Butch Femme Planet - It's Time to Boycott Arizona

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Using people of color as an example is racist when said by a white person? So the reverse would be when a person of color uses any white person as an example it is what?

Sorry, this has gone from bad to worse in my book.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corkey (Post 141270)

Yes Kobi, you have to watch your words, for they have meaning. Bringing up history is one thing, using people who aren't white like you as an example is racist, it is privileged. You as a white person don't get to say to a Brown, Black, Asian or Native how they react to your words. We get to be offended, we get to say so, because we aren't going to be under the white empirical thumb anymore. We are Human Beings with human emotions and human thoughts.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kobi (Post 141273)

Because you are coming from a position of privilege, that is why you are having a hard time with this discussion.

This has gone from bad to worse. As a white person, my using the words of a person of color is racist?

Well, obviously ya'll are going to have to tell me what is ok for me as a white person to say, who I can quote, what I am supposed to read that gives me the real truth, cuz I am just baffled at this.

Seriously, send me a list of what is ok and what isnt cuz I just dont get this at all.

You know Kobi, people have been trying to help you, but you just are too defensive to listen. Let me try this again, you as a white person, used a black mans words to make your white point of view valid. That is offensive, that is racist. You are too hung up on what you feel to even consider what others of color are saying to you, that is privileged. Maybe you should consider taking a course or two on race relations at one of the many Mass higher learning centers. You may be surprised if one of the white professors calls you out, it would be my hope that you'd listen.

Please contact the racist, successor Arizona governor and demand that she provide the data to substantiate her ignorant rhetoric in reference to her recent claim that all "illegal aliens" that come here are connected to criminal and drug activity, even calling them drug mules!! Stand up or shut up!!! Contact her at http://azgovernor.gov/contact.asp - it only takes a few seconds to add your grain of salt to this fight against ignorance and division!!!!

http://azgovernor.gov/contact.asp

Sorry Corkey, I just dont buy into this because it is bizarre.

I could send you copies of papers I did in grad school on racism but I quote a lot of people of color so I know it would offend you for me to do so.

Personally, I think ya'll just want to shut the white person up by adding more and more absolutely outrageous demands on what is appropriate and inappropriate for me as a white person to say and do.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corkey (Post 141287)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kobi (Post 141265)

[FONT="Comic Sans MS"][SIZE="3"][COLOR="Navy"]The would be kind of amusing if it wasnt so sad.

Very true, but not in the direction you necessarily think.

Quote:

So I have to be careful what I say and how I say it, I have to be careful what I call people people of color,

Welcome to my world, Kobi. I have to be careful what I say and how I say it everywhere I go, every day of my life.

I have had to sit there and TAKE IT when a colleague at work asked me "were you raised by a white family". Why would they ask me that? Because of the way I speak. I sound educated and therefore I must have been raised by a white family. Now, of course, you're going to ask "why didn't I report that person to HR". I'll tell you why. Because the minute I do that, I'm a troublemaker, I'm whining, I'm trying to blame white people, I'm doing everything BUT making a report of a racist statement.

During hurricane Katrina I had to endure my co-workers making some of the most racist statements about "those people" who were "living like animals". I can't get angry, Kobi. I simply do not get to do that. Oh, at home I can but, just for instance, I have a buddy at work we call Ogre who will get frustrated and pound his fist on his desk. If I did that I would be an 'angry black woman' he does it and he's this big, overgrown frat boy with a heart of gold.
So, again, Kobi welcome to my world--except that here, if you say something impolitic nothing happens to your paycheque. If I say something impolitic I can forget the concept of raises or promotions because once 'angry black woman' is established, there's no getting out from under that label.

Quote:

how dare I have the audacity to quote a famous person of color

I'm curious, Kobi, have you read any Malcolm X OTHER than what you quoted here? Have you ever read DuBois in depth? The problem isn't you quoting a person of color, Kobi, the problem is you quoting a person of color in an attempt to try to tell other people of color how we should live in America. I said it before and I'll repeat it now--every single person of color participating in this discussion has forgotten more about what it is like to be a person of color in America then you will ever realize there is to know.

