It's Time to Boycott Arizona

[Kobi]

Lady Snow,

In the few months I have been here, you have called me a racist, a sexist, a misogynist when I do or say something you dont agree with.

And when I say something you agree with, you send me cutesy little notes.

Hm, what might that indicate...agree with me and I will treat you well. Disagree with me and I will call you names just cuz I can.

You tend to misinterpret what I say, sadly. Perfect example.....Japanese confinement. I didnt say anything about how I felt about it. You PRESUMED the way it was written that I agreed with it. Just as you presume about many things.

I for one do not appreciate it. Just not agreeing with you makes everything something....real or not.

Originally Posted by The_Lady_Snow

I am going to address you about this since it is I you called out as using a race card..

Allow me to say I am not some fucking Pokemon creature or collector and I am surely not *throwing* my race around. I tried and tried to get across to you via my life experiences, my familiy's experiences but you *chose* to see it as something else. That's on you and well it tells me A LOT about you. Is that harsh?

No.

You wonder why we (speaking for me and those around me who have read this over my shoulder) you come off as racist and I will take the time to show you why...

Underhanded racist comments such as...

"Your own leaders have said stop relying on the white race to solve racism for you."( are we now dividing leaders according to color and race?)

"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. " (really? you think that this was a solution, cause that is downright scary being caged up
like some animal cause of your race)

"it is easier to just pull out the race card and feed on emotions than it is to deal with the people deliberately and willfully breaking the law." ( I don't remember being there when they handed out these cards lemme know where I can get one since you know so much about them)

"I hear what you are saying. I could respond in kind i.e. saying people are undocumented rather than illegal is just a marketing ploy to take legal immigration out of the picture and make ilegal immigration more palatable." (I know there have been many times on this site where we have all used or have asked that people use undocumented)

"How incredibly racist and presumptuous of you. " (directed at me since I am choosing to talk about my experience and not fall for the bullshit that this law is really masking)

"Lady Snow,

This isnt even worth responding to. Obviously you have some issue which I have no intention of making mine." (cause me talking about my experience and how I feel about this law in a thread that is ABOUT BOYCOTTING NOT PRO THIS LAW means I have *issues*)

"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." ( the proof is in the puddin

"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." (mad applause for referring to us as those people)

So you wonder why people see you this way

Above is why.

It's covert racism, is privileged, ugly and you got called on it.

Would I hang with you? Not at this point, why?

Cause I am one of those fucking people, and these people you speak of they are my people, and you may think I am a bleeding heart, well guess fucking what I am. I know what it's like to be constantly looked upon like we are some disease, is that me using my race card? You may think so, I on the other hand would hope that maybe you can open your pretty lil eyes and see outside of your soft, pretty, priveleged world.

[Kobi]

Again Lady Snow, you take something out of context and make it something it is not.

Superfemme made the reference to "brown people" re read it. I replied in kind. But noooooooo, lets just fly off the handle so you can continue the mad on you have.

Seriously, grow up.

Originally Posted by The_Lady_Snow

We are not that kinda homies, that you get to go around and refer to us

as brown people..

I got a fucking name.

It's shit like this that keeps POC out of the sites, cause really we have enough going on and then to come on here and read this kinda shit, isn't worth it...

We got fucking names that cover that, like Latino, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Nicaraguan etc etc.

It's like I can call my mom a dick, can you? No......

[SuperFemme]

If the AZ law is not racist? Then how do the police come to a reasonable suspicion that a person is here without permission? The only way is by skin color. Perhaps accent?

What about HB 2281?

While HB 2281 includes an exemption for the Holocaust, it makes it illegal to promote class resentment of any race or class of people. So how are teachers supposed to instruct African-American students about slavery? Or Asian-American students about the internment camps? Many great authors, including Dickens, Wharton, and Dostoyevsky, delve deeply into themes of class resentment. Does teaching them add up to “promoting race resentment?” Are their books to be stricken from curriculums in the Grand Canyon State?

I also question Governor Brewer’s motives. According to the National Education Association, Arizona ranks 50th in expenditure per pupil in grades K-12.

Ethnic studies courses are important because mainstream curriculums often overlook the contributions of minorities. They help put the salad bowl that is the United States into perspective.



Ideally, all students would learn about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and César Chávez along with other great Americans. But until that day comes, niche classes fill the void. On top of that, researchers have found that minority kids are more likely to succeed academically as a result of a multicultural course of study.

