.

it looks like you read the title to williams' column, decided he was bitching about the lack of an apology, (which he wasn't,) and then went off on some tirade about how blacks don't deserve shit and you're deaf so you've been through the same thing and you're not bitching, no, you're not bitching at all... well, then you do go on to bitch about how there's no support system for deaf people, not like the ones those blacks have that because you're white you could never have... and it goes on.

League of the South can claim all they want..but they do wave the confederate flag..if you wave a red flag in front of a bull it will charge you. If you wave a confederate flag in front of black people, they are going to charge you. White people should not be reminding black people about slavery through Civil War and Confederat flag...perhaps then the blacks would stop demanding apologies and reparations...pretty simple that even a child can understand....and by the way, the Jews shouid do away with holocaust museums and memorablila if the white southerners do away with the confederate museums, flags and other stuff and join the Union.

i dunno g. chell... do you really equate a flag and talking about history (what is this "joining the union" crap?) with 400 years of slavery?

white people should not "remind" black people of slavery? hrm. lemme see. since it was all based on race and skin color... just our whiteness (and their blackness) reminds them of slavery, if they want to think about it.

blacks aren't going to stop being angry about our collective past if the confederate flag disappears. they'll just won't be angry about the confederate flag. they'll still remember it.

why do you advocate getting rid of museums and our history? shouldn't we remember the things we have done?

why do you advocate getting rid of museums and our history? shouldn't we remember the things we have done?


Comment: Just like you have the right to do it, the blacks have the right to demand apologies, whine and cry, throw tantrums and do everything else on God's earth from opening a museum on slavery and Jim Crow segregation to demand reparations...does not mean whites have to listen. But, blacks have as much rights to demand apology slavery as much as whites have the right to remember about the Lost Cause...both are part of American history....the Lost Cause and Slavery.

An interesting article, but you might have wanted to READ Williams' article before responding to it, since you've totally mischaracterized it.

I knew something was wrong when I read your first sentence, since Williams is on record as having been one of the most outspoken black opponents of slavery apologies and reparations.

Contrary to what you've written the article does not condemn the apology for being inadequate, it dismisses it as pointless and ridiculous. Williams then goes on to argue that if the Virginia assembly wants to do something useful it should do its job and improve the schools and fight crime to make the lives of white AND black citizens better in the present.

Also contrary to what you've written he doesn't single out 'white' legislators as the problem, but legislators in general, many of whom are black. His article is not really about race at all, it's about the incompetence of government.

You've got a point on the suffering of the deaf, and a valid complaint about those who think only their minoritty has had it hard, but you aren't being fair to Williams when you write things like:

"Mr. Williams and everyone else who seem to feel that whites owe blacks something, let me tell you: get over it."

Because Williams absolutely DOES NOT believe this. He's famous - even reviled by other blacks - for holding exactly the opposite position.

I suggest that those reading this article follow the link and read Williams' article too, because it's nothing like the description written here and he has some very good points to make.

Dave

Dave,

In reading Williams' article, my perception of his intent was to criticize lawmakers in Virginia - regardless of race - in passing such a trivial legislative action when so many other pressing needs should be considered. The caveat, however, is that Mr. Williams focuses on resolving black problems, and makes no effort to include other societal problems afflicting other Americans. So, even if my article reflected a different intent by Mr. Williams, I stand by my comments.

I will say, however, that the number of comments regarding Mr. Williams as being a "pariah" in the black community piqued my interest in his writings even more. And to that, I want to thank many of you: his writings DO reflect the fact he disagrees with professional black victims.

So, I owe Mr. Williams an apology for lumping him with others, such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton, to name but a few. If anything, the comments posted today regarding Mr. Williams has allowed me to view his teachings with more respect, which he deserves.

In the meantime, my point remains the same: we can't fight intolerance with more intolerance.

:o)

Paotie

"In the meantime, my point remains the same: we can't fight intolerance with more intolerance."

Any viable solutions?

"my point remains the same: we can't fight intolerance with more intolerance."

Something I feel certain Williams would agree with 100%.

Dave

Right.

So, that means you'll tolerate me, and I'll reciprocate.

See? It wasn't all that hard, was it?

:o)

Paotie

For what it's worth, it's been noticed that Paotie and Jake The Snake share the same IP address and I am waiting to learn whether they also share a brain...

As I emailed Mr. Rose, it was an accident, an error.

Look at the bottom of that posting and look who signed off on it.

:o)

Paotie

(I wish I were perfect, alas I am not, but thank you for understanding.)

Well, I haven't actually received an email from Paotie but based on his comment above, I'm going to change the attribution of the Snake.

AOL must be slow, today.

AOL is always slow, that's why it's mostly used by children...

dee-ammmm-n.

It wasn't slow yesterday, so the kids must've been out partying?

Such a tragic thing ..

"For what it's worth, it's been noticed that Paotie and Jake The Snake share the same IP address and I am waiting to learn whether they also share a brain..."

Sounds like Vox Populi and Dave Nalle.

"my point remains the same: we can't fight intolerance with more intolerance"

It sounds to me like you are practicing a bit of stereotyping. You equate the actions of a few white people with all white people. There will always be jerks of all skin colors. The solution is to ignore them and they will go away instead of feeding into their negativity.

GREAT post!

More White Americans died in the four-year war to end slavery than Blacks have died at the hands of White racists in the 142 years since.

Think about that, next time "civil rights" leaders like Al Sharpton demand "reparations" for something that no one alive today had to endure...

"If you can convince these white southern thugs to stop waving the confederate flag, blacks should forget about slavery and reparations...it is a two way street."

Slavery was a part of, well, part of America for 89 years. Slavery was a part of the Confederacy for 4 years.

The American flag is as much, if not more, a symbol of slavery than the Confederate flag.

Either way, GET OVER IT...

Excellent post!!

Being black (non-American, though) i too have had enough of it in this country...no one (alive) can tell me, un-hypocritically, that this has nothing to do with me. Lets all let the past go and deal with contemporary race issues as they come...

Meeting the opposition to reparations By Donna Lamb

[It's not a good idea to copy other people's lengthy work so I have replaced the article with a hyperlink to the original source. Comments Editor]

Where are the other two articles then? :-(

Any excuse to keep people from seeing the truth will do won't it?


You're either part of the problem, or you are part of the solution. I suspect you are the latter.

A Word Of Explanation...

You will notice that The Harvest Institute capitalized the words Black and White when referring to people. This may feel unfamiliar but we do it out of respect for both the Black and White race. It is inappropriate to capitalize Asians, Hispanics, and other groups and not give Whites and Blacks the respect to which both are entitled.

Q. Slavery happened so long ago. I am not responsible for it. Why can't we just forget it?

A. The nation's race problem, a structural economic inequality between the races, is directly traceable back to and across four centuries of slavery and Jim Crow apartheid (semi-slavery).Slavery and Jim Crow established and maintained imbalances between the races. Under these social and economic systems, nearly 100 percent of this nation's wealth and power resources, and controls of all levels of government, were mar-distributed into the hands of dominant white society. The advantages, preferences and wealth assets, in the form of stocks, bonds, shares, businesses, land, insurance benefits and trust accounts, are passed from one generation to the next through inheritance laws. Though whites today continue to enjoy the advantages of centuries of govermment-supported preferences for Whites, most live in a state of denial about how their group's wealth and power were acquired.

