Malcolm X Was Better Than MLK Jr.

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
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Reasons? For starters, he didn’t cop out to white hegemony. He realized the perils that integration would bring. Instead, he sought to build separate black communities that were empowered by black leaders, not bowing to a white elite and having to begin at the bottom rung of society. He understood how unnatural integration actually is in that at any time two cultures or ethnicities are forced to coexist homogeneously, one is always subjugated to the other.

Look at black-American culture now; it has been raped and pillaged of any remaining glory it once had by rich, white, suburban, teen youth. Where have all the black power movements gone? Where are the Black Panthers? When was the last time a rap album was actually made for fellow black people? Have African-Americans grown comfortable with their current state? Is Anglo-America’s disease of apathy contagious? White America has become an infectious scab on this planet with its consumerism and multicultural indifference. It, like the blacks, must return to some culture, some foundation of identity.

The thing is, I fear white America is too far gone to regain any past substance; too much integration of European nationalities to extract any identity (“Hooray for Indo-Europeanism?”). African-Americans however have a chance. African culture isn’t nearly as cut up in cultural distinction like Europe is, making it possible to allow African identity to retake its former shape.

If Malcolm X were here, I’d bet he’d be disgusted. I’m sure MLK Jr. would love it, however.

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I’m not an expert on Malcolm X, but he was all talk and no action I thought; that’s why he was tolerated by the White regime; violence is the answer to Black liberation in America just as it was all across Colonial Africa.

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Simulacra, you certainly bring up several valid points about the lack of a foundational leader and movements. The last significant movement within black culture was that of the Neo-Soul Hip Hop groups. But, the damage done to Afro-American’s stems not only from themselves but from the preambles of history, from post Civil Rights Era through Vietnam and through today. With the assassination of Civil Rights leaders, and the poor/black being drafted into war it changed the whole face of the black culture. We see a backlash develop particularly in the 80’s through the rise of riots again and the African revitalization. We cannot solely blame the white people as black youth no longer strives to be advancing in culture but rather to be “cool” in our society. This is perhaps more of a problem of the youth in general than a single racial problem.

As for Malcolm X being better, perhaps. I look at it this way, the non-violent appealed to the rationale of white America; meanwhile the NoI and Malcolm X used the fear of America. One without the other most likely would have been a Sisyphean struggle. Both would be disgusted at the state of black America. Watch the episode of the Boondocks cartoon where MLK Jr. was only in a coma and not shot. That speaks volumes of self-respecting Afro-Americans.

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Simulacra:
I have one question that is most important: Are you an african american man? I wonder just how old you are.
Reasons? Well a lot of white folks love to judge on black matters they are unqualified to treat. Also, youth will account for a great majority of this counter-opinion views.

— For starters, he didn’t cop out to white hegemony.
O- And MLK did? You need to back this up with facts.

— He realized the perils that integration would bring.
O- And he was blind to the benefits it would also bring.

— Instead, he sought to build separate black communities that were empowered by black leaders, not bowing to a white elite and having to begin at the bottom rung of society.
O- That makes Malcom little better than David Koresh. “Communities”? Yeah that is what we should call the gettho now I guess. You think that all african americans form a “community”? Are you ignorant on black on black violence? This vision is no better than a Neo Nazi: “Separate the blacks from us. But they shall be our equals in power…” Only the most stupid could fall for such a proposition. Building walls around the black “community” would not empower them. It makes them easier to discriminate and to persecute. This whole thing about “leaders” has got to stop. Individuals need to stand up and take responsibility for what they are responsible for- not leaders, not some authority, not some govt. Leaders will be grown, not found, will be elevated, not placed.

— He understood how unnatural integration actually is in that at any time two cultures or ethnicities are forced to coexist homogeneously, one is always subjugated to the other.
O- Nazi ideology. If you build “separate black communities that were empowered by black leaders”, then you will maintain them distinct and create the conditions that favor the creation of hierarchies and subjugation. Integration, regardless of what you say, does not lead to subjection: Separation does. Integration is not conductive to subjugation because subjugation thrieves on distinction, which becomes impossible in an integrated society as opposed to a sectionalized society.

