'I'm either too black or not black enough': One teenager's experience
bbc.com
bbc.com
I’m Black and hate this excuse. I bet the average White kid hears the N-word more from rap music and Black people than White people.
Richard Pryor expressed it better than I ever could.
(Profanity, NSFW)
That’s different from the situations in some places where the word for a people in translation is an epithet but it’s the only word for those people, not that it’s embraced. (think “gaijin” thirty years ago, as an accessible example).
This isn't accurate (or at least probably isn't). Brown is a common surname in England and also in other countries in the local language (e.g. Braun in Germany). Her ancestors were probably owned by someone with the surname Brown and that's where they got the name from.
It isn't a secret that most african american's last names are derived from slave owners. It's one of the reasons why some african americans change their last name.
One of the legacies of slavery and colonialism is that a significant portion of the world was given european last names. The most popular surnames in the philipines are spanish surnames because the indigenous filipinos didn't have surnames and they took the name their spanish masters and priests assigned them. Of course that also applies to their country since the Philippines was names after a spanish king.
But I'll say something which I shouldn't say. It's too personal to say it in public, but if you've never been a minority, then you'll never know. So to spare you from having to move to another place where you are a minority, I'll tell you.
The biggest racists is you. Every time you compare yourself to others and wonder if you fit in, you are dividing yourself from the others. Every time you celebrate your culture as if it is different from their culture, you are dividing yourself from others. Every time you say "they" instead of "we" you are separating yourself from others.
You can say it is their fault, but it's not. Nobody can control another person. Even if they are racist, it doesn't mean you have to be. How does it sound to say, "We are racist"? Pretty weird when it's them throwing the slurs, or denying you business, or just treating you like crap for no particular reason. It's still your choice. In or out?
It's hard. If you become "them", don't you throw away "you"? If you hate them because they are racist, because they treat you badly, are you part of the problem? If you accept it, aren't you part of the problem? Why can't you be "you" without having to give in to "them"? What's wrong with being different? What's wrong with being the same?
Those are hard questions. I haven't been a minority long enough to be able to answer those questions. Probably my life will not be long enough to answer those questions. That's part of the problem. The only thing I know is that you won't find peace waiting for others to give you answers. It's something that you have to work out for yourself. Maybe that's not fair, but it's the way it is.
Where I lived, I was the only white person in the whole neighbourhood. I later learned there was another - after we dated and a neighbour told me because he found that odd.
When I learned to drive, I was the only white person in the school. When I took the exam, there was a white examinator - we all feared him, because he failed more students than most based on technicalities. We he told me he would fail me if I didn't do this special maneuver right on my 3rd and final attempt, I thought to myself I'll total the car if needed, but I'll do whatever. Because there was this doubt in my mind he was being extra pricky for me because of that.
When I went to the university, there was about 2 other white person in my whole class. I would estimate 5% to 10% maximum of the university. Things I heard.
Things told to me when I tried to run for a student election: "you are a nice person and you have good ideas, unfortunately we both know we are not going to be elected. I would have a chance. You don't".
He was wrong, I was elected. It was always an uphill battle. Eventually I said f that, and I moved away. The thing that really drove it was often being asked "how long are your vacation here?"
I guess everything else I tried to do doesn't make a difference in the mind of most people. Yes I had good friends that saw beyond the difference and to which I was a normal person. But in the daily life you meet more than just friends.
You know the funnier thing? I'm not exactly what one US person would call white. When I visited europe, I found it funny to be followed by security guard. To always be asked to have my bag inspected. To be checked for ID - sometimes everyday by the same policeman. Just for fun.
It aint fun.
So I am the biggest racist? Maybe. I am no longer a minority. I moved to a country where I do not stand out. It has been years. I love every minute of it. Being able to have normal interaction with people who won't assume the worst of me.
It sucks to stand out in the middle.
I read the article, and I liked it.
But I chuckle when the authors says "We have reclaimed that word as our own. We can use it, and white people no longer can"
Maybe this rules apply in polite company? I don't are about polite company. I have been called too many bad names. I can use any word I want - including nigger, when appropriate, like in that story. Sorry to people who don't like that and want to impose me things just because of my looks.
Because growing more taboos words, trying to retract in pocket of self preserving culture while crying cultural appropriation is wrong.
I did that. The author also. I just hope our kids won't have to leave with that, can fix their DNA any way they want (the transgendered, wouldn't you like that too?) and integrate in any way their want once the human race will have taken grown out of these stupidities and realized we are all in the same boat.
DNA doesn't matter much. How people treat you because of your DNA on which you have no control, that matters to me.
Funny thought: I really think we will become capable of altering appearance and DNA way before we grow up to become more accepting to people "not like us" and "minorities".
Here is a true story: when studying in London, I met there another Greek in the same course and we became friends; in a parallel course of ours, there was this black dude from the Carribbean, to which we occasionally chit chat about our countries, our experiences, mostly over launch in the University cafeteria.
After some time, we were regularly been eating together with this carribbean dude, we became sort of friends.
And then my Greek friend dropped the bomb: "I don't want to eat with Jim, because he is black". I was dumbfounded!!! I didn't ask why, because it was so stupid...
Here is another true story: my and my buddy (not the person in the above story, another one, close friend of mine) had the chance of meeting some nice girls at a local cafe. We approached them, and us being young and eager to meet some ladies, made the first move. Within them, there was this gorgeous black lady, tall, slim, amazing face, etc. I was natually inclined to her, so I made my move...after a few times we went out, me, her, my buddy, and a white friend of her, I noticed my buddy refused to shake hands with my date...I said 'what's up? why don't you shake hands with her?"...he looked at me with a blank stare and said 'I just don't want to'. Excuse me, what the fsck? It turned out my 'buddy' was an extremely racist person and considered all black people to be inferior. He wasn't my friend after a bit of time though.