Full story at link below: The Harvest Institute

Racism and "Preferential Treatment" by the Numbers

By Tim Wise, Association for White Anti-Racist Education (AWARE)

Anyone who does political analysis, advocacy or organizing knows that folks on all sides of an issue have "numbers." Trotting out statistics to prove one's point about something is a well-accepted practice, and yet rarely do we stop to think about what certain numbers mean: be they used by "our side," or by political adversaries.

As someone who works full-time doing antiracism work, I constantly run across those whose "numbers" are thrown at me in an attempt to prove two things in particular: 1) that racist attitudes among whites are virtually nonexistent nowadays; and, 2) that the only real discrimination still in evidence is that dreaded "reverse" kind, as in so-called affirmative action "preferences." Herein, I would like to address both claims, with reference to numbers, and what they do (and don't) mean.

Full story at link below: :-(

Racism and "Preferential Treatment" by the Numbers By Tim Wise

Well, Knowledge, when you've finished leaping to conclusions, perhaps you'll consider this: If you wrote those articles yourself, heck, I'm impressed.

If you didn't, then you should present them as I did your first, possibly with a nice little introduction to put the article in context, not simply paste in somebody else's work. It's as much a matter of respect as it is good manners.

Aah, there you go, now you're getting the hang of it...

Now just remember to please format your links as per Blogcritics protocol. That means like this - Blogcritics and not like this http://blogcritics.org. Thanks.

Listen! I know these people personally. They are members of discussion forums I moderate.

They have no problem with my pasting their information all over the world when I see forums of brain damaged Caucasians spouting their usual uninformed crap about black people and what we are owed by this devilish White Supremacist Nation.

White outnumber us by 5 to 1. If I personally responded to all the hate and ignorance from them that I see online, I woulnd't have time to do anything else with my life. So I have other friends who are also experts on reparations and White Supremacy. Depending on what is being said on the forum, I may decide to use their posts which are easy to copy and paste.

You SHOULD be concerned about the accuracy of the information I share rather than nit picking over trivial things as you are doing.

Stop trying to walk around the cesspool. You are knee deep IN IT! :-)

Now read the information carefully and put some accurate facts in your devilish, nonwhite people hating, diabolical, baby killing George Bush supporting minds.

Need I say more.

BTW, I have one of the most factual blogs in cyberspace. I'm not ready to give these people a link to it, as their knowledge level is to shallow to contribute anything worthwhile.
Spater

That's as may be, Knowledge, but that's the way we do things around here.

I don't have any problems with the issues you wish to raise but on two things we're a little inflexible. Firstly, don't be making presumptious and gratuitous insults as you did above and secondly, proper attribution for other people's work is required. If you are indeed a forum moderator, you'll already understand the reasoning.

"Slavery was a part of, well, part of America for 89 years. Slavery was a part of the Confederacy for 4 years."

The American flag is as much, if not more, a symbol of slavery than the Confederate flag."

Comment: That is not the issue here. The issue here is the Confederate flag defended slavery in the civil war. You lost the Civil War!! Now get over it!!

The issue here is the Confederate flag defended slavery in the civil war. You lost the Civil War!! Now get over it!!

RJ

You don't get over your history. I don't recall any part of American history that we want to "get over".

Are you saying that it should not be brought up any more? Why?

Do you realise that in no time in our history have we EVER actually faced what we did. How can AAs get over something that hasn't been faced?

I can understand the holocaust being annoying. It wasn't here for one thing and it was for a few years. Africans came here as slaves in 1619 and Jim Crowe was abolished in the 60's. Get over it?? How? It is an entire history of a people. It is the conception of a people. AAs began as slaves. Why should they forget it? Its like telling everyone to forget what their organs are and their entire history and not explaining why.

You are uncomfortable about slavery for some reason. That is your problem. Find a way to understand why and deal with it.

Those of you who propose that AAs get over their own history, obviously because it makes YOU uncomfortable, imagine being asked to do the same.

1. Slavery and Jim Crowe is supposed to make you uncomfortable it was sick.

2. Slavery and Jim Crowe is a huge part of American history. Adjust to that fact.

3. African Americans are conceived as slaves. How can they forget slavery? Without slavery they don't exist. Adjust to that reality.

4. We have not FACED the evil of slavery as a nation. We wanted AAs to get over it on day one after emancipation. Adjust and deal with it. Its who we are.

When we are taught the great deeds of our founding fathers we forget that they were hypocrites. We gloss over their owning humans like cattle while declaring "give me liberty or give me death". Blacks don't. We remember and get glassy eyed during The Star Spangled Banner yet FORGET that at that very moment when those words were written people were chained and beaten because of their skin. We don't get over the glossy images of our history yet we ask Blacks to get over the reality of their existence. They exist because of slavery.

The issue of GETTING OVER IT is our problem. It is the rest of us that are ill and are in denial of OUR reality. There is no part of our history that we want to GET OVER but the evil that we have perpetuated on Africans in America. Face it. Deal with it. Its who America is.

Mike

It was about expanding Federal power over the States and abolishing the States' right to secede from the Union.

Yes we've heard it all before... they wanted to secede so that they can continue their way of life freely without any Northern values being imposed upon them. Their way of life (gravy) was slavery. They weren't ready to give it up YET.

reggie von woic

Are you African or are you European Black?

"Do you realise that in no time in our history have we EVER actually faced what we did. How can AAs get over something that hasn't been faced?"

what's this we shit?

the last time I checked there is no one currently alive who was a slave or kept slaves in this nation.

There's nothing wrong with acknowledging the past but you are living in it Zedd.

Reggie is right. You need to let it go and deal with today's realities.

"forums of brain damaged Caucasians spouting their usual uninformed crap about black people and what we are owed by this devilish White Supremacist Nation."

Yeah, THAT sort of remark is gonna get me (and other White people) to eagerly accept "reparations" for slavery...

"the last time I checked there is no one currently alive who was a slave or kept slaves in this nation."

Comment: The last time I checked, there were at least 40 million white Americans who were alive who supported segregation in the US South, denied equal opportunity to black people and other minorities, kept them in low paying positions despite qualifications, shut them out of several job opportunities and in general enforced a rigid system of discrimination that denied blacks any opportunity to earn and accumulate wealth. So I agree slavery is not the issue here. I alos know one person who was ten years old in 1928 when black people were run out of Rosewood, Florida on heresay of a crime...and he was around and his brothers participated in the atrocity....and he benefited from the atrocity...so yes, we should not be talking about slavery...but reparations for atrocity committed under Jim Crow, because a lot of the people who committed the atrocities are still alive and they should be held accountable. If those criminals were not alive the FBI dominated by whites wont be going there looking for some of these murderers. I rest my case.

Regards
Chell

Arch

We as in America. Just as we say WE when referring to all other historical events in this country. You weren't in WWII but you say WE when speaking of our efforts in that endeavor.