— Look at black-American culture now; it has been raped and pillaged of any remaining glory it once had by rich, white, suburban, teen youth.
O- Other than in music, I don’t see where this statement applies.

— Where have all the black power movements gone?
O- Ask Travis Smiley. I guess they call it the Black State of the Union now.

— Where are the Black Panthers?
O- Cashing their food stamps to buy dubs.

— When was the last time a rap album was actually made for fellow black people?
O- Oh they probably are out there, but Ice T and Ice Cube are now on “white” television…it was only a matter of time before their rethoric against cops and shit would evaporate when they saw a bit of respect from cops who now ask for their authograph rather than arresting them.

— Have African-Americans grown comfortable with their current state?
O- What is their current state?

— Is Anglo-America’s disease of apathy contagious?
O- Perhaps not but anglo-american racism certainly seems to be contagious in your case. “Reversed-racism” seems to be your conceptual foundation.

— White America has become an infectious scab on this planet with its consumerism and multicultural indifference.
O- Or it is the greatest experiment ever attempted to bring peace into the world.

— It, like the blacks, must return to some culture, some foundation of identity.
O- An identity set by the color of their skin rather than by the content of their character?

— The thing is, I fear white America is too far gone to regain any past substance; too much integration of European nationalities to extract any identity (“Hooray for Indo-Europeanism?”). African-Americans however have a chance. African culture isn’t nearly as cut up in cultural distinction like Europe is, making it possible to allow African identity to retake its former shape.
O- Nationalities are artificial and do not determine human “substance”. Identity is not equal to nationalism. Nationalism is just one way a group may seek it’s common identity. But there are other sources of identity irrespective of nationality, such as race, religion and even philosophy, or as some might say: “ideology” or “worldview”. In these regards, Europe, while drawing and redrawing the lines that defined nations still retained, in general, a common identity. Italy is a nation, yet a southern italian does not identify clearly with a nother italian. Sicilian is a distinct language as opposed to italian. The national identity is not what bonds them. What does bond the two is the common religious tradition of Catholicism.
As far as African americans are concerned, I can see that they are worse than europeans in how they lack a common culture or identity. African americans are killing one another still today and here you are speaking about how they have a chance. African culture is not as diverse, “cut up”…that is actually a knock on Africans. You are basically exposing how simple their so called “culture” is. European culture is as diverse as African culture. Decendants of african slaves cannot see their particularities as well as we see european particularities because we have been educated about the european identity of this country not about the african identity of a portion of it’s population. I hope that more young men and women go on to study their cultural identity but along the way I hope that they don’t simply find another idol to avoid the process of creating one’s own identity, one’s style, that may be either european, african, australian whatever the fuck, because the individual is not “marked” by his blood, his color of skin; he is not determined in any way by what happened in Africa or Europe 500 years ago. That is the rhetoric of victims, which here in America no one is born to be.
The other night I went to dinner at a Japanese restaurant and met a brother and sister from Guatemala. That is, born in Guatemala and then immigrated into the US. The young man had mastered 5 languages, going for his six. She knew three. Both were employed, she as a legal assistant, studying for Law and he was a student of political science. And I laughed because black americans keep holding out this excuse that the “American Dream” does not exist or not for blacks. What then? Is white america handing the american dream to Latinos? No. Look at Condolezza Rice, Colin Powell, a few senators, a few lawyers, a few doctors…all black? How did that happened in America??? Well, maybe, and this is just a theory, the america dream is not an entitlement to your race but to your character…that is not proof that Malcom X was right but that MLK was.

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Omar, MLK Jr. did lose a battle for the city of Chicago in that his ideas would work wonders in small towns but with the larger populations where racism was not spoken but rather just known he failed. His compromising position was quickly removed by the mayor of Chicago. But, this example is most likely the closest forfeiture of his position.