[The_Lady_Snow]

Originally Posted by Kobi

Lady Snow,

In the few months I have been here, you have called me a racist, a sexist, a misogynist when I do or say something you dont agree with.

And when I say something you agree with, you send me cutesy little notes.

Hm, what might that indicate...agree with me and I will treat you well. Disagree with me and I will call you names just cuz I can.

You tend to misinterpret what I say, sadly. Perfect example.....Japanese confinement. I didnt say anything about how I felt about it. You PRESUMED the way it was written that I agreed with it. Just as you presume about many things.

I for one do not appreciate it. Just not agreeing with you makes everything something....real or not.

Um.

Kobi.

I don't send cutesy lil notes.. nice try insinuating though

Have I agreed with you on some of your posts oh yes.

Have I called you out on sexism, yes

Have I called you out on your underlined racism? yes

Does this feel like maybe *YOU* have an issue with me

yes it's pretty clear now.


I don't agree with you on your points of view on this law that you seem to think is A-OK.

if you would like we can take this private since now you seem to have made it personal.

Is my point of view going to change on how I feel about Arizona's new law.

NO.

Will I keep quiet?

NO...

Will that continue to piss you off

I believe so.

[Corkey]

Originally Posted by Kobi

Again Lady Snow, you take something out of context and make it something it is not.

Superfemme made the reference to "brown people" re read it. I replied in kind. But noooooooo, lets just fly off the handle so you can continue the mad on you have.

Seriously, grow up.

Kobi a hint, Brown people are allowed to call each other Brown people. White people aren't, that is racist.

[The_Lady_Snow]

Originally Posted by Kobi

Again Lady Snow, you take something out of context and make it something it is not.

Superfemme made the reference to "brown people" re read it. I replied in kind. But noooooooo, lets just fly off the handle so you can continue the mad on you have.

Seriously, grow up.

FYI..

Superfemme

IS brown so she can use it

She is a latina

[Kobi]

[FONT="Comic Sans MS"][SIZE="3"][COLOR="Navy"]Medusa,

With all due respect, I have a real problem when differing standards are applied to people based on skin color.

You just said Kobi is a bad white person who must examine her presumed racism and privelege.

But people of color because of their unique life experience have free reign to call me names and belittle me?

This makes sense. Again, I have to allow for them but they dont have to treat me with any respect simply because of the color of their skin.

Thats bizarre.

Originally Posted by Medusa

Kobi,

I'm always incredibly dismayed when someone says that a Person of Color "pulled out the race card". Especially since you seem to be intelligent.

I have seen more than one person in these forums resort to saying that a Person of Color "pulled out the race card", so what Im about to say isn't solely directed at you but I hope that you can hear what I'm about to say with an open mind.

Race is not a "card" that a person can whip out. Race is a part of a person's LIVED experience, a part of their lives, and unfortunately, oftentimes is a huge part of unfair, ignorant, and biggoted treatment that they receive from people who view their race as a "thing" that they whip out when they are trying to be "uppity" or "arrogant" or "overpowering" or (gasp) "too loud".

It is also incredibly disrespectful.

Sadly too, any argument you make using the "race card being pulled out" will get lost with folks like me who translate that as "white person who refuses to examine their racism or privilege".


M

[SuperFemme]

Who is calling you names? Please show me, because I don't see it.

[Kobi]

I see, you call me racist and sexist and now its personal because it affects you. Okie dokie. Are we supposed to exchange recipes or something?

Will I change my mind on the law...NO.

Will I keep my mouth shut....NO.

Will it piss you off......yep.

Life's a bitch sometimes.

Originally Posted by The_Lady_Snow

Um.

Kobi.

I don't send cutesy lil notes.. nice try insinuating though

Have I agreed with you on some of your posts oh yes.

Have I called you out on sexism, yes

Have I called you out on your underlined racism? yes

Does this feel like maybe *YOU* have an issue with me

yes it's pretty clear now.


I don't agree with you on your points of view on this law that you seem to think is A-OK.

if you would like we can take this private since now you seem to have made it personal.

Is my point of view going to change on how I feel about Arizona's new law.

NO.

Will I keep quiet?

NO...

Will that continue to piss you off

I believe so.

[Dylan]

Originally Posted by Kobi

With all due respect, I have a real problem when differing standards are applied to people based on skin color.

And amazingly that's just what this law is all about

So, from all of your previous posts in this thread, and now this post, I'm assuming you only have a problem when differing standards are applied to white people based on skin color, but not when those differing standards (based on skin color) are applied to a group to which you don't belong. Or really when equality is administered on differing levels based on skin color.