Quote:

.....more people reading the Japanese internment incorrectly.....let me make this clear....it was a freakin example on prevailing thought at a time of crisis.....it was a philosophical concept of was it right or was it wrong......and on what basis would a decision be made and by whom.....I did not agree or disagree or offer any freakin opinion on it....I stated a fact and asked a freakin question....

Don't you see that your inability to condemn something that was so manifestly wrong that the US Government (not known for being the first in line to say mea culpa) apologized is deeply problematic? It makes me--and perhaps others--wonder what you WOULD condemn. You have said, on a number of occasions, that it would be wrong to judge the prevailing ideas of, say, early 20th century America by early 21st century standards. You have said, in making this argument, that it is impossible to say if the pervasive racism that early 20th century blacks had to endure was wrong, or unjust or evil. You have even said that we cannot even say that the idea that blacks were inherently inferior was wrong because we don't know by whose standard to judge. I'm sorry Kobi, but I find that absolutely shocking. I have had a lot of conversations about race and I have to say that this is the only time I have had a conversation with someone who claims to not be a racist, who was not willing and able to say that the lynchings, the beatings, the daily humiliations, the fear, the terrorizing, the unequal treatment, the segregation, the exclusion were wrong, unjustified and a moral blemish on this nation. The only one. In, perhaps, three *decades* of talking to white people about race. Every other person who was unwilling to say so was a racist and wasn't going to condemn it. The truly astonishing thing to me is that you don't see that as at all problematic. You see this refusal to take a stand as somehow admirable or noble. I don't know what metric you are using but it is not one I would want to use.

Quote:

Sorry Medusa, this is freakin sad and again I know everyone thinks it is me. But this is freakin bizarre. A white person cant quote a person of color....omg this is just nuts. But I am supposed to sit here and weed thru the crap for insight.....thank god mom is coming for a visit tomorrow.

No, Kobi, no one is saying a white person can't quote a person of color. You are, of course, free to interpret it that way but that's not what people are saying. It's not that you quoted a black man, it's that you deployed that quotation as some means of lecturing people of color about what it is like to be people of color as if you knew something about the subject we don't.
You invoked Malcolm X in a ham-handed fashion and you got called out on it.
You were trying to put me 'in my place' and tell me how I should think about being black in America. You did so by invoking black men because they are, as you put it, 'my leaders'. It is not quoting black men it is the way you went about deploying this as a means of putting a black woman in her place.

It backfired, of course, because this image that people have about black women is not even remotely related to my life. You've learned that now.

Aj

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kobi (Post 141298)

I, for one, would be fascinated to see this paper because I'm curious what you have to say about racism. Some of us have bent over *backward* in this conversation, Kobi, you just don't see it.

I would very much appreciate proof of your recent announcement that all undocumented immigrants are mules for the drug cartels. I would also like to understand why you are targeting a portion of US citizens in your attempt at immigration reform, which as I read the Constitution correctly, and I do is the purview of the United States Congress and not a States right.
Thank you for your time.
A Citizen of the United States of America

My letter to the Governor of AZ

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kobi (Post 141298)

Is it bizarre because someone is not agreeing with your positions, or bizarre because you think it's ok to use a different cultures history to your advantage? If you used some critical thinking to your own view point and not use say Malcolm's words to your advantage I might have agreed with your view point, I however can't because that is not what you said.

I would hope that using your own words to state your opinion would be sufficient. Now as far as what you as a white person can say, almost anything, the almost part is the racist stuff you have currently used.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kobi (Post 141298)

I find it bizarre that you wrote a paper on racism and managed to completely overlook how white privilege contributes to racism...especially in dialogues.

But Then, I'm Assuming You Have A Lot Of POC Friends Too,
Dylan

You might want to check out the Racism thread

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kobi (Post 141298)

This is one of the best examples of unexamined white privilege and racism I have read on b/f websites.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kobi (Post 140960)

When we were rounding up all the Japanese in this country and putting them in camps when Pearl Harbor was attacked...no one thought twice about it. Was it a good idea? Maybe at the time, who knows.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kobi (Post 141265)

