It's Time to Boycott Arizona

[Kobi]

Medusa,

You are right, I need to take a break from this. I still stand by I am happy to hear as long as I am allowed to be heard. One without the other is unfair.

Wax....interesting. People seem to forget about the tranformation in Malcolm X after his trip to Mecca. He was still fiery but his focus a little different.

"In Saudi Arabia, he’d experienced what amounted to the second life-changing epiphany in his life as he accomplished the Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca, and discovered an authentic Islam of universal respect and brotherhood. The experience changed Malcolm’s world view. Gone was the belief in whites as exclusively evil. Gone was the call for black separatism. His voyage to Mecca helped him discover the atoning power of Islam as a means to unity as well as self-respect: “In my thirty-nine years on this earth,” he would write in his autobiography, “the Holy City of Mecca had been the first time I had ever stood before the Creator of All and felt like a complete human being.”

"...easy to overly romanticize Malcolm’s last period of his life, to misinterpret it as gentler, more amenable to white tastes then (and to some extent still now) so hostile to Malcolm. In reality, he returned to the United States as fiery as ever. His philosophy was taking a new direction. But his critique of liberalism went on unabated. He was willing to take the help of “sincere whites,” but he was under no illusion that the solution for black Americans would not begin with whites. It would begin and end with blacks. In that regard, whites were better off busying themselves with confronting their own pathological racism. “Let sincere whites go and teach non-violence to white people,” he said.

http://middleeast.about.com/od/relig.../me080220b.htm



But then again, I am just one of those uneducated, uninformed white people.

Originally Posted by 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]

Ugh. I find it offensive when a white person uses a black mans voice. What point were you trying to make in using Malcolm's voice?

[The_Lady_Snow]

I thanked you because I do hope you take some time out to read us, to hear us and to *listen* to us..

Maybe when you come back and re read the things you said and how you said them, you will get why some of us are upset and seem angry as you so put it.

Good luck!

You should read some Tim Wise if you have not already.

Originally Posted by Kobi

Medusa,

You are right, I need to take a break from this. I still stand by I am happy to hear as long as I am allowed to be heard. One without the other is unfair.

Wax....interesting. People seem to forget about the tranformation in Malcolm X after his trip to Mecca. He was still fiery but his focus a little different.

"In Saudi Arabia, he’d experienced what amounted to the second life-changing epiphany in his life as he accomplished the Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca, and discovered an authentic Islam of universal respect and brotherhood. The experience changed Malcolm’s world view. Gone was the belief in whites as exclusively evil. Gone was the call for black separatism. His voyage to Mecca helped him discover the atoning power of Islam as a means to unity as well as self-respect: “In my thirty-nine years on this earth,” he would write in his autobiography, “the Holy City of Mecca had been the first time I had ever stood before the Creator of All and felt like a complete human being.”

"...easy to overly romanticize Malcolm’s last period of his life, to misinterpret it as gentler, more amenable to white tastes then (and to some extent still now) so hostile to Malcolm. In reality, he returned to the United States as fiery as ever. His philosophy was taking a new direction. But his critique of liberalism went on unabated. He was willing to take the help of “sincere whites,” but he was under no illusion that the solution for black Americans would not begin with whites. It would begin and end with blacks. In that regard, whites were better off busying themselves with confronting their own pathological racism. “Let sincere whites go and teach non-violence to white people,” he said.

http://middleeast.about.com/od/relig.../me080220b.htm



But then again, I am just one of those uneducated, uninformed white people.

[Liam]

Originally Posted by Kobi

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.

The majority of those "Japanese," relocated and interned in camps were citizens of the United States. Actually there were people, who thought twice, and some of them, have dedicated their lives to reminding others, of what happened.

http://www.heartmountain.us/

[dreadgeek]

Wax:

Thank you for this. Prooftexting is a perfect phrase and I wish I had thought to invoke it here. In the same general area is the invocation of MLK, Jr. If one more white politician says "I marched with Dr. King" when the reality is that they were alive and walking circa 1962 and since King held marches in '62 they were walking at the same time as him therefore they marched with him, I'm going to scream. Any of you who have started a pool to see if there is anything that can make me loose my cool--put your money there, it's a sure winner.