Also, no one called you A racist. They said the things you've said are racist. If you dropped the defensiveness and listened (instead of defending), you might hear *why* what you've said is racist (including 'pulling the race card'). But no, no one said, "Kobi's A racist".


Dylan

[Kobi]

Ohhhh I get it. Differing standards again. Does this mean people of color cant call me white?

Originally Posted by Corkey

Kobi a hint, Brown people are allowed to call each other Brown people. White people aren't, that is racist.

[Corkey]

Originally Posted by Kobi

[FONT="Comic Sans MS"][SIZE="3"][COLOR="Navy"]Medusa,

With all due respect, I have a real problem when differing standards are applied to people based on skin color.

You just said Kobi is a bad white person who must examine her presumed racism and privelege.

But people of color because of their unique life experience have free reign to call me names and belittle me?

This makes sense. Again, I have to allow for them but they dont have to treat me with any respect simply because of the color of their skin.

Thats bizarre.

Kobi no one is calling you names, you are saying racist things, that does not mean you are a racist. Racist is not the same as calling someone Brown when you are white, it is not the same as calling someone N* when you are white, all of those things are racist speech. It implies you are saying racist things. To be a racist you must firmly believe these racist things, if you believe them then yes (you) are a racist.

[Corkey]

Originally Posted by Kobi

Ohhhh I get it. Differing standards again. Does this mean people of color cant call me white?

No because you have privilege, you don't see it but you espouse it.

[SuperFemme]

Originally Posted by Kobi

I see, you call me racist and sexist and now its personal because it affects you. Okie dokie. Are we supposed to exchange recipes or something?

Will I change my mind on the law...NO.

Will I keep my mouth shut....NO.

Will it piss you off......yep.

Life's a bitch sometimes.

She didn't say that you Kobi are a sexist racist.

She said that she has called out some things you've said as sounding racist or sexist.

Nobody is calling names.

[Kobi]

SuperFemme,

Thank you. For the first time in days I feel heard instead of attacked.

You are right, it is easier to hear something when it is not couched in anger or in slurs. I am more than open to hearing when someone feels I have said something that might be offensive. Send me a private message. Lets dialogue.

Do not call me names. It is counterproductive and accomplishes nothing except for pissing us both off.

Originally Posted by SuperFemme

Kobi,

First of all, I am so NOT calling you names. Not at all.

If I have angered and/or insulted you, that was not my intent.

My post was a plea to you to maybe think about how what you are saying sometimes can perhaps be interpreted as having racial overtones/undertones.

I'm not calling you a racist, what I *am* asking of you is that you hear how your words can be hurtful to those of us who have parents who came here illegally, those of us that have green cards, those of us that are scared to drive through AZ and that is all.

I understand that you can agree with the law in AZ, and I am not going to try to change your mind. It is your right. I'm not trying to say to you "boycott or bust". I promise.

What I *was* hoping to convey was how sweeping generalizations can be very hurtful.

Nothing more, and nothing less.

Again, I apologize if you feel I was calling you names, or attacking you.

SF

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Kobi

dread,

I have always respected you for the way you communicate ideas and provide history. I did not in any way intend to say anything about you being an angry black person. I apologize for anything that could have been interpreted this way.

Thank you. Apology accepted.

We are back to standards... and can you go back in time and apply todays standards to yesterdays reality. Kind of difficult to do. What people believe changes over time thru experiences and new thoughts. What is appropriate today wasnt seen as totally acceptable at the time of the civil war. Can we apply todays standards and judge people for having adhered to the prevailing thought? It is counterproductive.

I think that there are times we can. If, for instance, someone asked me if I thought that the Nazi take on Jews was at all correct, had any basis in fact, I would say no it didn't and that what happened in Germany between 1932 and 1945 was immoral. In the same vein, I would say that the idea that, say, my grandmother (born in 1903) wasn't really a full human being such that she was capable of the full range of thought and ability and that therefore, her constrained choices were no worse than she deserved was wrong. I understand that you do not think that we can say that it was wrong and therefore cannot say that what happened to her was unjust but I disagree. So, okay--to you segregation wasn't an injustice but my family experienced it as an injustice and we were fully human back in 1903 and in 1922 and in 1963 and in 1967. I get it that you think that maybe those folks in those years who said we weren't might have had a point, again I disagree. I didn't become human because the mores changed, the mores changed because enough people finally started to internalize the idea that blacks were human.
I understand that, to you, expressing absolutes--even the absolute that I am a human being--is problematic but I disagree.