I find it interesting how blurry peoples reasoning gets when it comes to AA issues. This tendency is a clear indication that America has a HUGE problem with race. It is a clear indication that White Americans have an enormous issue with African Americans and their history. The unfounded fear of African Americans (who should fear who really), the protest of EVERY endeavour to correct the actions of the past, the misplaced tags placed on AAs and the irrational logic where it comes to where AAs should be based on their history in this country. It all indicates that Whites have THE problem and it is enormous.

Its funny how we claim and are proud of the deeds which have lead to this country's prosperity. Whether ones ancestors come from Europe in the 20th century or not we say OUR founding fathers. We celebrate the 4th of July (none of us were there). However when it comes to us embracing the one major EVIL of our society, somehow we are distant and don't claim affiliation with this nation. We leave the victims of it still holding the bag in an almost blaming tone. We choose to ignore that the prosperity that we are so proud of was gained at the detriment of a people and that their offspring sit where they do because of that.

Sick!

So I agree slavery is not the issue here.

Yes, it is. The topic of the article was slavery and reparations.

Again..you're living in the past. There is no such thing as slavery in America anymore and it would not be right to attempt to correct the wrongs of slavery today by punishing people that has nothing to do with it.

You say whites protest every attempt to correct the actions of the past yet you seem wholly incapable of understanding the concept of not punishing one person for something their ancestors may have done.

No one is denying that there is racial tension in America today but if we were to look at the past and say well the great grandparents of this group of people oppressed the great grandparents of this group of people so they are owed something by the first group, it will only lead to more racial tension and divisiveness. The best solution is as Reggie suggested. To live in the present and deal with new each issue as it arises and all do our best to ensure that this nation provides equal opportunity, not equal results, for all, regardless of race.

Until you can stop living in the past and obsessing upon all the negative things that happened, of which you yourself were not directly involved in, it will be hard for reasonable and sincere people to take you seriously.

Holding on to the past with no clear benefit to the present and future is a sucker's game.

Alessandro Nicolo

Are you saying that African Americans are holding on to the past with NO CLEAR benefit to the present and future?

You do realise that the reason that Blacks want the nation to deal with the past is so that THEY can move on.

I personally think that if we create a national consciousness about our evil past that we wouldn't engage in such things as the Iraq war. We would have learned how to respect humanity and realised that hurt and irreparable damage that our actions can cost on an entire people and their FUTURE.

Right now we are arrogant because we haven't learned the lessons of the past. We are like spoiled kids. We commit havoc and just move on like nothing happened and actually taunt the people that we injured. Its sick wouldn't you agree?

Arch

"You say whites protest every attempt to correct the actions of the past yet you seem wholly incapable of understanding the concept of not punishing one person for something their ancestors may have done.

Who said anything about punishing anyone. The benefits that you enjoy, the benefits that your ancestors rushed from Europe to enjoy were gained at the detriment of African Americans. Making the awarness of this matter a huge part of our education and consciousness; that we have a history of evil, will heal this nation. We need it. That is not punishment. That is responsibility and facing reality. America would be so much further evolved if we would just face this issue once and for all. But because we haven't faced who we are and what our foundation is, we live in denial with an underlying smoldering which comes off to the rest of the world as stupidity, arrogance and bullying.

Our lack of facing who America is renders us unsophisticated and stagnant. We have to import new people and new ideas because we are in ferry tail mode and don't grow on our own. We choose to lounge in our belief in the flag and our bizarrely distorted history. We proudly proclaim and force our idea of democracy on the world when we just got over our issues (legally) in the 60's. THE 60's!! We yet lecture the world about how to behave because we are in denial about who we are. How embarrassing.

I bet that you, a man your age never sat down to think, if you do what we did to AAs, what is SUPPOSED to happen to them over time? How are they supposed to turn out? You just spew out childish conclusions based on your fairy tale delusions of America.

Arch

it will be hard for reasonable and sincere people to take you seriously.

Your biggest mistake is assuming that AAs need to impress Whites so that they are treated fairly, like human beings. You are mistaken because you fail to realise that the problem is with Whites. Blacks don't have to prove anything to anyone. Its Whites who have lived off of the trials of this population since the conception of this country and still do. Your naivity (or intense denial) keeps you from understanding that. It is Whites who have to atone. It's Whites who YES must take the steps.

You make another mistake thinking that people are obsessed with slavery. Do you really think when you go to the grocery store or are driving down the road or are at work that the Blacks that you see are thinking about slavery? Like you, they are taking care of their families, paying bills and sending kids to college. Your desire not to deal with the real history of this country causes you to exaggerate the requests of Blacks to deal with the matter of our past so we can all move on.


What I suspect is that many Whites don't really want this issue to go away because once it does, than everyone is truly on the same footing. The imagined White supremacy ends and White privilege goes down the tube and you really do have to compete on merit for the first time ever. Your dumb kid has to compete with smart minorities and he doesn't get a break because of his pink skin because no one will care.

I believe that many don't want to deal with the past because you don't want this country to heal so that everyone is truly responsible for their fate. You get to preach (with your inferior mental capacity) at others because you are a White man and you assume you know better. You dont' realise just how tolerated your inferior capacity has been. When the time comes for true equality, the little that you have attained will be much less because you don't get your White male pass (of today not the past).

Now Arch, the sooner we face this matter, the sooner it will be in the past so that YOU can get over it.

Jedd - please describe what form white atonement should take IYO

(geeze - sorry 'bout the 'J' Zedd)

Zedd says:

...Making the awarness of this matter a huge part of our education and consciousness; that we have a history of evil, will heal this nation. We need it. That is not punishment. That is responsibility and facing reality. America would be so much further evolved if we would just face this issue once and for all. But because we haven't faced who we are and what our foundation is, we live in denial with an underlying smoldering which comes off to the rest of the world as stupidity, arrogance and bullying.

Classic Communist self-criticism; straight out of Marxian writings.

Sorry, lady, I couldn't disagree with you more. Few, if any, contemporary whites (none I know personally) feel any guilt whatever for slavery, nor are we in need of "facing" anything. Slavery in America is over. Done. Finis. This is not denial, it is historical fact.

Work needs to be done yet on racism (both ways); much progress has been made legally, but we need to continue to teach children from birth to be color-blind.

We yet lecture the world about how to behave because we are in denial about who we are. How embarrassing.

Be embarrassed if you wish. We made mistakes in Vietnam (history now) and Iraq (still to be corrected), but as nations go, we've done pretty well overall. And no other nation works harder at having a conscience and correcting our mistakes, even if we don't always succeed.

Embarrassed? Not even slightly.

"I hate to break it to you, but the Civil War was not about slavery, that was just Lincoln's excuse. It was about expanding Federal power over the States and abolishing the States' right to secede from the Union."

I wish some of the southern states secede from the Union now!!!

"Classic Communist self-criticism; straight out of Marxian writings."

There are some Americans who masquerade as conservatives who in fact practice Marxism..among them Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo, Dana Rohrbacher and Steve King..want to create a Gulag, build a wall and talk about the proletariat...