I wholly disagree with this statement. Initially you deal in a faulty analogy. The reference to the ghetto is a bit appalling as it seems to me that you believe black people cannot live well w/o implying a lower state of living i.e; ghettos. Black on black violence is most often a result of new economic dependencies (drugs, cars, etc), modern machismo in black culture, and/or cultural beliefs about violence. Malcolm X, the individual, placed an emphasis on discipline through islam. Proper Islam is non-violent and showed great progress in rehabilitating drug addicts at the time. Falling for a proposition as given does not make one stupid. Your appeal to vanity is not loss upon me but the fact of the matter is it carried hope for many people. If you lived in a country that would not allow you to be counted as a citizen because you had blue eyes would you not want to follow someone who said let’s make our own place where our blue eyes are considered beautiful and not a thing of disdain. Would you not follow? Would you be stupid to follow? As far as leaders go, we (Afro-American’s) have leaders, Snoopy Dogg, 50 Cent, etc. are placed as our leaders. I don’t want them. Nor does any self-respecting individual. But, until the country and the individuals stop placing these people on a pedestal ascension for others is a near impossibility.

Dress, language, art, and hip-hop are all indicative of black culture. Do I feel they have been raped? No. Do I feel that them mixing has created a loss of what they mean to the individual? Yes. Examine hip-hop. Originally it was a political forum by which people created musical poetry to explain the struggles of a culture. With the four pillars of hip-hop: MCing, DJing, breaking, and graffing. Through these mediums it helped people express themselves. Now, people consider Jay-Z the testament for political thought through hip-hop.

Who gets more air time? The aforementioned individuals or Smiley? The man is a genius in my book and what many should strive for but the indoctrination cannot be cleared so readily.

Done in poor taste.

Hip-hop transcends racial divides. I recommend Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Dead Prez, and Saul Williams for true hip-hop.

African Americans do have a chance. A hasty generalization. I have never killed another man particularly a black man. As far as simplicity goes, it is not. Almost every city I have been in the black culture is different. I go to Montgomery Alabama and I am in a whole new world. Despite the flaws, throwing out the baby with the bath water is not the most pragmatic approach.

A case of the classic red herring. We are discussing X and you introduce Y to show proof but they are not anywhere near X. Certainly Hispanic culture can promote the success you see. But for every successful Hispanic there are thousands who are drowning in their sorrows. The American Dream you have is not the same for many people. It is floating in the realm of subjectivity. My dream is to become a professor one day and to be judged by the content of my character. Does the content of my character shine through to touch those people who would oppress me due to my external appearance? Over time, yes. Yet, initially I am privy to the same judgmental troubles as anyone else even by black culture. I am of bi-racial descent and both cultures certainly do not believe in a happy medium. A well-spoken individual with african features is still a nigger to many and an Uncle Tom to others. Regardless, I know and see the problems with our nation’s racial divide. This is the 2nd time you have thrown your hat into the racial issue from what I have seen Omar, so do tell what ethnicity are you? Walking a mile in one’s shoe is a whole greater epiphany then telling someone that their shoe is untied.

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The quickest way Blacks could have moved up the social/economic ladder in the US would have been for them to accept genuine offers of a hand up from whites when it was offered. How could they have judged genuine? A willingness to accept MLK’s color blind model for an interracial society. But because neither side could make such a transition instantaneously, Black’s, following Malcolm X, Lewis Farrakhan, Jessie (two-faced) Jackson and the rest, rejected any White aid as being demeaning, instead demanding a welfare state which the (ironically) White Left was only too glad to provide–causing the disintegration of the Black family and keeping most Blacks (90+%) down on the plantation to this day.

You’d think after 45 years of the Great Society and the War on Poverty where results have been non-existent to negative and demands for more money ever-present and thunderous, that some of the 90% would have caught on by now instead of letting rabble rousers like Rev. Wright plant and nurture their hate–the dept and breadth of which has opened a lot of White’s eyes, including mine.