[At any rate does this have to do with ANYTHING? I was using race as an example of an idea because you claimed that the diversity of ideas--without qualification--is what makes America strong. I was asking--and you have avoided answering--what about racist ideas made America stronger such that now that those ideas are (or were) in attenuation the nation is less strong than when racist ideas were widespread and socially acceptable? So are you saying that my using the history of race in America to demonstrate how intellectually bankrupt the idea that any idea is something that should be accepted no matter how sound it is or isn't, I am somehow saying that white people are responsible for the conditions of my life?

I will answer you tho I am not sure what you are truly asking here. And let me finish before you jump on me cuz what I am saying and what you might think I am saying are two different things. Hatred of any kind does make us stronger people. Why? Because it gives us room to grow and develop and see things differently. If we were all purple and all thought the same and did the same and had the same, we would be a pretty boring species. But we are different.

I'm going to tell you something about my family. My father grew up without a father because some white folks decided to hang his father from a tree. My mother lost one of her brothers because some *other* white folks decided to hang him from a tree. My father's brother wasn't able to go to college because he couldn’t serve in WW II because some white man ran him down and his leg never fully recovered and he never was able to walk right again. Now I want you to keep this in mind as I tell you what I am reading here.

Translated what you are saying is that the lynching of my grandfather and uncle and the wounding of another uncle, as well as my parents being beaten with sticks, having dogs set upon them and being sprayed with fire hoses is all just so many broken eggs necessary so that we can all sit back now and be smug. Pardon me for not wanting you or anyone else to be able to feel quite so smug because we overcame it but I would just as soon have met my grandfather and my uncle thank you very much. To you, perhaps this was worth it, the unfortunate cost of doing business. To me, if the benefit was that we could be stronger, I think we could have done with a little less strength and a little more justice.

Now, you had no way of knowing that relatives in my family had been lynched and I do not blame you for not knowing. However, when I read what I quoted above it appears, to me, that you are saying that all the horrors that were visited upon black people were justified or at least made okay by the fact that we were able to grow. Well, not my uncle and not my grandfather. They weren't able to grow because they were dead. Death has a way of reducing ones reproductive fitness and learning ability to zero.

I might be misreading you but I hear you saying I think immigration is a bad thing. I dont. My family was immigrated here and we Italians in Providence were not allowed to walk on the sidewalks or the Irish would kick our asses.

You are misreading me. You said that immigration was what made us strong as a growing industrial society. I was saying to you that true as that was, when the Irish got here they were discriminated against--and then they became okay. When the Italians got here they were discriminated against--and then they became okay. What I was saying is that America has been down this road before, the rhetoric being used today could be lifted straight out of the 19th century and applied to the Irish or the Italians when they got here. The justifications could be lifted right from the 19th century anti-immigration paroxysms. This is nothing new.

I still find it hard to believe that the aclu and the feds require months and months to get an injunction. Maybe I am naive but it seems there might be another reason for the delay.

Okay, but that doesn't mean the ACLU hasn't filed for one and it doesn't mean that the Justice department isn't figuring out the best way to attack the problem. I suspect that what Justice is waiting for is for the inevitable test case to go before the SCOTUS (it's what I would do) and then they will file an amicus brief. Citizens are going to be stopped and they are going to sue on 4th and 14th Amendment grounds because this law really DOES make US citizens strangers to the laws of their homeland.

[I'm sorry but I don't see folks who are arguing against a racist law as being racist.]

dread, again, who is saying it is a racist law? A legislature passed it, a governor signed it.

So? The Supreme Court, in the Dred Scott decision said this:

A free negro of the African race, whose ancestors were brought to this country and sold as slaves, is not a "citizen" within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States.

They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect, and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.

Now, I would say that those two passages are pretty unambiguously racist. I recognize that you do not. I recognize that you think that, perhaps, blacks had no rights to which a white man was at all obliged to respect. That does not change the fact that it is racist.

Who's perspective makes it racist? Yours? Mine? Without judgement, it is just a law. With judgement applied by differing groups of people, it is a good thing or a bad thing depending on your perspective. Does this make you right and me wrong or me right or you wrong? Or does it mean we just are looking at something given our respective experiences and coming to somewhat different conclusions?

