This post is a first expression of something I feel very strongly about, at least for this blog. I can't understand why there are so few people, especially white people, who care about what goes on in 'the hood'. I regularly read the Time Picayune online in one of America's most troubled cities, New Orleans. Almost daily there are stories about violent murders, mostly young black males. The comments section never ceases to amaze me. The vitriol and lack of compassion, along with blatant racism still astounds me! I have seen it for years and I know it exists, but it still bothers me.
Note to Conservatives: Just because we have a black President does not mean racism is over. It still is not acceptable to say "Get over slavery". It is not okay to lay all the blame on minorities for the struggles in minority communities. I could easily put together a long diatribe about this, which most ignorant folks would still ignore or not understand, but this post it not about that.
This post is about a story I just read.
http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/05/man_shot_in_marrero.html
As a summation of the story, despite the headline saying a 'man' was shot, the event was involving a 14 year old boy. It is not okay for this to happen, not acceptable. Although I am a 'sensitive' guy and perhaps might cry more easily than all you macho types, I do not cry much. This story makes me want to cry though. If this happens just once, that is a major deal to me. Unfortunately, in the past two weeks, I've read about at least 2 children murdered in N.O., and at least 4 or 5 more between 18 and 25 years of age -- all with 'illegal' weapons. The boy above was murdered with one shot from an AK-47.
Unfortunately, I live in one of the most Conservative states in the Union where guns are a sacred right and the general lack of basic comprehension of societal issues is not understood or is not a concern. I see a general, let the criminals kill themselves or let me take a shot at someone if I am ever threatened, type of attitude here. Those people miss the point that the government is not our biggest threat right now. Hunting is not the most important thing you need to protect. I don't disagree with the right to protect one's self, in fact I believe that to be extremely important. The problem is this, if all you focus on is protecting gun rights and never for a minute worry about fixing the crime or drug problems, eventually you will be overwhelmed by the problems of society and all the guns in the world won't protect you from a collapse of civilization.
There are so many things more important than gun rights at the moment, but I'll only list one -- Babies are dying in the streets in every major city in the country. There are miniature wars, that kill more of our people yearly than have died in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, right here at home. Babies are dying in the street! So why don't white people care? Is it because they're not your babies? A child is a child-- bottom line. Man, I'm done, for now. :(
Friday, May 1, 2009
Maybe I should be like other white people
Posted by Therealisttruest (aka RealTrue) at 10:46 AM
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6 comments:
People kill people. Guns are just as available Uptown to the white middle class you seem to hate so much.
Why aren't they killing each other?
Taking away the freedoms of others because those in your community can't handle them isn't the answer. The answers to fixing problems in the black community are in the black community. No one will do it for you. Good luck. God bless.
Thanks for stopping by. I'll have to disagree somewhat with your resolution. The problems that were created, historically, were created by us whites. Those historical problems of poverty, backward culture, and lack of education, are what has helped hinder the black community for decades now(since the 'freedom' of the 60s).
Realistically, it took white America a couple hundred years to break free of colonialism and create a truly profitable nation, which has happened only in the last century. That is starting with the advantage of having all the power, all the money, and all the guns that our ancestors could get. Yes there was a lot of hard work too, but even then a lot of that was done by minorities who didn't even come close to profiting the same way. So tell me this, if your people started with nothing, how did they make it into something? I started from nothing and have spent half my life trying to make it to something. I didn't grow up with drug addicted parents or substandard schools, or shootings every day in my neighborhood. Basically I was given a fair chance, without having my life ruined as it started. So you think it is easy to grow up in the hood? That will mess a lot of people up. So don't put it all on a small group of successful blacks who are still trying to fight for what they have made. True enough, they should be involved, but not all alone and certainly not without the majority population, which just happens to be you and I, whites. My point is that a societal shift needs to be made, not a racial shift. Everyone needs to stand up, everyone. I know I went into gun rights on this post originally, but my point is that we have bigger problems than the 'gubment' taking away our guns.
Finally, I don't hate the white middle class, because that would be self hatred. I don't know anything about Uptown either, unfortunately. I've been around N.O. and truthfully the whole place looked like a dump. That tells me one big thing, one small group of people can't change that place. Again, everyone in your city needs to stand up and fix it! The problems are just too wide spread there and in every major city of our nation.
It's easy in the hood because the people in the hood dont make it easy. Whatever happened to people talking about problems or even for the fact whatever happened to a good old fashion Ass whooping no people rasort to guns now!!!!!Somehow it always comes out as WHITE people not caring. Get over the slavery Days they are gone!!!! You probably were not even affected by it! On the other hand maybe your grandmother was which I truely feel sorrow for no human being any color should go threw what they have been threw!!!! So lets stop with the blaming of cultures and start blaming who is really to blame. The ignorant people who are out there selling drug and shooting up todays younger community.
