Black vs. African-American- which do you use?

[Lady Sabine]

Education, debate, learning, and discussion are NEVER bad ideas. Shame on anyone who says otherwise. Shame on you, shame on your family, shame on your cow! We would be nowhere if we decided that "oh, well, it's already been decided so no point in bringing up again". If people did that, we'd all be sitting on rocks without even fire, eating raw food, losing 1/2 of our children before puberty, and dying before sixty.
Everything in the world has been done to death- there is nothing new. This thread is not attempting to be anything new. This is just one in a long and not always proud discussion of the human condition, in vocabulary and terminology and understanding. There is nothing intentionally demeaning about this thread, and I don't actually see a black person being offended.
Concerning the idea of labeling, I invite you to this thread: https://www.iwakuroleplay.com/xfa-groups-thread/lgbttqa-terminology-educate-yourself.3743/?page=1
It's a thread by and for LBGTQ & supporters that is entirely about terminology. We don't call each other "people" because we aren't just "people". We are so much more. I'm white. I'm a writer. I'm liberal. I'm bisexual. These things make me me. Labels are to tell the world that, hey, I'm more than just anonymous Joe Schmoe #six-billion-and-something. Even within the communities of minorities, labels and vocabulary are topics of endless and dynamic discussion. There is no reason this is wrong.
If it were possible to understand people without the use of words, I'm sure we would be doing that instead. But there isn't, so I will discuss these words to death, and after death. Because the world is changing, people are changing, and I think that everyone has a right to speak, share, and understand these changes and past facts.

 

[Shokkou]

Education, debate, learning, and discussion are NEVER bad ideas. Shame on anyone who says otherwise. Shame on you, shame on your family, shame on your cow! We would be nowhere if we decided that "oh, well, it's already been decided so no point in bringing up again". If people did that, we'd all be sitting on rocks without even fire, eating raw food, losing 1/2 of our children before puberty, and dying before sixty.
Everything in the world has been done to death- there is nothing new. This thread is not attempting to be anything new. This is just one in a long and not always proud discussion of the human condition, in vocabulary and terminology and understanding. There is nothing intentionally demeaning about this thread, and I don't actually see a black person being offended.
Concerning the idea of labeling, I invite you to this thread: https://www.iwakuroleplay.com/xfa-groups-thread/lgbttqa-terminology-educate-yourself.3743/?page=1
It's a thread by and for LBGTQ & supporters that is entirely about terminology. We don't call each other "people" because we aren't just "people". We are so much more. I'm white. I'm a writer. I'm liberal. I'm bisexual. These things make me me. Labels are to tell the world that, hey, I'm more than just anonymous Joe Schmoe #six-billion-and-something. Even within the communities of minorities, labels and vocabulary are topics of endless and dynamic discussion. There is no reason this is wrong.
If it were possible to understand people without the use of words, I'm sure we would be doing that instead. But there isn't, so I will discuss these words to death, and after death. Because the world is changing, people are changing, and I think that everyone has a right to speak, share, and understand these changes and past facts.

Shame on your kids, shame on your wife. :P

 

[Torsty]

Meanwhile, in the staff forum...

 

[Lady Sabine]

Shame on your kids, shame on your wife. :P

I was going for

But I kinda like yours better. ^^

 

[Kooriryu]

Term you're thinkin' of is "gatekeeping" and it's hella rampant all over the spectrum of academia. Gatekeeping restricts, defines and filters accessibility of information for all kindsa people for all subjects, it's that kinda shit when "ethnic studies" becomes "available" to take as a class at the college/university level.

Now when my fat motherfuckin' ass is out here talking about how there's been studies, research, dissertation'n whateverthefuck I'm talking about that veeeery fuckin' specific point in these conversations where a motherfucker's view is so shaken, so dislodged from its foundations that they go off and bob their head about shit like "We all have it hard!" or "We're all from the human race!" or knick knack tallywhack hell else that suddenly they're cawing about "Well where's the study that proves that?", "Where's the statistic that says that?" or most irritating-ass of all, "Prove it."