I believe that I read what you wrote correctly, Kobi. I am disappointed to see that your second post regarding the relocation and internment of citizens of the United States, of Japanese descent, was written incorrectly a second time. They were NOT Japanese, they were citizens of this country, and their constitutional rights were violated. It was wrong, just in case you are unsure, wrong on so many levels, and definitely not a good idea. Heart Mountain was built in Wyoming in order to provide labour for the sugar beet harvest, and that is not my opinion, but a fact.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Liam (Post 141345)

I just perused the site for Heart Mountain. I am going to post a picture here, and give you the opinion that it was most definitely NOT a good idea at the time.

http://www.heartmountain.us/images/JapsMoving.jpg

I don't think you can get any more overtly racist than this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kobi (Post 140960)

When we were rounding up all the Japanese in this country and putting them in camps when Pearl Harbor was attacked...no one thought twice about it. Was it a good idea? Maybe at the time, who knows.

Full historical facts about the internment.... other racial and ethnic groups such as Italian Americans were relocated. At that time in US history, Italians had not been racialized and were viewed as non-white.
Many were from the SF Bay Area, including relatives and family friends of mine. ALL WERE CITIZENS OF THIS COUNTRY!

The Enemy Alien Acts as well as Chinese Exclusionary Laws in the US are birds of a feather... along with post-Civil War Jim Crowe legislation were quite racist! There are other examples of these kinds of legislation in our history that are eerily like the AZ law. Shall we go over the Native American experience? Or is that perspective as lost as their forgotten and unmarked graves behind almost every single California Mission as it is left out of CA history books for students? Gee, it seems Texas has this idea in mind....

Why do you think that Holocaust survivors as well as decedents of Black Slavery cry- We must never forget!??? I would settle for more factual historical research and understanding….

dread,

We were having a discussion about the development of ethics and of philosophy. You used race as an example. I kept the discussion to a level of the development of ethics and philosophy using the example you set forth. I did not offer any judgements, nor will I. It is not for me to judge what was appropriate or not appropriate in a different era with different prevailing truths when discussing the development of ethics and philosophy. It was not a discussion about race. Forgive me if sticking to the topic was offensive. It was perhaps, your interpretation of why I didnt say something as opposed to why I didnt.

You dont know me dread or my life or who my friends and lovers have been. I can tell you I am and have been involved with people of color and no one has ever spoken to me the way people here feel they can. Never. Ever.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dreadgeek (Post 141300)

Very true, but not in the direction you necessarily think.

Welcome to my world, Kobi. I have to be careful what I say and how I say it everywhere I go, every day of my life.

I have had to sit there and TAKE IT when a colleague at work asked me "were you raised by a white family". Why would they ask me that? Because of the way I speak. I sound educated and therefore I must have been raised by a white family. Now, of course, you're going to ask "why didn't I report that person to HR". I'll tell you why. Because the minute I do that, I'm a troublemaker, I'm whining, I'm trying to blame white people, I'm doing everything BUT making a report of a racist statement.

During hurricane Katrina I had to endure my co-workers making some of the most racist statements about "those people" who were "living like animals". I can't get angry, Kobi. I simply do not get to do that. Oh, at home I can but, just for instance, I have a buddy at work we call Ogre who will get frustrated and pound his fist on his desk. If I did that I would be an 'angry black woman' he does it and he's this big, overgrown frat boy with a heart of gold.
So, again, Kobi welcome to my world--except that here, if you say something impolitic nothing happens to your paycheque. If I say something impolitic I can forget the concept of raises or promotions because once 'angry black woman' is established, there's no getting out from under that label.

I'm curious, Kobi, have you read any Malcolm X OTHER than what you quoted here? Have you ever read DuBois in depth? The problem isn't you quoting a person of color, Kobi, the problem is you quoting a person of color in an attempt to try to tell other people of color how we should live in America. I said it before and I'll repeat it now--every single person of color participating in this discussion has forgotten more about what it is like to be a person of color in America then you will ever realize there is to know.