Whatever might have been owed to Blacks 45 years ago has long ago been paid.

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Since Satori did such a good job at responding to omar, I’ll just move on to The Paineful Truth. By the way, Satori, those rappers you mentioned plus many other intellectual “underground” MCs (besides being awesome) are pretty much carrying the remnants of that culture on its back without getting any appreciation from their own people. I commend them for that but I agree with Nas, hip hop is dead.

While I don’t agree with Jessie Jackson or Lewis Farrakhan in terms of their economic theories (i.e. welfare statism), I certainly agree with them when they recognize the disadvantages of full-on integration (if either of those two have even made such assumptions). If I am a racist because I happen to see how horrible of an idea it is to allow an entire disenfranchised people to be ‘reintroduced’ to society and expect them to climb up the mostly-white-ladder from the bottom, then so be it. I’m a racist. I just think blacks, from integration on, were shown the vast contrast in socio-economic status that seemed to directly correlate with skin color and they saw that integration didn’t fix this as promised. Thereafter, the 70’s bred an entire generation of radical black power movements because of the disenchanted mentality that the lack of success the 60’s brought. In my opinion, this along with the remaining departure in skin color and socio-economic status proves that integration wasn’t cracked up to what it was supposed to be.

As for the color blind model, pure humanistic delusion. Can we please stop lying to ourselves? Can we please acknowledge that culture is influenced by all sorts of aesthetic properties such as habitat, diet, climate and even skin color. We are denying the primary societal force that tugs at our psyches and defines us as who we are. Through this denial, we expect to be able to define ourselves, existentially and individually, under the assumption that all we have this Sartrean freedom and responsibility. To me, that’s multicultural consumerist apathy.

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Right. Where in the world are there two or more ethnicities/races/religions who live together in peace and harmony? It’s a hard thing to say after having been told all your life that multiculturalism is the moral and right thing, but multiculturalism is an economic policy and not a moral one. Mixing creates strife.

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But it never had a shot. Integration was only beginning to warm up in the early ‘60’s when, without warning or announcement, Blacks covertly decided they didn’t want integration. They kept saying they wanted it publicly, but then fought it at every turn. They turned their back on their own martyred messiah, MLK, in order to follow their newly corrupted opportunistic, leaderless leaders steppin’ and fetchin’ for the liberal white Massah.

Of course it’s still there. Like I said, expecting overnight change, either by integration or otherwise, was absurd. It was a goal and a place to start. If MLK had lived to keep the Jessie Jacksons in line, things would have been massively different, and I believe he was killed to stop that from happening–by elements on either side, or both sides. And I think MLK’s family knows a lot they aren’t telling.

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I went to school in highly integrated schools, whites blacks reds yellows browns, we got along from elementary school through Jr. high. Then it started changing. This was between 69 an 81 that I did my 12 year stint in public prison,er ,school. High school was when the kids I knew started pulling away from each other to hang with their skin color, not all did but quite a number. Puberty is such a pain in the butt. Hormones kick in and the brains get put on hold. All in the name of ego and keeping up the status quo. I suggest that high school lunches should contain some sort of additive that is like a happy pill. :laughing:

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Yes hormones, pairing up. The one glaring aspect of color blindness that people who were making the effort were unable to overcome was intermarriage. I call it the guesswho’scomingtodinner syndrome. It wasn’t going to be overcome in one generation, and with the system of voluntary social segregation that developed, it will probably remain a rarity for generations to come.

One question that usually remains unasked is why interracial couples with Black men and White women predominate? Yes, it’s based on anecdotal observations, but it’s there–just as is why men are overwhelmingly the drivers in cars with mixed sexes. Either one would be a good subject for a post-graduate dissertation in sociology.