Look man, you're getting all bent out of whack here, when this is just what they do...black people as an ethnic or cultural group, they lack critical thinking and problem-solving skills, they lack the mental or moral framework to see consequences for their actions, they lack the ability for foresight or the cognitive ability to think or plan any real distance into the future. They have virtually no sense of conflict resolution, so whatever it is, it always escalates to violence at the drop of a hat with them.
It's not about guns, if they don't have guns they will attack each other with knives, or hammers, or their fists. It's how they resolve disputes, you feel me?
This is because they come from thousands of years of hunter-gatherer culture in Africa, before they ever got here. And they've never left that behind. So what do they do? They forage, i.e. steal and rob, in modern terms. And they fight amongst each other and with everybody they come into contact with. It's just what they do, man. You are not going to undo that any time soon.
Mainly, with these murders and crimes in New Orleans, you are judging these people by a yardstick (i.e. white European or American standards of law and morality) which they themselves have no comprehension of, you are placing them in larger terms of a notion of civilization that they have NO interest in participating in, and they actually want nothing AT ALL to do with the behavioral or moral standards that you are trying to hold them up to. If you are thinking that you are going to somehow change these people, or going to try and teach them any different, you are going to have a long row to hoe, because they don't WANT IT. They really really don't.
You have to think of these people in terms of the larger picture of historical time. All that oppression stuff, all the slavery and segregation and lynching and discrimination and whatnot, that was really just a VERY short and unhappy interlude in the larger history of their race and people. Now that they are free, now that they are considered to have equal rights in the eyes of the law etc., now society has collectively said to them "we are going to pass these civil rights laws and invite you into the American mainstream, and we will leave you alone now, we will even stop criticizing you or censuring your behavior, so feel free to be yourself." Now that they are empowered to do and be whatever they want, they are going back to the same exact behavior that they were doing long before all that bad slavery stuff happened to them. What you see in New Orleans is all about hunter/gatherer foraging, and brute fighting amongst each other, mostly over tribal lineages or bloodlines or competition for scarce resources. Competition for females or for drugs etc.
This was the actual purpose of the radical "black power" movement of the late 1960s and 1970s; the idea of that movement was not to bring black people into the mainstream fold of America, but to create a totally DIFFERENT paradigm for black people, that reflected who they really were and show the world what they REALLY thought. It was violent, it was aggressive, it was militant, it was racist, it was cruel, it was contemptuous of everything about America. It was basically everything that Africa itself is, chaotic and violent, and it reflected who these people really are. Enough history lesson for today but you really need to learn to think a little bit more about where these problems are coming from. If they didn't have guns they would be slinging at each other with rocks, believe me.
Wow, busy day for me on a HOT topic, especially in the New Orleans area.
Firstly, Anonymous 2(gotta give you a name different from the other one, but could be same person for all I know)--
Anyways, short reply for a short reply, go back and read my original post and my first comment. I am a white man, and therefore my family was not involved in being a slave. In actuality half of my family came from Germany and the others Britain. I am sure the German side had no slaves as they came over last century after slavery. The other side, who knows. As for 'getting over it' how is that possible when the affects are not over? Slavery and the aftermath of how it was handled have continued the legacy of discrimination and thus the situation in the black community is directly resultant from history. On to the next comment. Anyways, re-read.
Cojoe(finally a name), I think I have seen your racist rhetoric on the TP before. I'll give you only this point, you seem to be intelligent, or at least well-spoken, kind of the David Duke type. I'm not being disingenuous here, seriously.
I honestly can't even begin to address everything you stated as we are on opposite sides and you are on the far, far side away from my belief system. I would assume you are a white man, as am I, but that is about where our similarities end. Looks like you might be a UNO student or God-forbid staff by the IP address of your post.
Enough of that though, speaking of history-- name one single country or territory that our people have touched, that have not been pillaged then destroyed or abandoned. I'm not talking about native Euro countries, though much of the savagery you describe historically happened there amongst each other too. I'm speaking of the whole continent of Africa, the Middle East, Asia, even North and South America. The problems in Pakistan and India are are a direct result of the British as well as the Middle East. Africa was carved up amongst various powers of the day, raped and pillaged and then abandoned. The same goes with South America (mainly by Portugal and Spain) and we all know what our descendants did to this portion of the world. Something like 95% of indigenous people in our nation disappeared off the earth during and after European seizing of the land.
Bottom line, I think your points are highly misguided and not based in any semblance of fact. That's putting it nicely though. Sincerely, you are part of the problem and part of the reason this transition into a truly multicultural society is going to be quite a rocky proposition. Anyways, since I am a hard-working guy, have to get back to work from lunch, but I'll check in again later. That's all, you feel ME(say it like you're from N'awlins, fill meh, come on you can do it!)?
Nice Blog. Congrats.
-Zakir Ali ‘Rajnish’
{ Secretary-TSALIIM & SBAI }
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