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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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 Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 8:44 pm Post subject: |
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| proustme wrote: |
| Captain Corea wrote: |
I personally don't think this is a "Black thing", but rather a "Thug thing".
Growing up in the crap neighborhood that I did, I saw this attitude daily - from all races. It was all about who could be the baddest. The media, but in particular the Entertainment industry feeds this, and feeds off of it. |
Yes, ManIntheMiddle is wrong to say this. It's disgusting.
THAT's what ManIntheMiddle was saying when he said he had a 'change of heart' about his belief now that
| ManIntheMiddle wrote: |
| "You can take the Black out of the ghetto but you can't take the ghetto out of the Black." Indeed, I found it downright disgusting." |
Just pure TRASH to say such a thing. It's revolting. It's beyond forgiveness to say this about Blacks.
ManIntheMiddle is saying there is something inherently (i.e. innate) "ghetto" about blacks no matter what . That is, they're born with it. Purely shameful.
ManIntheMiddle has finally shown his true, disgusting self. I knew sooner or later it would come out -- what with his recent referencing to Barack Obama as Hussein. His once feigned concern for Blacks has now turned to calling them inherently ghetto. At least ManIntheMiddle could have been original in his bigotry, but he has now bought into this racist, trashy one liner to pigeon-hole Black people. |
Your interpretation of his post seems to directly conflict with his words:
| ManintheMiddle wrote: |
| No, this is NOT a rant on all Blacks, or even African Americans, but in particular on a younger generation of same who feel ENTITLED or is it EMPOWERED (re: emboldened) to say almost anything they want when they want. |
How can he be saying something is innately wrong about Blacks when he outright says he's only talking about the culture which younger Blacks often engage in?
Honestly, I agree with him. It's a totally disgusting, self-destructive culture, and it actively hurts the people that partake in it. Yes, there are non-Blacks who also engage in this culture, but they're a comparative minority, both within the culture in question, and as representatives of their respective races. The best way for these people to raise their standard of living -- and the standard of living of their children -- would be to change their own behavior. |
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cherrycoke
Joined: 13 Sep 2009
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proustme
Joined: 13 Jun 2009
Location: Nowon-gu
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| Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 11:17 pm Post subject: |
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Fox says, your interpretation of his post seems to directly conflict with his words:
| ManintheMiddle wrote: |
| No, this is NOT a rant on all Blacks, or even African Americans, but in particular on a younger generation of same who feel ENTITLED or is it EMPOWERED (re: emboldened) to say almost anything they want when they want. |
Fox says, How can he be saying something is innately wrong about Blacks when he outright says he's only talking about the culture which younger Blacks often engage in?
ManIntheMiddle said, Before the present generation took the stage or court, I gave no credence to the line, "You can take the Black out of the ghetto but you can't take the ghetto out of the Black." Indeed, I found it downright disgusting. But I'm beginning to have a change of heart, not just because of the huge spike in the number of these ghetto acts, but since most if not nearly all of the public criticism leveled against them is coming not from peers but older generations of Blacks who suffered through a hel-l of a lot more but still managed to maintain a quiet dignity and even grace.
He says this all inclusive quote about Blacks, then back peddles on his whole argument saying that he doesn't mean all blacks. He can't decide what he means. He broaches a filthy piece of garbage that ought not be repeated, says it was disgusting, but that he NOW believes it. He gives it credence (i.e. acceptance that it is true) now.
Why does ManinTheMiddle always see things in terms of race not in terms of lousy individuals?
Last edited by proustme on Tue Sep 15, 2009 11:23 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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RufusW
Joined: 14 Jun 2008
Location: Busan
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| Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 11:18 pm Post subject: |
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The problem with your rant is that you're taking far too much from these 3 events.
| Quote: |
| ..this is NOT a rant on all Blacks, or even African Americans, but in particular on a younger generation of same who feel ENTITLED or is it EMPOWERED (re: emboldened) to say almost anything they want when they want. |
Three celebrities, three of the best in their business are certainly going to be a little egotistical. Do their actions really provide evidence about all of 'black youth culture'?
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| ..there is a new coarseness at work in Black youth culture... It has a growing base which is, to be sure, not confined to the Black community. But it is a base... that appeals to the lowest common denominator and is, above all, as devoid of real, enduring talent as it is decency. |
So how are these three celebrities, one of the best selling modern musicians, one of the best tennis players and possibly the best basketball player ever (as well as the best selling musician of all time: you mention Jackson) analogous or evidence of this 'base'?
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| ...the huge spike in the number of these ghetto acts |
What else can you point to?
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| I gave no credence to the line, "You can take the Black out of the ghetto but you can't take the ghetto out of the Black."... But I'm beginning to have a change of heart, |
I presume you'd want to rephrase it significantly, because it's plainly racist. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 11:29 pm Post subject: |
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| proustme wrote: |
| He says this quote about Blacks. Why does he bring up this all inclusive quote about blacks and says he now believes it if it has nothing to do with his argument. |
Well, I don't know why he included it, he'll have to answer that himself. I don't think he meant it the way you feel he did thiough; I'm inclined to believe he took a well known phrase and attempted to apply it to a situation regarding Black culture rather than Blacks themselves, because it's more consistent with other things he said.