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I dunno, here in South Mississippi, interracial couples are getting more common, white women and black men are not dominate here, its a mixture of both… See that makes me laugh a bit because this is really a historically bigoted straightlaced state, Southern Miss is filled with KKK descendents and members. For such a backwards behind the times state, this one area where I see more integration on a voluntary basis, could be because in one way or another most the folks here on the coast are related and so are less judgmental about that 8 times removed wrong colored skinned cousin.

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Plus, as any rebellious hormone-driven teen loves to do, there is the matter of being a dissident for the sake of pissing off mom, dad, or Uncle Sam. That may explain why there are so many mixed couples where you live, Kriswest; being surrounded by that stigma could make it a breeding ground for such rebellion. It’s wild how as soon as something is legalized, it loses a great deal of its value. I live in a generation who has been brought up with little to no oppression so we’re just trying to find a reason to have a revolution. I appreciate what the counter-culture did in the 60’s, but for fuck’s sakes, who is going to counter the counter-culture and on what basis could it be done?

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Agreed. Like I said, I don’t believe in racial superiority or divinity, that faith requires way too much stupidity, I just think the overall affirmation of cultural distinctions is more beneficial than not. Call it pan-nationalism, the belief that all peoples are entitled to their own respective nations. What makes pan-nationalism different from regular nationalism is that is proclaims the precedence of culture over the state, while nationalism is more fascistic and territorial.

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Hate is more beneficial than tolerance through understanding? Just because there are a few cultural distinctions, does that mean that all the overwhelming commonalities should be ignored?

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Surely not, but one shouldn’t ignore the said distinctions either. It’s a matter of mediation between the two, something humanity seems relatively incapable of.

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:laughing: I have many friends that were hippies and are now yuppies. They were the ones that never said no to their kids, now their grand kids are horrible brats and they can’t understand it. :laughing:

I think also down here it was accepted that white males have a black misstress. So the young men think of it as normal maybe. The largest stigma to overcome down here was a black man with a white woman, they would kill the man and beat the woman almost to death if not kill her. The children from these people would be hidden sent away, or killed. Now grandparents white and black are seen everyday with these mixed kids. I think the hate is burning itself out. Passions can only last for so long. Here where the hate was the darkest and deepest, the younger generations have no passion for it, hate can only last so long until it becomes ridiculous to some generation.

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Or, in other words, passion only lasts so long before it is subsumed by other passions. One can hate passionately, one can love passionately, but I doubt one can do both at the same time. Not to sound cheesy, but it seems in Mississippi, love has prevailed.

By the way, long long ago, in a forgotten time, I once lived in Mississippi for two years. Columbus, near a little town called Caledonia. My aunt still lives there and recently got pummeled by a tornado. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Hello Satori:

— I wholly disagree with this statement. Initially you deal in a faulty analogy. The reference to the ghetto is a bit appalling as it seems to me that you believe black people cannot live well w/o implying a lower state of living i.e; ghettos.
O-The “ghetto” need not be a poor corner of the city, just a systematically distinct section. Some are forced into ghettos while others willfully build their own. The later is Malcom X position in my opinion. Yet my point is not whether they can live well or bad in these black “communities”, but that a community that walls itself off or is forced within walls, either way, as is the case with the jews for example, a community which both walled itself off (Chosen People) and was forced within walls (anti-semitism), makes said community vulnerable to increased racism, discrimination and when the conditions are right, to persecution. When looking for an enemy in their mist to invigorate the national identity, demagogues like Hitler did not have to look far.

— Black on black violence is most often a result of new economic dependencies (drugs, cars, etc), modern machismo in black culture, and/or cultural beliefs about violence.
O- You stay silent about gang conflicts and gang identity as a trigger of violence. The entire West Coast/East Coast issue that colored rap for a decade and took the lives of Tupac…you blame that on drugs, cars, machismo and cultural beliefs about violence? No, I don’t find that convincing. Instead what is convincing is the fact that even homogenuous communities will find some determinant factor that separates portions within that whole from the rest. The distinction need not be real and some will find it stupid but it is the natural drive of the organizing mind to establish hierarchies. It is this that leads to exotic cars while you live in HUD, to Jordans while you depend on food stamps. Violence, that gun-culture is an effect, not a cause. These thugs have substitued real power for the imaginery of power= a gun. Real wealth for the imaginery of wealth.