That's that shit I mean about academia existing because folk aren't out here to coddle, hold hands and tra la la la skip along the road through the forest of realizations. Accessibility's still a problem in getting these types of information out into the general populace because nnnnnone of this shit exists in a vacuum. And most of the fuckin' time folk aren't really lookin' to educate themselves and you hear it in the demands for "more proof" by "more credible sources". So my sloppily instigatin' ass decided to fuckin' cut through most of that muck'n fuck by bringing up academia because ain't no one out here tryna to change minds; y'all want to know "reasons" or "answers" then google and your standing local library got shitton of nice, helpful staff willin' to direct your ass to the appropriate aisles. Alllllllll my rancor'n callousness is directed at that small, tiny-ass demographic of folk who would run to the dictionary, who would demand proof for this, that and the other plus the kitchen sink, and those who would try and come at me like I'm pulling this shit directly from betwixt my asscheeks.

And all that shit raised my ire 'cause it came from skimmin' and seein' some casual-ass dismissal about the histories behind the creation and persistence of hyphenated american identity, why the U.S. has a dominantly binary designation between white, non-white, people of color, and some of that regular-ass kumbayahlevelplaying field shenanigans.

This shit, alla this shit, does not exist in a vacuum and folk have taken their time to figure out all them hows, whys, whens, wheres'n whos.

lol linkdump

http://diversity.umsl.edu/documents/W07_Guess_article_s6.pdf

http://www.yale.edu/glc/events/race/Painter.pdf

http://ase.tufts.edu/psychology/sommerslab/documents/raceInterNortonSommers2011.pdf
http://thoughtcatalog.com/madison-m...hey-experience-more-racism-than-black-people/

http://www.amazon.com/Irish-Became-White-Routledge-Classics/dp/0415963095

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...es-unconscious-bias-racism-not-always-racists

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/colorblind/201112/colorblind-ideology-is-form-racism

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2010/02/how-to-raise-racist-kids/

http://www.academia.edu/2078986/_People_of_Color_Race_Ethnicity_and_Society_by_Schaefer_

http://sociology101.net.cnchost.com/readings/Myth-Of-The-Model-Minority.pdf

http://diverseeducation.com/article/53790/

And that is baaarely scratching the surface of what's out there in google alone. THERE'S SO MUCH, BRUH. SO MUCH.

.gif reaction because goddamn if I disappoint Assmo without using at least one of these shits.

-------------------------------------

p.s.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat...erry_rescuer_becomes_internet_meme_video.html

p.s.s. That one kid who posted in here about their local AASU asking their school to not use "black" as a descriptor in crime reports are fighting some specific-ass shit, namely the trying to curb the criminalization of black youth. Personally, their end goal's good but the execution method is too wide to effect the change they are most likely aimin' to get rectified.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/172559/routine-criminalization-americas-black-and-brown-youth

http://macaulay.cuny.edu/eportfolio.../04/Race-and-Criminalization-Angela-Davis.pdf

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10999940600680457

 

[Scrap Iron]

Yeah, still don't get it. Being vague on a police report for someone they're looking for that may or may not be dangerous is just stupid. If that makes me a bigot, then common fucking sense is bigoted, I guess.

Tangentially, I knew a guy that happened to be black and hated the police for their profiling, and in retaliation, egged a police car and harassed a cop, getting himself arrested. And then he had the nerve to say it happened because he was black. I can see that as nothing but perpetuating a reason to profile in the first place.

Also, stomping in and acting like a dick is going to sway exactly zero people, I imagine.