"Work needs to be done yet on racism (both ways); much progress has been made legally, but we need to continue to teach children from birth to be color-blind."

Comment: Good luck!! Wishful thinking!!

"Be embarrassed if you wish. We made mistakes in Vietnam (history now) and Iraq (still to be corrected), but as nations go, we've done pretty well overall. And no other nation works harder at having a conscience and correcting our mistakes, even if we don't always succeed."

Comment: We will never learn...trying doesn't count..and as of now we have not succeeded...another mistake...running up a huge debt to foreign countries and arrogantly behaving like the world owes us something while we indeed owe the world...trillions of dollars in debt...trying correcting this American or should I say precisely the white American arrogance first!!

Embarrassed? Not even slightly.

"Jedd - please describe what form white atonement should take IYO"

As I have said, you want to get blacks to stop talking about slavery, southern whites should forget the so-called atrocities during the Civil War such as Sherman's March, the Siege of Vicksburg, etc. and stop waving the confederate flag.

"Again..you're living in the past. There is no such thing as slavery in America anymore and it would not be right to attempt to correct the wrongs of slavery today by punishing people that has nothing to do with it."

Agreed!! But, it would not be wrong to punish people who are alive and who lynched blacks, practised Jim Crow and accumulated wealth through sharecropping and other racist discriminatory practices..yes we need to go after folks who took over the black areas of Tulsa and Rosewood after race riots..and we need to prosecute them and force them to pay reparations...some of them are still alive and enjoying their ill gotten wealth.

"You say whites protest every attempt to correct the actions of the past yet you seem wholly incapable of understanding the concept of not punishing one person for something their ancestors may have done."

Punish the people who benefitted from Jim Crow and who are still alive. The reason Japanese Americans got reparations for internment was because people behind it were still alive. Chinese and Japanese Americans were screwed by the whites ot west. But, they dont need any reparations. The rich Chinese and Japanese from Asia have bought up property in formerly white areas such as Walnut and Cerritos, CA and run these whites out of town. In fact the rich Chinese and Japanese are buying property in Beverly Hills and rebuilding the architecture to look like a Chinese mansion..in Chinese style.

"No one is denying that there is racial tension in America today but if we were to look at the past and say well the great grandparents of this group of people oppressed the great grandparents of this group of people so they are owed something by the first group, it will only lead to more racial tension and divisiveness. The best solution is as Reggie suggested. To live in the present and deal with new each issue as it arises and all do our best to ensure that this nation provides equal opportunity, not equal results, for all, regardless of race."

Address the folks who are alive today who committed the atrocities..includes at least six southern thugs and lowlives who called themselves governors, who are still alive.

"Until you can stop living in the past and obsessing upon all the negative things that happened, of which you yourself were not directly involved in, it will be hard for reasonable and sincere people to take you seriously."

Many of these thugs still live in the present.

Clavos

Sorry, lady, I couldn't disagree with you more. Few, if any, contemporary whites (none I know personally) feel any guilt whatever for slavery, nor are we in need of "facing" anything. Slavery in America is over.

I don't remember mentioning guilt in any of my posts. I think that you come to this with your own ideas about what Blacks want from society.

You insistence on EVERYONE working on race is an indication of your strong state of denial about what are problem is. The problems of race have predominantly come from White Americans. Lets just start there. There is no way to fix this problem (which is huge) if we keep our heads in the sand. Its time for White America to examine what everyone is talking about instead of immediately jumping into defense mode. Do you realise that at no time in history has White society EVER agreed that there is a problem. When we look back in retrospect, we see the sickness quite clearly. However at every stage there were great arguments as to why there is no problem. That is what you are doing Clavos.

As for why we should be embarrassed, we are in Iraq because Americans did not care to distinguish between one group of Arabs from another. We are there because of are racist views Clavos. The White House know that we would just think "they are all alike" so they felt free to go to a totally different country to bully them. We just ended our evil policy and we have the nerve to tell others how to live, when we fought heavily to maintain or evil ways vehemently for centuries. This is a fact and it makes me flushed to think that we (people like Bush) have no reservations, chastising the world about how to be fair. We should be flushed.

Perhaps you are not embarrassed because you don't consider our true history. You float in the haze (lie) of our eternal democracy. You talk about Vietnam when the issue is who we were at home. We were bigots, killers, lynchers, rapists and murderers, all condoned by the government system.

As for your comments on "Classic Communist self-criticism"... wrong person, wrong era, wrong generation. I'm a gen Xer and have a practical approach towards problem solving. Compartmentalizing and labeling is useless and played a role in supporting ones intellectual prowls but has no place in actually accomplishing anything. We have a big problem and we need to face it head on so that we ALL can move on. America will always have a cancer in its bowels unless we cast out the this demon. Lets OVER talk about it, lets make sure that every child born today knows the gory details of it and the effects of it from one generation to the next so that we never repeat it in any form until its dead and gone.

The head in the sand approach is failing us. We can be even greater Clavos.

.running up a huge debt to foreign countries and arrogantly behaving like the world owes us something while we indeed owe the world...trillions of dollars in debt...

You clearly don't understand the nature of such "debt." Those are bonds and other instruments purchased by other countries as investments precisely because of their confidence in the stability and solidity of the US economy.

They are "debt" only in the sense that one day they must be bought back, but in the meantime may well change hands multiple times, to be sold by a country holding them to a third country, it happens all the time.

And, in any case, the national debt has absolutely nothing to do with either slavery or racism.

Clavos

Our approach towards other countries has a great deal to do with our racist legacy.

Zedd,

I wasn't talking about "our approach to other countries."

Please excuse the massive typos. Gazillion tasking going on....

Troll

Atonement would come in the form of introspection and acknowledgement. Over talking about the matter emphasizing the issues of race as opposed to running away. Making your children know about OUR history. Seeing the humanity of every group that is not like you.

Now as far as the entire country, we do need to continue affirmative action for minority groups to prevent any racist practices which will prevent the assimilation of those groups into society.

Can't we just all get along?

I don't remember mentioning guilt in any of my posts. I think that you come to this with your own ideas about what Blacks want from society.

You're quibbling, Zedd. You speak of our history of "evil" and of atonement and then say you haven't "mentioned" guilt. Oh, please...

It is Whites who have to atone.

If you have to "atone" for something, by definition you are guilty of it.

The benefits that you enjoy, the benefits that your ancestors rushed from Europe to enjoy were gained at the detriment of African Americans. Making the awarness of this matter a huge part of our education and consciousness; that we have a history of evil

Someone created that evil, (wonder who?) if it exists, so, again by definition, they are "guilty" of it.

You insistence on EVERYONE working on race is an indication of your strong state of denial about what are problem is.

Where did I say anything about "everyone working" on race??

Do you realise that at no time in history has White society EVER agreed that there is a problem.

Not true. Huge numbers of whites have stated there is and has been a problem of racism and have worked to ameliorate it; some have even lost their lives doing so.

As for why we should be embarrassed, we are in Iraq because Americans did not care to distinguish between one group of Arabs from another. We are there because of are racist views Clavos.