— Malcolm X, the individual, placed an emphasis on discipline through islam.
O- The MLK demonstrations would not have been possible without the same discipline.

— Proper Islam is non-violent and showed great progress in rehabilitating drug addicts at the time.
O- Where the hell can we find this “proper” islam??? Drawings of Mohammed are published and a city is set to flames!!! Yeah, that is non-violence. Look, I have had many discusions with muslims about their religion’s inability to denounce what it should, all “proper”, denounce. This theory that Islam has been hijacked seems far-fetched once one reads the Koran. Mohammed is not Jesus. He was more like Moses and we know that Moses was anything but a pacifist. Monotheisms in ALL versions (I include Christianity, Judaism and Islam), when “properly” understood, lead to violence, the destruction of what each considers “false”. And as far as the good Islam has brought, this is an argument from a consequence that I cannot buy. A white lie, even if it produces some salutary consequence, is still a lie. Should we promote anything at all, nazism perhaps, solely because it can reduce drug addiction?

— If you lived in a country that would not allow you to be counted as a citizen because you had blue eyes would you not want to follow someone who said let’s make our own place where our blue eyes are considered beautiful and not a thing of disdain.

O- Good question. But blacks were counted as citizens since at least 1870 in some parts of the US. There was discrimination but the political structure of this nation are such as to allow change and resolution of conflict between it’s constituents, something which MKL seems to have been banking on. He knew of the disonance between the ideals of this nation and it’s realities but saw the system not as an enemy but as an ally, thus giving black america a chance to be counted, eventually, as equals. That has not fully happened yet, but look at the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination. “Democratic” no less!
Both Malcom X and MLK agreed about the existence of racism but MLK sought for a legal solution to legal discrimination, because he saw that the ideals of this country were to secure for ALL certain rights and it was a matter of waking the people to the true meaning of it’s freedom. Malcom X, I think, did not share that hope in the legal system and his vision would have driven the wedge between the races even deeper, leading, I think, sooner or later to escalated violence, as it so often happens with groups that have no common legal contract.
So we live today in a multiracial America instead of a multi-ghetto America. Can you imagine that America in Malcom’s vision? Oh, they think I am not beautiful- I am making a community of mine. I am not considered pretty, or tall, or white enough, or dark enough, or american enough, or muslim enough, or christian enough…just how many communities would have sprouted in a Malcolm X world? And how would you divide then the scarce resources of the land? Think Iraq here, were we have a perfect Malcolm X vision where each group keeps to it’s own: Sunnis don’t want anything to do with Shias nor Shias with Kurds and Kurds with Sunnis or Shias. That could have been America if Malcom X had been the predominant force in the Civil Rights movement.
I don’t want you to take me wrong and thing that I am giving to much credit to white america. I am not blind to what happened in New Orleans. But give non-racist white america also their due. Let’s us not return an eye for an eye, racism for racism. Let us distinguish by a person’s character and realize that not all white people in america have it out to get blacks, nor that all black people have it in their blood to support black people regardless of their character and solely because of the color of their skin. Approach each person as an individual person and not as their race and it’s history: Black or white. This country has a long-ways to travel. We still have gross violations of the spirit of legal equality. Take the Jenna six, for example, but we need to hold each side accountable and not simply give black america a blank check, a freedom from responsibility just because some white people persist in their racism. This means: It is tragic to see the legal double-standard against black youths who commit crimes, but sadder still that black youths still commit criminal acts that leave them vulnerable to such aggression.