 

[Kooriryu]

lol k

Conventions of social conduct hold civil discourse as the ideal at all times. When people get angry, it gives you a convenient "out" without having to concede to any of their objections or acknowledge their pain. Furthermore, with this one you can make it seem as though you were ready and willing to listen, but then they ruined it.

via http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/22/tone-policing-only-goes-one-way/

i.e. Motherfuckers who didn't wanna co-sign on my shit solely, entirely, only 'cuz I was being a dick about it (AND I TOTALLY WAS Y'ALL) weren't plannin' on being "swayed" in the first place. I don't really give a corncobbled shit, fuckass tired of driving my car over the same gotdamn potholes on this street. edit: And most of the gotdamn time all those ugly tears about not sayin' shit nicely is so there don't have to be any critical self-analysis on whether or not a motherfucker's been complicit in any of the behavior bein' talked about. Talkin' about shit nicely is just too easy a way to swiftly align your shit and go, "Yeah, that's right!" without addressing your own shit.

And liiiiiike, no fuckin' shit asking a visually descriptive word's omission from a report isn't actually going to amend much properly address the start of the problem of associating criminality with a group. You don't cut off a domestic abuser's arm thinkin' it's gonna stop the violence 'cuz the motherfucker still thinks it's okay to hit people. As per goddamn usual, it isn't about the word all by its itty bitty self-- in this shit it's about the associations that arise from it's use however innocuous, which is what that kid's local college AASU is trying to correct.

 

[Lady Sabine]

Solution: don't drive down the street.

 

[Kooriryu]

Pro-tip: Streets don't get fixed until you cause a ruckus at City Hall.

 

[Lady Sabine]

Because city hall can fix an underlying issue with the entire community?

 

[Shokkou]

I think it's humorous the dichotomy of you coming in here making a fuss about how not everyone is as well versed in this literature as yourself regarding a discussion of how to address people in an inoffensive manner, and then you proceed to do so in an intentionally offensive manner. You are hiding behind all these links and research as an excuse to be hateful and derisive and you are a bigger part of the problem than anyone else in this thread.

 

[Scrap Iron]

Yeah, but you're taking the street with the potholes just to have something to complain about. It's not on your route to and from work, or even to the grocery store. You just drive down that shitty road to feel morally superior because you think you know how it ought to be fixed better than other people that drive down the same road. You know exactly how the potholes got there, and you want to point out that other people have a misunderstanding of the origin of these potholes, and somehow, that means you know how better to fill them with fresh asphalt.

But here's the thing. We're what, half a dozen people at most active in this thread by now, and city hall can't use academic studies to fill your hypothetical potholes to begin with. It really doesn't matter at all what an expert has to say about the origin, specific preferred usage, or twisting being done with vocabulary or semantics. It's all wishy-washy academic bullshit. Just like someone can be completely ignorant of the Bible or religious studies in general and still have a basic moral code, I don't need any of this to decide to at least try not to be a dick to someone because they're different.

What you're really doing is telling us it's wrong to be ignorant of something, but it's also wrong, or worse, to want to learn how to openly want to do better.

Going back to the people wanting to take their race out of police reports because it's criminalizing black youth, one could argue (but one won't, because supposed victims can't take even partial responsibility) that there is at least a small portion of "black culture" (and that's in quotes because heaven forbid someone misinterpret what I mean by black or culture or black culture or whatever people want to nitpick) glorifies criminal activity, among other things that belong in a different thread.

And finally, and this may be a really out there opinion, claiming the part of victim puts yourself or your group or whatever in a position to be victimized. In some ways, it does a very good job of rebuilding the divides between races and cultures that were otherwise at least attempting to be torn down. Saying we're the victim because we're so different, and you'll never really understand and don't even try because yadda yadda yadda reinforces the idea that we're different on a fundamental level and that maybe people should treat other races and such differently because they so badly want to be seen as different. And different almost always comes across as meaning inferior or scary to a lot of people. It's detrimental. Period.