Oh please. The administration says we are there to fight the terrorists. It's opponents variously say we are there to protect the oil industry, or so GWB can protect his father's legacy by finishing what papa started. Take your pick, I don't care. Racism has NOTHING to do with our involvement in that war.

Perhaps you are not embarrassed because you don't consider our true history

No.

I'm not embarrassed because what one should with history is learn from it, and grow; not be embarrassed by it. It is what it is, and being embarrassed by it is just stupid.

As for your comments on "Classic Communist self-criticism"... wrong person, wrong era, wrong generation.

You might not have intended it that way, but that's what you were advocating, obviously without even realizing it.

Lastly: I grew up with an Irish Catholic mother. I know when someone is trying to lay a guilt trip on me; that's what you're doing, Zedd, and I'm not buying.

"I grew up with an Irish Catholic mother. I know when someone is trying to lay a guilt trip on me; that's what you're doing, Zedd, and I'm not buying."

You mean the Irish Catholics stole the Jewish mothers' "momopoly" on laying guilt trips?

Newsflash!

The Executive Secretariat of the Jewish Mothers Guilt Laying Society has just instructed their lawyers.

"We demand reparations!"

"In fact, he goes the extra mile and suggests that whites owe blacks something. He seems to suggest that each and every white person should resolve black problems in Virginia - as if blacks themselves are unable to do anything ... Mr. Williams does everything but admit accountability for himself or blacks in Virginia."

Mr. Williams does nothing of the sort. Read his piece a lot more carefully this time: He blames black problems not on white people per se, but white liberals and their minority cohorts who've embraced the political correctness that says we can't punish black criminals too severely and who placed more emphasis on self-esteem than actual logic or empirical learning in school. Williams also suggests that blacks are still enslaved to a point by the patronizing attitude shown towards them by the liberal elite.

This is what Williams is saying and it's a perfectly valid point.

STM: "And the pasty-looking poms should get over being an inferior race and bow to the fact that they foolishly sent all the worst people to the best place, thus ensuring that it would become one long party."

And how, mate! Amen to that.

Ruvy wrote: "You mean the Irish Catholics stole the Jewish mothers' "monopoly" on laying guilt trips?"

That they did, mate ... for sure. My mum (Colleen, God bless her) was a Catholic of first-generation Irish background. She used to do the best "passive-aggressive/martyr" I've ever seen. My wife's feeble efforts pale into insignificance beside hers. My grandfather was a hoot, too. A bullheaded Irishman if ever there was one.

We called her guilt trips "the violence of silence", but geez, she could cook up a storm.

Thanks Mark ... enjoyed our visit to the Antipodes, did we??

STM - you're right: the deports had the last laugh in the end, didn't they? Still & all, you have a great nation because all those deports worked (or were worked) to death for it. Like the US, it was built w/a lot of blood, sweat, & tears. At least you guys had the common sense never to have had a civil war....

Should people also get over original sin and stop seeking salvation also? Especially since the original sin happened 6,000 years ago, would it possibily have any effect now? And what about the so-called murder of jesus, should christians just get over it and stop celebrating easter? And jews should get over that egypt trip and stop that silly passover. And what about independence day of 1776 when america ceasec becoming a colony. Should america stop celebrating july the 4th. also see www.pyramidoftruth.com and listen to pyramid of truth at www.live365.com

"The imagined White supremacy ends and White privilege goes down the tube and you really do have to compete on merit for the first time ever. Your dumb kid has to compete with smart minorities and he doesn't get a break because of his pink skin because no one will care. "


You have it backwards Zedd. If everything was equal it would be the dumb minorities who have to stop relying on affirmative action and governement handouts and actually compete based on merit with more qualified white candidates.

Blacks who are the descendants of those brought to america to be made into slaves have a valid point for reparations. The blacks were/are made into "n---ers" by the caucasians who were/are the slavemasters and their children. Minister Louis Farrakhan gave a definition of "n---er" that explains the condition of blacks born to those decscended from those brought to this part of planet to be made into slaves. "A n---er" is a blackman made in the image of a whiteman." Blacks(which is most of us) I believe think in the terms of white first when it relates to the historical wrong of slavery. The trans-atlantic slave trade was twofold. first if we were to get to source of the western world's wealth, it would be traced to Africa and the slaves exported from there. The source of america's wealth derived from the slaves and the knowledge and subsiquent free labor that they provided. Second the slavetrade bred distrust among the Africans thus eliminating unity among the people. The colonization of Africa was a direct byproduct of the slavetrade and the depopulation of the continent. The blacks in America in effect had their minds erased and were taught completely in the way of the slavemasters and their children. "The Stockholm syndrome" is/was in effect. Blacks were taught to admire white to the detriment of all that is Black. The caucasian in to course of his 6000yr history had effectively replace the Supreme Being in the mind of Blacks. The slavemaster had the power to affectlife/death, health/disease and in effect every consequence of black life. The slavemaster by wanting to be the Master had in effect became a God to the Blacks under the control of whites, it was/is written in the laws that govern America. The 3/5 th clause could only occur if the slavemaster altered the creation of the Creator. The "N---er" was/is the caucasian attempt to supplant God. This process of making a"n---er" made it impossible for the descendants of the chattel slaves to be free of the slavemaster's children unless reparations in the purest sense is enacted. The whites who want justice for the blacks(which will extend the time of the causasian race on this planet)is to help restore blacks to the independent (land,resources without the interference of whites in lives of the truly emancipated children of the chattel slaves) or accept that justice was here before the making of the caucasian. Justice does not belong to the white race, it was here at the making of the universe and it does not sleep.

First my answer to you about "getting over slavery," NO! Emphatically no, I will never get over slavery. But it is so good to see institutionalized racism in its continuance. The fact of the matter is that since this country was founded on the principles of white supremacy (see the original people of this land - what's left of them) slavery cannot be forgotten about, or, as you put it, "gotten over."

Articles such as this, as well as its many postings, are great reminders of how many in this country feel about people who are not white. Liberalism or conservatism in a red, white, and blue (whether horizontal stars and stripes or diagonally crossed) wrapper of one group being superior to another (or in this case all other groups not like them) enjoying the privilege and freedom of walking down the street unhindered, is still racism.

Can't get over slavery, not at least until the police get over the unnecessary and natural inclination towards discrimination against Black and brown people. (Oh just watch the racist remarks that statement will elicit)

Fact is, if you study, I mean really, really study slavery in this country, the 379 years it existed, and studied the 65 years Jim Crow existed after, with the same intensity you studied the history of the Deaf, then maybe, just maybe you will understand why me, and many of my people will never "get over it [slavery]."

"Even if Mr. Williams had a great, great, great grandfather who was a sharecropper," -- Your facts are backwards. Just to give you a reference point, "sharecroppers" existed after slaver. And Mr. Williams' (who looks to be about 45) great, great, great grandfather would not have been a sharecropper, but he would have been a slave in the 1700s. We can't forget about slavery when some of us have spoken to our relatives who were born as slaves.