I am starting here--all human beings are human beings. Whether or not the majority thinks they are human beings at any given locus in history is *entirely* irrelevant to the question of their humanity. Where there is a conflict between the claims of humanness by one group and the disavowal of that claim by another group, I will ALWAYS fall on the side of the group claiming humanness. The group disavowing the humanity of another group is always wrong. Always. This law is racist because it targets a group of people based on ethnicity. This law is taking place in a context where OTHER events are occurring that also target this same group. It is racist because it takes a group of people, separates them out from the community and then says that they will be treated differently because they look different. From the logic you are deploying here, George Wallace might have been right when he said "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" and Martin Luther King, Jr. was wrong. I reject that premise on its face.

Isnt that what this country is about? We, as a people, cannot even agree on "all men are created equal" means. When it was written it meant alll white men. Then it meant white and other men. People can fall back on that tidbit and say constitution says nothing about women so what are women?

Deploying your logic, women are only as human as the society says that they are in any given historical period and, as such, only have a legitimate claim to justice AFTER the society has decided that they are human enough to be deserve justice. I disagree. And, in fact, all men are created equal seems pretty straightforward to me. Again, I understand, that to you it isn't and who has a claim on equality depends upon when we are talking about. I reject that idea as well because--not to be insulting--I don't EVER want it to be left to someone with your ideas as you have expressed them here to have to decide whether or not I am human enough to be deserving of justice. Given what you have said in this discussion and your utter unwillingness to call a moral evil by what it is, I think that you could very well happily support the idea that I am not human enough to be covered by justice. Am I calling you a racist? Not at all. I am saying that I don't trust your moral compass as you have expressed it here because I am unconvinced that you would say that my grandmother was fully a human being in the year of her birth (1903) simply because in 1903 the prevailing zeitgeist in America was that she wasn't.

Absolutes are problematical in anything because knowledge and values and beliefs change. All I ask for is to not be belittled or called names because I state a reality different from someone elses reality.

I'm not going to call you names and I'm not going to belittle you. But I am going to say that I think you are wrong. However, you prove a point that I have been making here and on the dash-site for going on five years now. That point has to do with this 'who is to say what is right or wrong'. I have maintained that this view is wrong because, taken to its logical conclusion, it renders us UTTERLY mute on the subject of justice. Given your stated beliefs I'm not sure you can even say *TODAY* whether or not I am a human being simply because there are people (Nazi's for instance) who deny my humanity and therefore it might be possible that they are right and I am wrong. Any ideology, philosophy or worldview that cannot look at, say, the Holocaust and given the facts *inevitably* arrive at the conclusion that it was unambiguously evil is not one I will trust at all.

I dont think it is too much to ask.

It's not too much to ask.


[/FONT][/QUOTE]

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Kobi

[FONT="Comic Sans MS"][SIZE="3"][COLOR="Navy"]Medusa,

With all due respect, I have a real problem when differing standards are applied to people based on skin color.

Kobi;

Not to put too fine a point on the matter but I don't think that's true. I think you don't have a problem with differing standards applied to skin color provided one of two conditions are met:

1) It's not happening to you
2) It's not happening in a time contemporaneous to yours.

Based upon your OWN posts, Kobi, I would say that you would, for instance, have no problem at all with racist standards being applied to blacks in any year before you were born. This is based upon YOUR posts and YOUR statements that we can't say who was right and who was wrong about issues that happened in the 19th century or the early part of the 20th century. So, depending upon when you were born, the year before that I see no reason--based upon your philosophy as you have expressed it--to believe that you would have ANY problem with differing standards applied to blacks and whites because neither condition is met. After the year you are born you would have a problem--at least in theory--because condition 2 was met.

Now, you can correct me if I'm reading your philosophy incorrectly but it certainly appears to be what you are saying. Again, this is NOT calling you a racist. When I think you are a racist, I'll let you know. I am saying that the real-world consequences of your philosophy are very disturbing to me.

[Medusa]

Originally Posted by Kobi

[FONT="Comic Sans MS"][SIZE="3"][COLOR="Navy"]Medusa,

With all due respect, I have a real problem when differing standards are applied to people based on skin color.

You just said Kobi is a bad white person who must examine her presumed racism and privelege.

But people of color because of their unique life experience have free reign to call me names and belittle me?

This makes sense. Again, I have to allow for them but they dont have to treat me with any respect simply because of the color of their skin.

Thats bizarre.

Kobi,

I think you missed the point of my entire post. Im not saying that you are a bad white person. I think you probably have some examination to do around race (like most all of the white people that I know, myself included). That becomes especially apparent to me when you say things like "someone pulled out the race card."
You (apparently) haven't even examined race enough to know that saying someone "pulled the race card" is a red herring. I don't think it makes you a bad person, I think that it makes you in need of education and a deeper thought process around race. It's fine if you don't want to do that or don't think you need to do that, but I'm telling you from one white person to another that you will keep encountering angry reactions, irritated people, and people who think you are ignorant as long as you keep making that statement. People will (mostly) automatically dismiss what you say as racist when you couch it in a "race card" conversation.