— As far as leaders go, we (Afro-American’s) have leaders, Snoopy Dogg, 50 Cent, etc. are placed as our leaders. I don’t want them. Nor does any self-respecting individual. But, until the country and the individuals stop placing these people on a pedestal ascension for others is a near impossibility.
O- But others have ascended to positions of legal influence, which is the influence that counts and it is important to note just how: Obama has not played the race card. Condolezza Rice, Colin Powell are nothing like Snoop. These three have made it as high by playing down their heritage and resting their claims on greater authority on the merit of character. Now, some may criticise this because they see the ascension of Rice and Powell as effects of policies, the effects of whites looking to have a token black as part of their cabinet to cement claims of unbias and secure black political support. That may be, but as in everything else in life, sometimes you have to force the child (America) to eat something which the child will afterwards like and eat on his own. I hope that the time will come when Affirmative Action will be a thing of the past because this country will have seen the virtue of black people to the point that it makes no difference what race they are but how capable they are to do the best job.

— Done in poor taste.
O- Yes it was. My apologies, but I am feed up with reverse racism and not holding up our end of the baragain and alsways blaming others instead of ourselves. Prisions are overflowing with black men and women. Can it ALL be the result of RACISM? Suppose I am a black man and I have never ended up in a county jail. Now is this because the police has not caught up to me and my obviously criminal color of skin, or because I don’t do drugs or rob liquor stores, or punch old women, or run from police, or sell drugs, or gang up on some kid etc, etc?

— A case of the classic red herring.
O- Then you have not understood my meaning. It has everything to do with the subject at hand.

— We are discussing X and you introduce Y to show proof but they are not anywhere near X.
O- Another cop out, another excuse, another “no one has it as bad as blacks”. The Latino is a minority and certainly not white in all cases. These folks from Guatemala were “indios”. What they expose is the existence of opportunity for minorities in this country which shift the blame for unemployment not on some state-based racism but on the individual.

— Certainly Hispanic culture can promote the success you see. But for every successful Hispanic there are thousands who are drowning in their sorrows. The American Dream you have is not the same for many people. It is floating in the realm of subjectivity. My dream is to become a professor one day and to be judged by the content of my character. Does the content of my character shine through to touch those people who would oppress me due to my external appearance? Over time, yes. Yet, initially I am privy to the same judgmental troubles as anyone else even by black culture. I am of bi-racial descent and both cultures certainly do not believe in a happy medium. A well-spoken individual with african features is still a nigger to many and an Uncle Tom to others.
O- I hear you.

— Regardless, I know and see the problems with our nation’s racial divide. This is the 2nd time you have thrown your hat into the racial issue from what I have seen Omar, so do tell what ethnicity are you? Walking a mile in one’s shoe is a whole greater epiphany then telling someone that their shoe is untied.
O- I have black and latino-light skin or “white” blood in me. But my racial views are informed not just by my experiences growing up in Puerto Rico or my life in the US since I was 18 years old, but also by my experience of other cultures as well, such as living two years in Sicily, Italy and seeing there the same struggles we see here, white racism on other whites and even experienced racism from black people because I was “not dark enought”…I still remember that. It is an issue that has interested me greatly and all I can say is that it ties with my philosophy that my life as it is might not be the life that I always wanted but that it is my life and not the life someone elese has handed over to me to live. I believe in a philsophy of Power, of always ratining within yourself the idea that your life is yours to change. It might not be that way in fact, but I hold the optimism that what is not yet need not be what will always be.

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Yea, North Miss. is getting whacked pretty hard this year… South Miss so far has been only slightly pummeled. :unamused: It almost seems as if there are two Mississippis North and South. Folks living in South Miss. seem to really want that distinction. they won’t say; I am from Miss., they will say; I am from South Miss. I can also say that the South American immigrants are helping to reduce the racial tension between blacks and whites here. Both whites and blacks hate them, they are taking precious jobs rebuilding this neck of the woods and this is causing folks to band together in an unusual way. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

I do wonder what the leaders of both black and white hate groups think of this or if they have even noticed it the way the people are noticing the old hates dissolving. New ones of course are popping up but, at least one is falling to the wayside.

As humans we always find something to fight about until we recognize what we are.