I've read all of your post. Some I agree with and some I don't. I teach Black Literature and History, so excuse me if my post is long. I face these dilemmas everyday. I'm Black and I can honestly say that I don't want or need reparations. Yes, I understand that my ancestors worked for free. But, let's look at the TRUE reality of things. Some of us were sold into slavery by our own people. Some of us were caught. But, this is where the "wanna be gangsta rappers" have it correct. Whatever happened to "ride or die?" We were a nation of warriors. At every given second on a slave vessel, the slaves outnumbered the crew. There were times when the cargo could have attacked and killed everyone who did not look like them. Most of the time, the slaves outnumbered the slave-masters and overseers. Take Nat Turner for instance. He went on a murdering spree. He and a handful of slaves pretty much terrorized three states in three weeks. Imagine what a couple thousand could have done. Eventually Whites would stopped slavery for their own safety. Yes, I know many Blacks would have died. But, in any war casualties are to be expected. Plus, there were Black slave owners who made millions from slavery. No one seems to ever mention them.
I like the confederate flag. I have a shirt with a confederate flag and under the flag are the words "You're Welcome." Slavery provided the foundation on which the South rose and grew. Nations, states, cities, neighborhoods, companies, school systems, etc., survive or fail according to their economy. Slavery was the economy of the South. Without that economy, there would not be a South. No South, no southern heritage. No southern heritage, no flag. Again, you're most welcome.
If Blacks really want to be equal, we must forget slavery and focus on the present and the future. We must focus on ourselves. We must support ourselves. We must spend more of our money with ourselves. White folks support each other all of the time. Why don't we? Stop running to Wal-Mart, Winn-Dixie, Publix, Food Lion, and the like everyday. Go spend some money at that Black-owned grocery store on the corner sometimes. I know a carton of eggs will probably be $5. But, how else are we to become economically independent. Stop crying because you can't get into the University of Michigan or USC without catching a football. There are high quality Historically Black Colleges and Universities that are capable of preparing you for this world just as much as any White institution. I work with individuals who are graduates from Harvard and Yale, yet when they have a question, they seem to come to little ol' me. Stop following these so-called leaders Black leaders. Why is it always Black folks who need leaders? Tell me the last time you heard the media or anyone else say "here's the White leader?" We need to push these drug dealers off of our streets. I don't have any dealers in my neighborhood. Why? Because the fathers of the neighborhood reminded those baby gangsters who were trying to setup shop, that we have guns too. Speaking of being a father, we need to stop abandoning our children. Deadbeat Dads need to go to jail. Turn them in to the authorities. Even if it is a family member. If you can "skeet" one, you can pay for one. Next, we need to be independent voters. Why are we mostly Democrats? They don't want us. They come by the church once every four years. They say Hi and we grin. Screw them. Why are we Republicans? They don't want us. We're nobody to them. Ask Sean Hannity or Bill O'reilly how much they need Black folks. No, we don't need our own political party. But, we should make our vote a valuable one and we can't do that if we show our hand before the game really starts. I have more but I will stop right there.

"You have it backwards Zedd. If everything was equal it would be the dumb minorities who have to stop relying on affirmative action and governement handouts and actually compete based on merit with more qualified white candidates."

Comment: Depends on who is a minority. The last I looked which was a minute ago, Asian Americans are not white. If Asian Americans are minorities, Zedd is at least partly right... The imagined White supremacy ends and White privilege goes down the tube and you really do have to compete on merit for the first time ever. Your dumb white kid has to compete with smart Asian Americans (minorities) and she doesn't get a break because of her pink skin because no one will care. Case in point..follow this link.

Of course if every minority who succeeds become white in the eyes of the whites it is a different story.

As this story makes it clear, whites want privilege. When competing against blacks and Hispanics they say only grades and SATs should matter, while the reverse is true while competing against Asians.

The author of this article is misinformed. Your assertions are all based on a misunderstanding of the article. Mr. williams basically said that the apology meant nothing to him and apologies such as that are essentially useless. What he says is important is getting rid of crime and improving the citizenry. He focused on Black folks because the apology was to black folks. You people are so ready to say "Get Over it" that you miss the point of everything that is written or spoken regarding slavery or its all-too-real legacy. It is so ironic that the very reason you and people like you say "get over it" is because there has never been an apology for slavery or the government sponsored terrorism that existed in this country and folks like you think that it's no big deal. That's sad. Finally, the US sanctioned terrorism against black folks did not end with slavery, it kicked into a higher gear after slavery ended and reconstruction began. That Jim Crow racisim didn't end until the sixties so I don't want to hear that 100 years ago crap again. Be honest, you didn't read Mr. williams article did you?

Issues are more socio-economically based than race based nowadays in the U.S. I wish african americans would live in the present and the future. I wonder if they have ever considered what life would be like if slavery never happened. They would be in third world countries with little political stability. they would be subject to genocide such as in uganda or somalia. They would be plagued with aids and have little to eat. African Americans don't have it all that bad here.

I am just asking, What if? Slavery has been over for some time now. African Americans need to stop using slavery as a crutch for their shortcomings TODAY from actions I wasn't involved in LONG AGO.

Issues are more socio-economically based than race based nowadays in the U.S. I wonder if the whites have ever considered what life would be like if Julius Ceaser had not invaded Germany or Britain. They would be living in caves, white women would be running around naked. The white females would be subject to human sacrifice. They would be eating raw flesh and would not even know how to make a fire.

I am just asking, What if?

Ruvy

When you stop celebrating Passover then we will talk about AAs getting over anything.

You had the nerve with that first post. Did you even think just how ridiculous it was for you a practicing Jew to talk about forgetting ones history. The entire Bible is about one atrocity after another against Jews. Why don't we just X Nehemiah or any of the prophets for that matter(the whiners).

Off course I am being facetious but you get my point. Can you just see the Egyptians rolling their eyes 40yrs later every time the children of Israel would bring up the enslavement and journey through the dessert?

You are doing the same.

Kinda different now isn't it?

G. Shell

Its not just Asian kids. Its African immigrants and their kids too. They are excelling in education yet their statistics get swallowed up. That fact proves that the problem is not Blackness as most would like to think, it is what has happened to African Americans and the remaining racist ideology which supports the evils of the past.

knotty

You are a fraud

However I will indulge you by highlighting that rock or rap artists have nothing to do with policy.

You are doing it again, placing the blame of the evolution of a people who were shackled for over 300yrs based on their experiences, on them. The evolution of AAs comes from their situations over time. They are who they are because of who they were. Like EVERYONE ELSE, gangster rappers included.

As for "Black leaders", do you feel lead? What makes you feel as if other Blacks feel lead too.

Clavos

I like you and you know I do.

But your post made no sense. You cancelled out your original post by trying to tear down my post.

What are you on about??

Zedd,

I just re-read both my comments, as well as your response to my first one.

I canceled out nothing, Zedd. I reinforced and further explained some details in the second comment.

If you don't see that, then once more, here are my salient points in a nutshell:

1. Most contemporary whites don't feel guilty about slavery in America. We have no reason to. It's over. It's history.

2. There is still a problem with racism today, though things are much better than they were when I was young. Most whites recognize that, and do what they can to ameliorate the situation. Some whites have even given their lives fighting racism.