Perhaps I'm being too generous, but I doubt it. |
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proustme
Joined: 13 Jun 2009
Location: Nowon-gu
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| Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 11:54 pm Post subject: |
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| That is the crumby argument one hears from people who say "I'm not saying, I'm just saying." He's dissembling. In this case, repeating such despicable tripe about all Blacks -- or some fictional Black culture which is supposedly callow and uncouth and which is solely represented by a portion of famous Black individuals -- is simply delusional. |
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ManintheMiddle
Joined: 20 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2009 2:57 am Post subject: |
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Steelrails equivocated:
I
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don't think Jordan was that bad. That's sports. You get on that court you are trash-talking non-stop. It's not a ghetto thing. You go anywhere at a serious level of competition and there is trash-talking. The thing is in sports when its done between athletes you're not supposed to take it too personally.
At least Jordan was being honest in explaining why he was a Hall-of-Fame caliber athlete. The naysayers drove him. He's there because they said something. It's his moment. He shouldn't have to say something that makes ME feel happy. It IS about |
Nice try but he wasn't on the court but at a prestigious event in his honor with some of the very people he trashed in attendance. Talk about ungrateful. And what's his excuse to his children?
Fox explained in response to proustme's outburst:
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Well, I don't know why he included it, he'll have to answer that himself. I don't think he meant it the way you feel he did thiough; I'm inclined to believe he took a well known phrase and attempted to apply it to a situation regarding Black culture rather than Blacks themselves, because it's more consistent with other things he said.
Perhaps I'm being too generous, but I doubt it. |
Precisely my sentiment and thanks for the objectivity. I will only add that when Bush was repeatedly referred to as Dubya, not even his middle name, none of his detractors was ever accused of racism. And if you bothered to read my posts carefully you'd have noted that I intended to refer to the President only by his middle name when I felt he didn't rise to the level of presidential behavior, as with his remarks about the Cambridge Police Department. But calling West a "jackazz" off mic was entirely appropriate and I applaud him for it.
What's lost in all this is the irony that many of the very same younger Black entertainers who act ghetto actually never grew up in a ghetto. So I guess that makes them wannabe ghetto, which is about as pathetic as Eminem thinking he's a talented rap artist. By the way, the word "wigger" comes to mind in reference to him, which even Black pop media reporters have used. Does that make them Uncle Toms?
Rufus:
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| best in the business |
I would never characterize Kanye or Serena as deserving of this appellation. And they are just the most recent examples of thuggish behavior. I also mentioned the two Browns and othersl. The list is long. But this most recent spate set me off. |
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ED209
Joined: 17 Oct 2006
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| Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2009 3:31 am Post subject: |
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| I'm not saying ManintheMiddle likes fish sticks, I'm just saying someone should ask |
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Captain Corea
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2009 2:49 pm Post subject: |
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| MitM - why is this a "black thing" though? Could not something similar be said for a great number of youth of any race in America? |
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shifter2009
Joined: 03 Sep 2006
Location: wisconsin
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| Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2009 4:44 pm Post subject: |
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| I would like to know how these people are 'Ghetto' as well. Serena Williams lived in West Palm beach from the age of 9 and was raised as a Jehovah's Witness. Jordan is from Wilmington, North Carolina. (Totally hood) Kanye lived in the Chicago suburbs with his English professor mother. Jordan is almost 20 years older than the other two as well, not exactly the same generation. You could just take their actions as individual events having nothing to do with one another or I suppose you could try and blame it on black culture warping their minds. |
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ManintheMiddle
Joined: 20 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2009 1:26 am Post subject: |
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shifter postulated:
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| I would like to know how these people are 'Ghetto' as well. Serena Williams lived in West Palm beach from the age of 9 and was raised as a Jehovah's Witness. Jordan is from Wilmington, North Carolina. (Totally hood) Kanye lived in the Chicago suburbs with his English professor mother. Jordan is almost 20 years older than the other two as well, not exactly the same generation. You could just take their actions as individual events having nothing to do with one another or I suppose you could try and blame it on black culture warping their minds. |
Fair enough, and I'm game. Let me clarify: yes, Jordan is chronologically of a different generation and should know better but he has evidently bought into the ghetto mindset. That he doesn't come from the ghetto makes his actions even less excusable. Same goes for Serena. Anyway, I knew this already. Think of it this way: you now have a pattern (it's beyond a trend) of behavior which buys into an imagined hood experience. As I said before, it's a kind of wannabe ghetto conduct, which is even more pathetic because it's imitative. It appeals to the lowest common denominator of strata of American society: the willing ghetto boy (no perjorative intended). It's a subculture within African American culture which is spreading fast and crossing racial lines. It is a form of social ghettoization and it's considered by its "practitioners" to be extremely hip. But my main contention is that it is part and parcel of a growing need among far too many (re: not all) Black youth that being cool or trying to be perceived as cool--which now includes being angry and indignant without just cause for either--matters more than being right, righteous, or well-bred (re: mannered). It is a growing phenomenon which hasn't been explored by the Left, either Black or White intelligentsia because it's considered taboo, against the grain of politically correct inquiry.