As a white person, I am constantly bombarded with how I should or shouldn't treat people of other ethnicities, or what I should or shouldn't say around them, everything down to what I should or shouldn't refer to them as. And you know what? It's all contradicting. There's no right answer. I simply don't understand why I can't follow the so-called golden rule and if I fuck up, well, I learn from my mistakes. That's not how it is here. I remember one thing you linked specifically said that it's basically super racist to tell someone that I don't always know the right answer and if I screw up, be a friend and let me know.

I will not be shamed for making a simple mistake. If that's how someone wants to roll, it tells me that I'm inherently racist, it can't be "fixed," and I shouldn't even try to understand someone as a person, but instead watch from a distance and try to understand people through stereotypes. And that's racist too.

Damned if I do, damned if I don't. If the only way to win your game is not to play, then that's exactly what I'll have to do, then.

 

[Kooriryu]

loooooooolololololololololololol I mean, if we're gonna ride on my analogy's dick we can.
That road gets driven on all day long, all fulla potholes'n cracks and shit to the point where you can't even swerve to avoid that shit but there's a goddamn shop that sells road repair tools'n supplies but the problem is the community's meant to fix it together except some motherfuckers don't even know where that shop is and other motherfuckers don't know how to spackle or some shit. The shop sells instruction manuals too but that's not gonna help shit until the ones find out where the store's located and the others managed to get the time to read the manuals so we can all fix that goddamn road in one go*

*go as repair as in the euphemism for progressing the conversation

Like how you gonna profess you wanna do better'n learn or whatever the shit when y'all keep hitting on them same, old, tired-ass points when you can do as I literally did with my last two posts and google that shit up? 'Cause it's hella comin' off like y'all expected someone to post around and spoon feed this knowledge to you, fuck that there's Minecraft to be played. Bringing that shit up, the academia is, for like the 5th time, is a way to cut to the chase because eventually without even getting academic about it at the start but at some point in a conversation about this subject some-one-will-eventually-ask-for-citation-on-what-you-just-postulated. Things-words-and-concepts-do-not-exist-in-a-vacuum-simple-curiousity-or-thirst-for-knowledge-driven-reading-will-take-away-so-many-goddamn-"potholes".

And ch'yeah bruh, to reiterate: it's hella wrong to be pigheadedly ignorant about shit, in the face of academic work that provides all them studies and statistics them pigheadedly ignorant-ass folk wanna see. Like the road to hell ain't paved with good intentions or some shit. Probably a whole shitton of folk thought sayin' they're colorblind 'cause that shit seems like it's comin' outta a good place 'til i posted them two links on why it's actually fulla shit. That's where that scholarly shit comes in because honest talk most of the time when other folk point out why that shit isn't as good as it seems they'll get wheeled around on and get asked to provide "proof" on why exactly that shit wasn't actually good. It's that shit that gets people rankled up about it. Liiiike, I don't know how many other ways I can fart up to phrase this shit.

Just like I don't know how many more ways I can go, "Yeah. Bro. The way that kid's college's AASU was trying to prevent the perpetuation criminalization of black youth isn't concise." But y'know, you're right blaming black culture for its ills really is an entirely different conversation. Which honest talk, sounds a lot more like it was meant to be "rap culture glorifies crime and with its heavy association within the black community I'mma go ahead and interchange that with black culture because it's not like the music industry pushed a certain genre of rap because of its money-making prospects." But y'know, whatevs, different convo right there.

About that shit on differences though...

"It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences."
— Audre Lorde

Or specifically in this case, acknowledging how the inequalities set up from designating these differences is an influence in how to approach this shit. Those differences matter because those differences change the way different people walk through the world. So to not even take into account how they affect us different is another of them potholes that fucks up the street. You, yourself Iwaku user Scrap Iron, won't ever really know what it's like having a gross-ass old man roll up on you talking about how he heard Asian women are so submissive with tight, sideways vaginas and asking if you need a green card. You can say, "Ew, that's pretty gross.", you could even try and empathize but you won't know in the way that I know how that scenario feels.