3. Our history is NOT evil per se. It has good chapters and bad ones, but it's history, that's all. We should learn from it and grow from it. We have no reason to be embarrassed by it.

That's it, Zedd. Plain and simple. For the third time.

No guilt. No embarrassment. Neither accomplishes anything.

Blacks shouldn't expect anything from whites. What Blacks need to do is remember the nature of their enemy. This is what was revealed to us through slavery. That these are a people that would deny the most self evident truth, that blacks were a dignified people worthy of honor and respect. And live in the most perverted hypocrisy, espousing Christianity, while living in fundamental contradiction to it.

The argument can be made that this is in the nature of all people. But slavery is an everlasting testimony that it is an intrinsic part of the nature of these people. And so when they continue to act in this way with regards to other areas, we should not be surprised. And when they argue and sacrifice their lives and the lives of others to deny truth and maintain hypocrisy we should be prepared to fight against them.

peyote (which is what you must be on)-
First, tolerance means nothing when applied to issues of discrimination or racism. I'm tolerating your opinion now, but I have no respect for your opinion - get the difference? No progress can be made in relation to the aforementioned issues unless we first replace "tolerance" with respect.

Now, how do you feel about 14 centuries of enslavement equaling about 140 million deaths? THAT is the physical toll of black enslavement. There are no historical equivalents. But that's cool. To relegate slavery of black people to the U.S. is a common white, Western apologist's racist response to slavery in its historical context.

"Seems to me that blacks in this country have little to complain about, especially with regard to legislative mandates issuing apologies for sins that occurred more than 100 years ago."

Institutional racism exists today, Herr Paotie, or does that slip under your National Socialist radar?

-------------------
The following comment of yours shows that beyond being a National Socialist (you figure out what it means, Herr Paotie), you are also a liar:

"You presume too much. I have a white Deaf friend who attended a school for the Deaf, and the lad has no proper English writing skills; lacks the appropriate ability to do simple math, and in general, has very poor communication skills. Of course, we could argue that his ASL background is the culprit here, but that's for another day and another topic."

But wait! In your blatherings you said:

"I have routinely faced discrimination in many forms, although I seriously doubt a lynching of a deaf person has occurred in recent years. I have faced oppression in various forms, although I don't complain that all hearing people owe me the regret of thousands of years of dehumanized practices on people like myself (my deafness is genetic, so using Mr. Williams inference, all poor treatment of others in my genetic line deserve some form of apology)."

So, are you deaf or not Herr Paotie? Don't lie, now! Here's the passage to which you responded:

"I would suggest you do some research into Whiteness Studies, you then will be able to understand the legacy of white privilege and how you, even as a deaf person, are benefiting from that privilege. Theories on color blindness will also be able to help you understand the larger picture as well."

Whoops!!!

So, you're just a fake, ill-informed, angry, disaffected cracker with nothing better to do than write an inane diatribe concerning subjects of which you have no knowledge, academic, personal, or otherwise. So you resort to the tried-and-true use of pathos masked as righteous as a method to skate around the fact that you are nothing other than a sorrowful cracker with white supremacist leanings if not direct involvement in such groups.

Silly rabbit. Tricks are for kids.

"When you stop celebrating Passover then we will talk about AAs getting over anything.
...............
Did you even think just how ridiculous it was for you a practicing Jew to talk about forgetting ones history?"

Get out that English dictionary, Zedd. You need it more than I. To "get over" is very different from "forgetting."

To "get over" means to recover from, as in getting over pneumonia. One does not forget pneumonia afterwards, but hopefully, one gets over it.

Jews have long gotten over the slavery they endured over three thousand years ago - but we remember it, so as not to forget the lessons learned afterwards. Jews need to do the same thing with the whirlwind of evil that killed six million of us less than 70 years ago. We need to get over it, but not forget it, so as to understand the evil of allowing a dictatorship to spring up and enslave and kill people - like say, Iran, or the Saudi thugdom.

And American blacks specifically need to do the same regarding the slavery they suffered in what was to become the United States for over ten generations. They need to get over it. But they cannot afford to forget it. They need to remember its sources - wars in east and west Africa and the sale of slaves taken in those wars to Arab and later British slave traders.

This still goes on in Africa. Wars, slaves taken as booty, and sold to Arab slave traders. But blacks are not held as slaves in the United States or Canada. American blacks need to get over the slavery they suffered at the hands of whites on the North American continent and deal with the present slave traders who oppress their African brothers and sisters - the Arabs (funny how those Arabs keep popping up all over the place, eh?).

When I see you defending Arab terrorists, it makes me wonder who it is who is forgetting her history - and who it is who yet needs to learn it.

"Its not just Asian kids. Its African immigrants and their kids too. They are excelling in education yet their statistics get swallowed up. That fact proves that the problem is not Blackness as most would like to think, it is what has happened to African Americans and the remaining racist ideology which supports the evils of the past."

Absolutely. Blacks in Barbados are smarter than whites in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama combined at least as far as academic achievement is concerned. Yet no one wants to compare the academic achievement of the Caribbean including the Bahamas with those of the southern whites, because it would upset the conventional thinking. So the goal is to focus on Africa.

Now I know why whites want fewer non-white immigrants. If they kept out black immigrants, it would mean more slots for them, especially if Affirmitive Action is abolished...perhaps 400 more slots for white people at Harvard, who then would not have to compete with smarter blacks and of course smarter Asians. If you keep the immigrants out, they can continue living the myth of white supremacy...this is the goal of Tancredo, Hunter, Rohrbacher, Ron Paul and other clowns who are now running for President.

Ladies and gentlemen, let us forget slavery and focus on racism of today like many a good blogger here want...let us read this book written by two white people and address the issues relevant to today...

The trick of America is that it fooled the majority of us blacks into believing that we "freed" by the benevolent whites during the civil war. Tell me where in the annals of history has the enslavers freed a nation of slaves and the slaves remained in the house of the slavemasters and their children? The latin definition of emancipation pur forth by Minister Louis Farrakhan depicts the condition of Black America today. Emancipation meaning free from the physical bondage of the ruling whites but not free from the control of the ruling whites. The very fact that a white has the nerve to tell blacks what to think is proof that the Minister's definition of Emancipation is right and correct. I believe that as the caucasian world continues to fall into oblivion the whites will take off the masks of civility and show the fangs of real beasts. A beast will kill all that it can kill until the object that the beast wishes to murder Calls upons his God not the God that the beasts taught the slave to worship. The forgotten supreme being who is of the Black nation is the God of the Blackman wether he wishes to acknowledge it or not. The people who enslaved us will never teach us the truth about our G-d, for to do so would expedite the fall of their civilization, which came into existence after the 6000yr. war to destory black civilization. The beasts of the bible(caucasians) are preparing for war against the blackman in america. The beast cares not for his former slaves no matter how like the beast the slaves becomes. The whites taught blacks everything they know due to the fact that they basically printed or produced most of the information we see and read. Let us as the children of slaves unite and try to treat each other in a manner opposite of the teachings that the slavemaster taught us which is niggerism. We must not forget that the nigger comes from the mind of the caucasian. "A nigger is a blackman made in the image of a white man" He loves what his slavemaster loves and hates what his slavemaster hates, which is himself and his kind.