And to understand it requires introspection at the community level, which until now only a handful of well-educated Blacks have been willing to do (e.g., Cosby, Steele, Keyes, McWhorter, etc.).
Let me clear: this behavior is no longer limited to the Black community and indeed imitators in other racial and ethnic groups now abound. But it is at its root endemic to the Black inner city, although of course many Blacks who live there don't buy into this mindset. That's why you see young Blacks who attend suburban schools acting out, trying to be what they imagine their bros in the hood say and do. It's why so many snicker at Whites like Eminem or even Asians who try to imitate their "style," all the while not realizing or caring that the long tradition of Black American popular culture attempted, sometimes in vain but always in earnest, to eschew it.
Coolness, on the other hand, has gone from being a coping mechanism in times of segregation to a warped kind of fashion statement--not only literally in the dress of those who flaunt it but in their attitudes and behavior. It's a kind of raw, in-your-face, proud-to-be-ignorant, defiance without, usually, just cause to be such. It's perverse, it distorts community, it disrupts relationships in the Black community, and constitutes a social contagion, which most youth regardless of culture are susceptible too.
I could go on and on but if you haven't got the point by now you probably never will. It's not pretty but it's as real as it comes and, as The Black Avenger often reminds us on his radio show, it is insidious and ultimately self-destructive. Of course, the Afrocentrics and the masters of critical race theory like Cornell West and bell hooks would have us believe it's all the direct outcome of persistent racism in American society. But that's not only untrue; it's a cop out, which only White liberals trying to assuage their sense of guilt and idiots like Kanye West buy into. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2009 2:34 am Post subject: |
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| the masters of critical race theory like Cornell West and bell hooks would have us believe it's all the direct outcome of persistent racism in American society |
You mean to tell me that slavery and Jim Crow has NOTHING to do with that? There are still millions of people alive who spent their formative years living in Jim Crow, that deserves some mitigation for what has happened. Besides nobody's community is perfect and in spite of some problems in poor black neighborhoods, one could look at poor white neighborhoods and see many of the same problems, just in different form.
Look the 'ghetto' mindset is pretty depressing. One need only look at the 'Don't Tread On Me' types who walk around this country with major chips on their shoulders to see how it HAS permeated culture and how it is ultimately self-destructive. But it is not the only culture in 'black America'. It's like saying Country culture is the only culture in 'white America'.
It all goes back to what sells on TV- Sex and Violence- For all people. Look at what people want the news and their movies to be about. I also think this may correlate more (not always) to gender than race. Males in general cause more of a scene and carry on with general thuggery than females.
The other posters are right, you can pick plenty of people of all races and try and say 'look here's a trend'. I hear what your saying, but I'm not sure that at least in Jordan's case or even Serena's that it was 'keeping it real'. I think there is a better way to make this argument than using the examples of Jordan and Serena. Kanye on the other hand was just an upstaging pinhead. |
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geldedgoat
Joined: 05 Mar 2009
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ManintheMiddle
Joined: 20 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 6:22 pm Post subject: |
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Steelrails responded:
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| You mean to tell me that slavery and Jim Crow has NOTHING to do with that? |
With what?
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| There are still millions of people alive who spent their formative years living in Jim Crow, that deserves some mitigation for what has happened. |
Yes, indeed, and NONE of them are the target of my ire. Thanks for reinforcing my point.
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| Besides nobody's community is perfect and in spite of some problems in poor black neighborhoods, one could look at poor white neighborhoods and see many of the same problems, just in different form. |
Gee, thanks for reminding us all of the obvious. I didn't condemn the Black community as a whole, nor even all blacks who live in the inner city. Stop being defensive, just because you're Black.
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| It all goes back to what sells on TV- Sex and Violence- For all people. Look at what people want the news and their movies to be about. I also think this may correlate more (not always) to gender than race. Males in general cause more of a scene and carry on with general thuggery than females. |
I think I made it abundantly clear that males in general drive this behavior but it's now an equal gender opportunity "employer." To say that sex and violence has brought this on is a red herring: such television has been with us since the early 1960s and yet that generation is not included in my indictment. No, this is a direct outgrowth of gangsta rap and the seedier underbelly of hip-hop. It is a mentality rather than a cultural trait which has, unfortunately, manifested itself most tenaciously among many Black youth. But it can and does cross generational and racial lines, to be sure. Frankly, it sickens me when I see East Asian youth try to act ghetto, and this disgust is for me in no way a reflection on African Americans in general. (I routinely teach African American literature in my courses here). |
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Leslie Cheswyck
Joined: 31 May 2003
Location: University of Western Chile
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| Posted: Sat Sep 19, 2009 4:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Yo Michael Jordan, I'm happy for you, I'mma let you finish, but Lou Gehrig had one of the greatest Hall Of Fame speeches of all time. Of all time! |
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