Then for parading around like a hateful, derisive and superiority complexed asswound in tryin' to explain how academia can fast forward and progress conversations on race, particularly in light of a common response in these conversations where people run to the dictionary's definition of words then... yo. Thass'me. Hey, hi, hello.



------

lolololololololololol and a good-ass example of the entire reason of hyphenating your ethnicity with your nationality as a way to reconcile both when one is negated for being the other

More commonly recognized amongst Asian-Americans as these questions two:
"No, I don't mean San Diego... I mean, where are you really from?"
&
"Wait, you were born here? Oh, then you're not really [ethnicity], huh? Haha, hey do you know where I can get some authentic [ethnic food] though?"

 

[Shokkou]

Racism is, at its core, a person or group of people thinking themselves superior to another. It is a specific case of the more blanket term bigotry. When you come in and berate people because they haven't read exactly the same things you have, you are taking one detail about that person and using it to declare yourself superior to them. You are being bigoted. You are behaving like a racist.

 

[PigIron]

I say black if I'm talking to someone about a black person and need to use an adjective, and can't use something like "He's tall" or "He's wearing a red jacket and is over there".
Even though I wouldn't mind someone pointing me out to someone else by saying "It's the white dude over there" I still try to not use race to describe someone because even though it's a describing factor a lot of people (mostly whites, from what I've seen,) over react and act as if I've made a faux pas.
African-american, african-english or whatever is a dumb saying because a: it's a mouthful and sounds, frankly, stupid, b: Black people don't seem to get offended by it when they use it, and while this can be said for more offensive words like the N word for instance, it's worth mentioning that only the most hair triggered black guy will get pissed at you for mentioning he's black in a non-derogatory way.

Either way, racism, and the illusion of modern day racism in anywhere but the most backward community is just a fad that will die out in a couple of generations after we've all fucked each other till the whole population's beige.

 

[PigIron]

-

Also what he said. I mean it makes sense.

 

[Kooriryu]

lololol Racism doesn't have an expiration date and interracial isn't a synonym for anti-racism.