Along the same lines, is quoting the "content of our character" line. I find it somewhere on the spectrum of infuriating to hilarious that people who couldn't quote anything else King ever uttered will repeat the character line time and time again as if over the course of his life the only words the man ever spoke were those. I'm reasonably certain--based upon what my parents have told me (King died when I was a year old so the one time I got to meet him, I don't remember)--that his first words were NOT "will be judged by the content of our character and not the color of our skin..." Yet, a lot of very conservative people treat that phrase sort of like Rev. Wright's "God damn America" in reverse. Reverend Wright preached for some 40 years and as far as the American media would have us believe every sermon he ever gave can be written as follows:

"The lesson this morning is taken from the book of Damn America. "And then the people did speak saying unto all, God damn America! Thus endeth the lesson.

Beloved, when I woke up this morning I said God damn America. When Jesus was on the cross, God damn America. If you are struggling today, not sure how you going to make a way out of no way, God damn America. Now will the congregation rise while we sing God damn America.

Singing: "God damn America. God damn America! God damn America! God damn America."

In the same way King's *entire* career has been reduced to:

"I have a dream...judged by the content of our character." Again, to take the media's spin on his life everywhere he went he said "I have a dream...judged by the content of our character."

People who would never even think to read something as short as Letter from Birmingham Jail think nothing of quoting those lines to burnish their "see, I was there with the civil rights marchers" cred.

Aj

Originally Posted by 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.

[Toughy]

Unexamined white privilege..........shaking my head.........

Aside from the obvious (to any thinking human being) racism in all the AZ laws around immigration and ethnic education, let me just say this:

The AZ law bringing huge sanctions against employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers is flat out unconstitutional......period. full stop.

The AZ 'papers please' law is flat out unconstitutional.....period. full stop.

Immigration is the responsibility of the federal government. States have no authority or right to make immigration laws. If the states have issues with immigration enforcement and laws then they need to take it up with their federal representatives in Congress and with the President.

---------and one other thing..........to suggest that all ideas have equal worth is just ludicrous, no matter the time period the idea was hatched.

[Kobi]

The would be kind of amusing if it wasnt so sad.

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

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.

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

Wax:

Thank you for this. Prooftexting is a perfect phrase and I wish I had thought to invoke it here. In the same general area is the invocation of MLK, Jr. If one more white politician says "I marched with Dr. King" when the reality is that they were alive and walking circa 1962 and since King held marches in '62 they were walking at the same time as him therefore they marched with him, I'm going to scream. Any of you who have started a pool to see if there is anything that can make me loose my cool--put your money there, it's a sure winner.

Along the same lines, is quoting the "content of our character" line. I find it somewhere on the spectrum of infuriating to hilarious that people who couldn't quote anything else King ever uttered will repeat the character line time and time again as if over the course of his life the only words the man ever spoke were those. I'm reasonably certain--based upon what my parents have told me (King died when I was a year old so the one time I got to meet him, I don't remember)--that his first words were NOT "will be judged by the content of our character and not the color of our skin..." Yet, a lot of very conservative people treat that phrase sort of like Rev. Wright's "God damn America" in reverse. Reverend Wright preached for some 40 years and as far as the American media would have us believe every sermon he ever gave can be written as follows:

"The lesson this morning is taken from the book of Damn America. "And then the people did speak saying unto all, God damn America! Thus endeth the lesson.

Beloved, when I woke up this morning I said God damn America. When Jesus was on the cross, God damn America. If you are struggling today, not sure how you going to make a way out of no way, God damn America. Now will the congregation rise while we sing God damn America.

Singing: "God damn America. God damn America! God damn America! God damn America."

In the same way King's *entire* career has been reduced to:

"I have a dream...judged by the content of our character." Again, to take the media's spin on his life everywhere he went he said "I have a dream...judged by the content of our character."

People who would never even think to read something as short as Letter from Birmingham Jail think nothing of quoting those lines to burnish their "see, I was there with the civil rights marchers" cred.

Aj

[The_Lady_Snow]

Originally Posted by Kobi

The would be kind of amusing if it wasnt so sad.

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

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.

Wow.

You really are clueless, I feel sorry for you at this point...

No matter how people explain it, no matter how much patience is used, you just don't see it..

[Corkey]

Originally Posted by Kobi

The would be kind of amusing if it wasnt so sad.

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

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.

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.

[Kobi]

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.

Originally Posted by Corkey

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.

[Corkey]

Originally Posted by Kobi

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.

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

[Kobi]

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.

[Corkey]

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.

[The_Lady_Snow]

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

[Kobi]

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.

Originally Posted by Corkey

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.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Kobi

[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.

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.

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.

.....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.

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

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Kobi

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.

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.

[Corkey]

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

[Corkey]

Originally Posted by Kobi

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.

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.

[Dylan]

Originally Posted by Kobi

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.

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