IMO modern racism is the offspring of our economic relationship...divide and conquer - compete with each other rather than cooperate

remember - we're all free to be slaves of owners and work at their pleasure and for their profit

you want to get rid of racism - ?

start by getting rid of the system of production on which it is based

Thanks Mark ... enjoyed our visit to the Antipodes, did we??

Never been there, Stan. However, I don't need to in order to know that you're right. Taking prisoners away from this chilly little island to a much, much, much larger island where it's always warm -- and the British thought THAT was punishment?!

It really makes you shake your head in bemusement.

Party on, you lucky people.

What has gotten lost here between the whining about racism and the author's call to blacks to get over slavery is that the author is deaf. And deaf people have suffered far longer than blacks have for being deaf.

The author neither asked for a hand nor for a handout. He asked blacks to get over their own whining about slavery to see that others. like deaf people, have suffered as well, and suffered far longer than they have. Even if he misinterpreted the intentions of the writer he criticizes in his article, my characterization of what Paotie has written stands.

It gets tiresome reading about Louis Farrakhan whining about the white devils. If whites are so terrible, then blacks following Farrakhan should quit their whining, leave the States and go set up shop in Africa and take all their followers with them.

I didn't whine about America. I left. All the complainers should follow my example. If I hadn't left America for MY homeland, I couldn't say that. But I did. I talk my talk and walk my walk and both are the same...

Anybody care to take up the challenge of Marcus Garvey? Freedom awaits you.

Paotie, I think you should read the article again and reassess your ability to comprehend the English language. Mr. Williams was not asking for an appology for slavery. In fact he specifically states, "in any case, they should know that their actions mean little in dealing with the day-to-day plight of many black Virginians -- which has nothing to do with slavery".

He not only does not ask for an apology but he even agrees with you that slavery has nothing to do with the plight of blacks in Virginia. He is simply saying that rather than drafting apologies through legislation, they need to invest their time into fixing the problems that blacks in Virginia are facing. Yeah he focuses on the black plight, but it makes sense within the context of the article.

If you really wanted to air your fraustration about being deaf then by all means do so, but do not disguise the article as an attack on Mr. Williams.

So every black person in Barbados is smarter than every white person in the South?

What is this irrational loathing you have for all southerners G Chell? Despite your attempts to paint all southerners as confederate flag waving klan members... that is not the reality.

"Now I know why whites want fewer non-white immigrants. If they kept out black immigrants, it would mean more slots for them, especially if Affirmitive Action is abolished...perhaps 400 more slots for white people at Harvard, who then would not have to compete with smarter blacks and of course smarter Asians. If you keep the immigrants out, they can continue living the myth of white supremacy...this is the goal of Tancredo, Hunter, Rohrbacher, Ron Paul and other clowns who are now running for President."

Get it straight [Personal attack deleted]. Most Americans, regardless of their race, oppose ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION regardless of the race of the illegals. I know you leftists like to use semantics to distort the reality of the situation and I shouldn't expect any honesty from the likes of you.

With regard to Affirmative Action. I as a white want to see it abolished not because I can't compete on merit with minorities but because I can't compete on the basis of race or color, the only basis considered by AA, with minorities. Affirmative action is racial discrimination, pure and simple.

"So every black person in Barbados is smarter than every white person in the South?"

Comment: Now where did I say that?

"What is this irrational loathing you have for all southerners G Chell? Despite your attempts to paint all southerners as confederate flag waving klan members...that is not the reality."

Comment: Irrational? Voting for the GOP in large numbers..the party gets in because 90% of these morons vote for these guys by putting out commercials such as "I met Harold at the Playboy Party"? The whole mess in Iraq is mostly due to white southerners, because they put these guys in power, defeated statesmen such as Max Cleland...I say let us have a surge. Let us round up all white College GOP, both men and women, give them all ammunition and send these morons to Iraq..at least then these morons would come to their senses....and you call me irrational?

"Get it straight [Personal attack deleted]. Most Americans, regardless of their race, oppose ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION regardless of the race of the illegals. I know you leftists like to use semantics to distort the reality of the situation and I shouldn't expect any honesty from the likes of you."

Nobody called you any names or for that matter did not call white southerners any names. It shows your level of culture and civility and perhaps tells us more about white civilization more than anything else. Calling everyone a commie or leftist is another common ploy when your assertions are false. White Americans oppose legal immigration as well...forget legal immigration, heck, they even oppose skilled immigration...if you dont believe me go to different websites on immigration and check out the immigration news. Why? Very simple. Because they dont want intelligent blacks from countries such as Barbados competing with incompetent whites. If they compete only with American blacks they would have additional slots at universities such as Harvard and Yale. As it is, these whites are furious at Asians running them out of town in UCLA and Berkeley.

"With regard to Affirmative Action. I as a white want to see it abolished not because I can't compete on merit with minorities but because I can't compete on the basis of race or color, the only basis considered by AA, with minorities. Affirmative action is racial discrimination, pure and simple."

Comment: The fact is the whites cannot compete with certain minorities if it is purely on merit..so they cut and run..as I said the whites want privilege. When they compete with blacks they say no AA, but only scores. When they compete with Asians they strongly disagree with using scores and they suggest that we should look at the whole person...in other words, give me the job or a place in a university because we happen to be white...so no, most whites are not competing on merit. America has never been a meritocracy when it came to employment, and it never will be one. So get over the high horse!!

I called you names because I'm sick of your bullshit G. Chell.

You're nothing but a deluded run of the Mill leftist spouting typical delusional leftist talking points.....all white southerners are ignorant racists, all Republicans are war mongering racists, all white AMericans do everything they can to keep down anyone who isn't white, confederate flag this confederate flag that..... blah, blah, blah.

You're an idiot!

G. Chell,

You really believe that you are smarter than an African American simply because of where you are from? I guess massa has taught you well!

OK, I'm speaking both as a white and as a human being: I had nothing to do with slavery. I have nothing to do with any of the racial abuses that have ever occurred. I am not guilty. I have nothing for which to atone.

That said, the lessons of the past should never be forgotten. Slavery, and racism in general, is a terrible thing. I agree that any hint of racism should be stamped out -- but legitimately. Not through crying about the "white devil" and demanding reparations, but by teaching our young about tolerance and the equality of men. Neither accusations nor demands can unite us. . . only cooperation and common will to conquer our problems.

That said, I'm sure everyone would agree that, out of every ethnic group kicked around by the White Devils, the Native Americans got the worst deal. I don't hear them whining.

IMO modern racism is the offspring of our economic relationship...divide and conquer - compete with each other rather than cooperate

Troll has it right. The most basic problem with the world is that we're competing instead of cooperating.

Knowing that free blacks as well as whites owned slaves(some of the South's biggest slave owners were free black men)might help people deal with slavery. The percentage of blacks who owned slaves was small, but so was the percentage of whites who owned slaves.

The ancestors of most white Americans immigrated to the United St