I truly have a serious problem understanding the people that are racists. It's one thing to be cautious when meeting someone, especially one that you don't know their value system, but to be blatantly racist and consider others inferior like that? I will never understand that...
IMO racism mostly stems from fear and plain ignorance, but that is easily cured if someone just takes a moment to listen, understand and then with gentle attempts to counter their fears or lack of understanding.
So far I have not failed once to make people more understanding and accepting of diversity and equality, and that just by taking a moment with them.
But some know very well what they're doing. I have posted my personal story below.
You are free to disbelieve me
Unfortunately those people sometimes choose the easy/wrong people or groups to fulfill their desires.
It's not always ignorance or fear, it can be a psychological need for connections or purpose that overrides common sense.
I can't be the only one who thinks the racist you know is better than the racist you don't.
Also, the sentiment here that people wouldn't dare use the word if there were more blacks around, in fear of intimidation and violence in return, doesn't paint a very good picture of black people.
As a relatively poor "white" person, I've put up with a lot of this intimidation.
Are we going to do something different, or the same old thing, just with different actors?
They would know they are in Southside Chocago, which is someone else's home. The author is in Eastern Europe, which is their home, and where people will sing away with Kanye or Kendrick not intending for others to take offence, because that's the rules in Eastern Europe.
If anything, the post comes off as another American complaining that other places aren't like America.
There are definitely some songs in that genre that I enjoy but most of it is unbearably mysoginist, vulgar, materialistic and shallow.
I have brought this up with friends in the past and been told “we just like the rhythm and the beat” - which often I do too - but I can’t separate it from the lyrics.
Ever think they might like it exactly because the lyrics aren’t pleasant or agreeable? And can do so without agreeing with the ideas in the lyrics?
In other words: People don’t have to be suicidal to enjoy Hamlet’s exploration of suicide, do they?
However imagine if you spent a significant amount of time reading and listening to explorations of suicide and people who committed suicide started to be interpreted as role models.
I have no issue with bad language and the full spectrum of human experiences but I can discern what is positive for myself and society.
I’m just a bit tired of how it’s normalised. I’d rather not hear about drug dealing, murders, prostitution and gold Rolexes with my Sunday brunch or while I buy a new pair of joggers.
Can’t we listen to Lupe Fiasco’s “Kick Push” instead?
> Hip Hop can be a very powerful weapon to help expand young people’s political and social consciousness. But just as with any weapon, if you don’t know how to use it, if you don’t know where to point it, or what you’re using it for, you can end up shooting yourself in the foot or killing your sisters or brothers.
-- Assata Shakur
People stumbling around mumbling about "syzzurp" and "xans" and whatever else... rape and drugs and abuse and violence... don't rinse, just repeat.
If it's harmless to like something [and listen to it over and over and over again] and not agree with it, then it would also be harmless to listen to stuff one agrees with. Or still disagrees with, but which at least doesn't frame everything as a matter of theft and violence, or the sterilized product of both, mad stacks of money, life as nothing more than a drug-riddled tunnel either into the gutter or commercial success with all the soul-removal that entails... while sucking up to one's own fans, in a spiral of infantilization mixed with sex, drugs and violence.
Like the streamer business model, mumble incoherently while you do something badly, and when someone donates, say "you guys are awesome". The rest is facade, that's the mechanism. People get uprooted and scared off from being themselves, then they identify with things that will never give them ground to root in, and make their own identity a bunch of sliders and checkboxes in a character editor. I say this as someone who has been listening to rap for over two decades and writing it for over one. I don't claim to be a head, far from, or to be very good at it, even further from, but I'm also not just repeating Fox talking points or whatever, FWIW. And now it's all turning to "mood" and "party", where earlier bullshit notions had to be smuggled in with nice flows and rhymes, it now can be mass produced at a whole other level. The way I see it it's a temple, full of merchants and their customers, and everybody is so thick by now you can take a bull whip to them and they don't even realize it.
There is no culture there, either. That is, large parts of the culture that is there, discredited itself by not screaming bloody murder at these clowns... "that's the game", "that's how rap is", any number of excuses, the ultimate being "but I like it, leave me alone". There's a lot of synthetic BS docking on to receptors for culture, sure, making sure there is no culture by and for people. It's like sterilized mosquitos, come to think of it.
> What really hurts me sometimes is that there’s not a lot of consciousness in their music. There could be a whole lot more. Rapping is communicating-it should be an instrument for our liberation. We don’t have time to talk about being players and hustlers and gangsters. We didn’t come off of the slave ships that way. We need to become proud Africans again and stop running around in Shirley Temple curls talkin’ ‘bout how we’re pimps and players. A lot of the symbols that are in rap records and videos are indications of decadent consumerism and in a very real sense, those gold chains, hundred-dollar sneakers and T-shirts with a designer’s name on it underline how much they’ve become enslaved by the consumer mentality in the United States-consumer slaves.
-- Assata Shakur
As for Hamlet, well:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sorrows_of_Young_Werther#C...
All three paragraphs are fascinating, and "desecrating the memory of a Werther from which Goethe had distanced himself in the meantime" is kinda the sanctimonious way some fans/artists defend stuff they either can't explain, or, when the meaning is obvious, don't agree with but like.
It's like saying "it's just a prank and/or a social experiment and/or a joke and/or art", so really not important or solid enough so it could be criticized... but with the other side of the mouth it's so important and holy by mere virtue of people liking it, that any criticism is filed under "hate" and never even looked at deeply enough for any of it to sink in. Rap isn't special when it comes to that, of course, but it's also coated in it.