Don't you see that your inability to condemn something that was so manifestly wrong that the US Government (not known for being the first in line to say mea culpa) apologized is deeply problematic? It makes me--and perhaps others--wonder what you WOULD condemn. You have said, on a number of occasions, that it would be wrong to judge the prevailing ideas of, say, early 20th century America by early 21st century standards. You have said, in making this argument, that it is impossible to say if the pervasive racism that early 20th century blacks had to endure was wrong, or unjust or evil. You have even said that we cannot even say that the idea that blacks were inherently inferior was wrong because we don't know by whose standard to judge. I'm sorry Kobi, but I find that absolutely shocking. I have had a lot of conversations about race and I have to say that this is the only time I have had a conversation with someone who claims to not be a racist, who was not willing and able to say that the lynchings, the beatings, the daily humiliations, the fear, the terrorizing, the unequal treatment, the segregation, the exclusion were wrong, unjustified and a moral blemish on this nation. The only one. In, perhaps, three *decades* of talking to white people about race. Every other person who was unwilling to say so was a racist and wasn't going to condemn it. The truly astonishing thing to me is that you don't see that as at all problematic. You see this refusal to take a stand as somehow admirable or noble. I don't know what metric you are using but it is not one I would want to use.

No, Kobi, no one is saying a white person can't quote a person of color. You are, of course, free to interpret it that way but that's not what people are saying. It's not that you quoted a black man, it's that you deployed that quotation as some means of lecturing people of color about what it is like to be people of color as if you knew something about the subject we don't.
You invoked Malcolm X in a ham-handed fashion and you got called out on it.
You were trying to put me 'in my place' and tell me how I should think about being black in America. You did so by invoking black men because they are, as you put it, 'my leaders'. It is not quoting black men it is the way you went about deploying this as a means of putting a black woman in her place.

It backfired, of course, because this image that people have about black women is not even remotely related to my life. You've learned that now.

Aj

And there it is, the privilege yet again, and you don't even know you are doing it. Saying you have lovers, friends, who are POC to try to deflect. Kobi, open your eyes, Please. I have a daughter who is black, and Puerto Rican, does that mean I know her struggles, NO.

Kobi,

Really

You really should just step back

Each post is more offensive than the last

You've finally landed on the, "I have POC friends/partners" trope

Dylan...selectively on ignore

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kobi (Post 139402)

With the downturn in the economy and Americans struggling to find work, my allegiance is with the people who belong here, not with those who deliberately circumvented the laws because they wanted to do so. That type of selfish, self serving behavior is insulting.

One can only wonder what these people might be able to achieve if they put their energy to work in changing the conditions in their own countries rather than invading others.

I am quoting your post from way back there to maybe have a conversation with you about Undocumented Workers being selfish and self serving.

About the idea that they should stay put and pull themselves up by the boot straps in their own countries.

So I say to you: My grandpa came here to work a ranch in order to send money home to feed his family. The level of poverty in his country is something I doubt you have seen. No plumbing, electricity, jobs, or food. Living scared of the government.

One human being wanting to keep their family alive is not selfish. It's certainly not self serving. Coming here and doing jobs that truly, nobody else wants to do and living in conditions that you or I would never live in all to support their families at home.

They risk their life and limb to come here, usually assisted by Coyotes who are American and who have no problem taking large amounts of cash and leaving bodies in their wake.

Once here they work so hard. From sun up to sun down in triple digit weather with no breaks for less than minimum wage. Taxes taken out never to be filed for or returned.

They use American Services such as Western Union and American Express Moneygram and pay them money to send money home. They pay crazy prices for calling cards to maybe if they are lucky make a call. They buy food, and other things that require they pay sales tax. For the most part these are a good people who only want to keep their family alive.

Not every country is like America. You can't really pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you live in most South American Countries.

I won't even go into places like the Congo, Nigeria, Rhwanda....

So it is hard for me to make villains out of good people with no options who only want to feed their families. These are not greedy or selfish people. They are human beings. Who want the simplest things.

There is not even really a process in place to get here legally, other that the lottery system they have going on now. Meanwhile, families are dying and living in abject poverty. So their brain stem fires up and fight or flight mechanisms take over. Survival is one of the most basic human conditions.

Dollar bills are never more important than human lives, are they?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kobi (Post 141407)

I think if any of my lovers spoke of me this way... I would have to punch them in the throat....

How belittling is this.....

"I am and have been involved with people of color"

Goody goody gum drops for you to speak of our experience because of who you fuck and share coffee with!!

Yipeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

Damn, you just don't know when to stop do ya?