I have a dream - Black History Month

MrBishop

MrBishop

Well-Known Member
February is Black History Month - A time of reflection and an opportunity to teach our children about what has come before and how we, as a society, have changed our view of the Black people living with us. ... but has it really changed that much?

Delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963. Source: Martin Luther King, Jr: The Peaceful Warrior, Pocket Books, NY 1968

[size=+1]Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity. But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.
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source

Poverty, crime, drugs and desolation still haunt the black man. Racism breathes still and we have not seen the light at the end of the tunnel.

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.
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When will this dream become a reality?


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The kids are learning that in school this month. My daughter keeps singing "we will overcome" to herself.
 
We've made great strides in the right directions. But I doubt that dream will ever be fully realized as long as there are differences in people. Even if the races were ever fully homogenized, the prejudice would just shift to hair color or eye color or social status...In some things, man is incapable of overcoming his nature. I fear this is one of those things...:(
 
MrBishop said:
When will this dream become a reality?
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I think we'll see it in our lifetimes, it's coming, ever so slowly, but it's coming.
 
This is complicated. People are always looking at differences and setting up hierarchies. Not all cultures share the same prejudices however. In some countries citizens of African descent are fully integrated into the dominant society, and other ethnic groups suffer discriminatory acts.

As far as the US goes, it HAS gotten better. No more separate drinking fountains and "white only" establishments for crying out loud. And this wasn't so long ago. Reverse discrimination is a logical byproduct of trying to change long-entrenched behaviors. The pendulum will swing to center eventually. Patience, my friends. Patience. If you look across the span of history and see the decades upon decades of racism in this country, can you honestly expect it to disappear within a generation or two? without any backlash? That would only happen if we were all reasonable people, and if we were all reasonable people, there would never have been any slavery, feudalism, racism, Inquisition, Crusades, genocide, etc.
 
I'm with Prof on this one. There is a lot of racism in the world still. But you know - it's not all towards black people. There's plenty of 'black only' things (Ebony Magazine is one that comes to mind, I"m sure there's more buy my train is quickly derailing ...)

Anyway. I'm with Prof. Did I say that?
 
Rose said:
I'm with Prof on this one. There is a lot of racism in the world still. But you know - it's not all towards black people. There's plenty of 'black only' things (Ebony Magazine is one that comes to mind, I"m sure there's more buy my train is quickly derailing ...)

Anyway. I'm with Prof. Did I say that?
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There's plenty of "female-only" and "male-only" and "children-only" stuff too. What's wrong with magazines, clubs, etc responding to niche markets? :confused:

You can read them or not. I used to read my mother's AARP magazine every month. I loved it even though I wasn't the "tarket market" at the time. :shrug:
 
You know, the black only clubs and such don't bother me. After all, they obviously have things in common that the average white person would have no understanding of. Same goes for Chinese, Hispanic, etc.. Oh, and White.
 
It's not the existance of black's clubs and women's clubs and such that bother me. It's that if I try and open a white club, I'm a racism. Any woman can walk into any YMCA. (That's Young Men Club of America), but a guy walking into a YWCA is gonna get run out on a rail.

Get the picture?
 
Yup yup, that's why I said what I said. You want eclusive clubs for minorities, fine. But there will be white men's clubs too. Not to sit around and discuss the upcoming lynching, but to hang with people that are like us.
 
I want stuff like Boy scouts, to be for BOYS. Men's golf to be for MEN.

Or none at all. Everyone in everything. But cut the fucking whining about double standards. Black quotas in colleges and gov't employment. Women and men having different minimun hight and strength requirements for work as cops and firefighters. Sports. All of it.
 
Hmmm...Seems the white male is the only minority without the comfort of minority status and the special rights and privleges it affords....:tardbang:
 
Ms Ann Thrope said:
There's plenty of "female-only" and "male-only" and "children-only" stuff too. What's wrong with magazines, clubs, etc responding to niche markets? :confused:

You can read them or not. I used to read my mother's AARP magazine every month. I loved it even though I wasn't the "tarket market" at the time. :shrug:
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It's already been said since your post (I'm slow), but it isn't the specific group only market issue. It's like PT said - if you try to open a white-only club you get in lots of trouble. Or how about an "Ivory" magazine (one may exist? I dunno). I agree with you, Ms. - if you don't like it don't read/visit the place.

But its the point of equality.
 
Professur said:
It's not the existance of black's clubs and women's clubs and such that bother me. It's that if I try and open a white club, I'm a racism. Any woman can walk into any YMCA. (That's Young Men Club of America), but a guy walking into a YWCA is gonna get run out on a rail.

Get the picture?
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Sorry, but that's the breaks Prof.... children often pay for the sins of their fathers.... the original perpetrators of evil rarely suffer (unless you believe in justice after life); it is the generations after that have to clean up the mess and it's not simple, quick or easy. :shrug:

I'm able to vote and work where I please, but I never had to go to jail for these rights and privileges, never had to go on a hunger strike where I was tied up and a tube shoved down my throat to force feed me. There are countless individuals that suffered brutality I can barely imagine so that women had the right to vote. They never saw the fruits of their labors. Likewise, I think of the generations of blacks that lived and died praying for equality and never saw it. The people of all races and colors who fought for civil rights, who braved mob lynchings and saw crosses burning but still stayed their course. Many of them died before they saw things improve.

I feel worse for those people than for some white male of European descent whining because he can't get into some stupid club. :shrug:
 
I remember back in CEGEP (Junior College) they had the black and 3rd world club, if you where of any minority, you where automatically entered into it, whether you knew it or not.

And since you where entered, the budgeting was done by members of a club, so they the 30 people who where active had a huge budget.

well on kid in teh sci fi club (45 active members) got pissed, and petitioned to open a club called white and first world...they turned him down. He started a petition and everything, it was actually hilarious, cause he was black, he fought to have his name removed from the member lsit of Black and 3rd world.

I had a point, I know I did.


crap
 
Squiggy said:
I'm thinking this thread has confirmed my earliest post in it...;)
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yeah, that was my point

I won't even go into the fight I had to get my name removed from the jewish club. Not that I mind being jewish, just they stood for things I didn't
 
Professur said:
It's not the existance of black's clubs and women's clubs and such that bother me. It's that if I try and open a white club, I'm a racism. Any woman can walk into any YMCA. (That's Young Men Club of America), but a guy walking into a YWCA is gonna get run out on a rail.

Get the picture?
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Hey Prof... every club starts out as a white-only men's club...they just don't call it that...and it stays that way until *gasp* a black guy joins or a woman joins. The members fight to keep it the way it was and complain that they have to fbend their ideals to allow anyone in because of leftist ideals etc...
 
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