Why will people do that? Because it IS offensive, racist, and dismissive.

You keep asking "by who's standards?" and I'm willing to answer that for you.

By the standards of thoughtful, enlightened people. By the standards of people who do not want to add another layer to the ugly and oppressive weight of living in a racist society to people like The_Lady_Snow, and AJ, and Corkey and Adele. And hopefully one day, by the standards of the world at large as we move toward a more evolved society. One where AJ can make a very thoughtful post about historical racism, give examples, and be absolutely present and patient in a conversation with someone who says she is playing the race card. Where one day People of Color will no longer have to stretch their willingness to educate people who do not want to be educated into unimagineable, contorted acrobatics in order to be heard over the drone of such heavily ingrained privilege.

You mentioned that you feel like People of Color have free reighn to call you names and belittle you and yet you are willing to keep saying things to People of Color when they have told you that they feel belittled and name-called. There is no double-standard there, except that you want to be able to say racist and privileged things without the people whom it hurts coming back at you with anything other than acceptance. Even AJ's incredibly measured patience was not enough?

Again, I don't think you are a bad person. I have seen you say things that are smart and enlightened and hope that you will consider the things that are said here with levity. It is a painful and embarrassing process to try to do the work to unlearn all of the racism and privilege that will come pre-packaged with white skin in this world but you must take the first step in order to do that.

The first step is listening. HEAR the pain, the anger, the information, the stories, the words, the lives. Hear those things without creating a soft bed of denial or anger for them to land on. Listen and hear.

I can tell you are defensive right now. Just listen. Don't defend. Listen.

M

[waxnrope]

Kobi,

Proof texting is a process whereby preachers take a verse of Scripture from here, a verse from there, pluck another from over yonder, etc. with the purpose of "proving" a point. Of saying what "G-d" says. It is a poisonous process insofar as it takes out of context, out of culture, out of history, and out of a particular people's society and twists it so that it suits the ideology of the preacher. Prooftexting "legitimates" the words from the pulpit because it came from Scripture. And, oh yes, it is of course used to dehumanize and condemn GLBTQI people as well as POC, and to justify the superiority of humans over nature, among other things. Prooftexting is often used by those who are ignorant of the historical, social, cultural and literary conditions which signified the need for the text in the first place.

Now, I bring this up because you have taken a web link as well as claimed specific ideas originated by African American leaders. As a person of mixed race, who puts down African American in the check box because I'm older and used to doing so, I have a stake in your argument. Moreover, I state that in your examples, you have prooftexted great African American leaders. For instance, Malcolm X in addition to saying not to blame the white man for everything, also critically discussed the "white man" as being the most murderous, warmongering people on the face of the earth. He also uttered the famous line, " ... by any means necessary" as a position of force to get the white man off our necks. You forgot that?

So, you have played your own card ~ in arrogance, in prooftexting, and displayed a certain lack of historicity with regards to racism in America. That is your privileged, WHITE opinion. But the African Americans that you cited, and any other person of color that you even think about citing ... I ask that you do not do so by way of prooftexting. Read all of it, CRITICALLy (and I see that you dislike this word ..), from its context. That is, the history, AND CULTURE. The words inscribed by our great leaders are SACRED to many of us. Whether they be Du Bois, Malcolm, King. Or, Cesar Chavez and Oscar Romero. These are sacred people to us and you do them a disservice by prooftexting and by your patent lack of comprehension ... that is what I call showing your white card.

[Corkey]

Kobi, I'm going to post something here and I hope you will take it in the manner it is ment.

"We forget so we consider ourselves superior. But we are, after all, a mere part of the creation and we must consider to understand where we are and we stand somewhere between the mountain and the Ant. Somewhere and only there is a part and parcel of the creation."
--Chief Oren Lyons, ONONDAGA
Every human being gathers information from the center of a circle. If we are not careful, we soon think we are the center of all things. Therefore, it is easy to become self centered. Once we become self centered we start to think we are above all things and therefore superior. But we are really only one part of a great whole. The universe is all connected. Each part is here to do something special and according to its design. We are here to honor and respect the job of each part. We are neither above nor below anything. We need not be ruler over anything, we need only to live in honor and harmony with the system.