• Hyper-sexualization of Black Women
• I'm Not Your Spicy Latina
• Female Sexuality As a Site For Colonial Rulers To Assert Their Moral Superiority
• Colonizing Land Usually Also Meant Colonizing the Women Inhabiting In That Land
• Poetic Justice: Drake and East African Girls
• Understanding the Asian Fetish Through The Colonial Logic of Pornography (NSFW)
• "Sexy Indian": Poorly Represented Images of Native American Women, and Objectification Native women
• White Sexual Imperialism
• Sex Among Allies
• Expanding Upon The Exotic Fallacy-Mixed Race Subjects VS. Mixed Race Objects
• Growing Up Brown: Desexualized and Hyper-sexualized
• Desexualization of Women of Size Especially Women of Color
• To JK Rowling From Cho Chang: Turning Asian Women Into a Tragic Fetish
• What's Wrong With Generalizing More Sex = Liberation: Straight, Middle-Class White Women Have Been Stereotyped as Pure, Asexual Virgins, While Women of Color Have Been Hyper-sexualized as Exotic, Erotic Beings
• Asian American Women Stereotypes
• "Mistresses" Looks to Be Retread of Tired Asian American Stereotypes
• Oversexed and Underrated: The Hyper-sexualization of Latinas in Television and Film
• Framing Latinas: Hispanic Women Through the Lenses of Spanish-Language and English-Language News Media
• Not Your Erotic, Not Your Exotic
• Breaking Down the Sexualization of Asian Women Stereotypes
• The Hyper-sexualization of African American Women in Film
• Selling Sexy: Mainstream Hip Hop Cultures Commodification of Black Female Sexuality
• Sarah Baartman Was Not a Video Vixen
• SlutWalks v. Ho Strolls
• The Black Hyper-sexualization Was Used to Justify the Rape of Black Women
• Desi women: Hyper-sexualized or Completely De-sexualized
• Ending White Supremacy's Hyper-sexualization of Asian Women Does Not Begin With Controlling Asian Women's Decisions
• Victoria Secret and the Hyper-sexualization of Native Women
• On Being Called 'Exotic' [Hint: It's not a compliment]
• Asian Women, American GIs, and Modern Rape Culture
• Custer's Revenge: Perpetuating Sexual Stereotypes of Native Women Leads to Sexual Violence
• Native Women Hunting Season
• The Sexualization of Native American Women
• Killing the Indian Maiden: Images of Native American Women in Film
• Jezebel Stereotype
• Callaloo Parade and the Sexualization of Native American Women
• Portraying Pocahontas: or the Not-So-Modern Origins of the "Sexy Indian Princess"
• Jasmine and Me: The Orientalist Gaze in Sephora's 'Disney Collection'
• White Sexual Imperialism: A Theory on Asian Feminist Jurisprudence
• Native Women Sexualized Since The Beginning
• Portrayal of Native Americans in Media: Looking Hot
• The Jasmine Diaries Part II: 'Exotic' is not a Compliment
• The Jasmine Diaries Part I: Colonial Legacies and Modern Dilemmas
• Asian-American Women Pay Price For Lurid Rumors About Actress Zhang Ziyi
• The Hypersexuality of Race: Performing Asian/American Women on Screen and Scene
• Exotification – I'm Not Your Pretty Little Lotus Flower
• 5 Spicy Latina Stereotypes & Why They Need to Stop
• "Batty" Politic: Toward an Aesthetic of the Black Female Body
• End Colonial Mentality: I'm Not Some Exotic Safari
• Yellow Fever: Asiaphilia
• Women of Color Seen As Always Sexually Available
• Women of Color & Sexuality Stereotypes Manifesto
• Gail Dines, Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality
• Race play and Racist Pornography
• Hyper-sexualization and De-sexualization: South Asian Women in relation to East Asian Women
• Desexualization of South Asian Women Perpetuated by White Men
• Sexualized-Desexualization of South Asian Women
• White Women Sexuality vs. Non-White Women Sexuality

lolol k bruh, aggressively wanting folk to read shit usin' unkind words all to cut down on making the same points again and again and again and again and again on conversations about racism is 'zactly like being a racist, ur rite

 

[Shokkou]

You can post all the links you want. You can act all smug and twist everyone else's words to fit your worldview. In the end, you're throwing out a whole lot of "aggressive" and not much else. Which is what racists do. You can either quit making excuses for why everyone else is responsible for your piss-poor attitude, or you can go on living in your own hateful world. Keep banging that drum though. I'm sure we all feel real sorry for you.

 

[Kooriryu]

loooolololololol kk, 'cuz this shit got no other form than pure aggression sure bruh

Unmasking 'racial micro aggressions'
Some racism is so subtle that neither victim nor perpetrator may entirely understand what is going on—which may be especially toxic for people of color.

"But You Speak So Well": How Latinos Experience Subtle Racism

America is still a deeply racist country
Gone is the overt, violent, and legal racism of my childhood in the 1960s. It's been replaced by a subtler, still ugly version

Shit, may's well go alllllllllllllllllllllllllll the way flippant then.

 

[Shokkou]

Does it bother you this deeply that you've done all this research into what academics say about how to treat people, and yet random people on an internet forum know it better than you by nature? Because pretty much everyone else who has weighed in on the discussion has attempted to present their position in a respectful way. I mean, really. Is that not what it boils down to? Respect. If you cared about respect, you could have easily come in and said "Hey, I've done a lot of research on this issue. These are some good things to read to learn more." But you didn't. You made it a superiority/inferiority issue because you don't care about respect. Now either you just don't care and so you keep going, or you figure you've already invested your credibility in this approach so why quit now. Honestly, it doesn't matter to me which one. I will wake up, go to class, and get along fine with everyone because I respect people regardless of their skin/gender/orientation/book-smarts/etc.