| Subject: Re: "The blacks" |
Author:
M23
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Date Posted: 11:16:48 09/26/02 Thu
In reply to:
Alan
's message, "Re: "The blacks"" on 07:46:20 09/26/02 Thu
>Fuck that. This "colourblind" garbage is usually a
>cop-out for those who don't want to deal with what
>resulted and still results from white privilege.
It is? Perhaps you have not met enough folks who are Italian blacks? or Irish blacks? Or in my kids case Scot/German/ american indian/finish/ british canadian or lets not forget that relative who was aboriginal south american. Which Ethnic background shall we attach ourselves too?
On this thread there was talk of US families becoming soooo mixed that ethnicity would not be decernible, my family fits that bill, so does a good proportion of the families in my community...sure some could be labeled "black"...but ya know unless you sit down and talk to folks, you don't really know, do you? So my friend who is considered "black" tho not dark enough , diluted the next genration and married a "white" man, her kids are very light skinned...and than their is my VERY dark italian friend who is repeatedly asked whether or not she is black? Or how bout the friend who's mom had a whoops with a man of a different race and became pregnant...her mom always insisted that she was the same as the other children in the family...Until of course her biological father showed up. Was it accurate of her to claim a background which was based on lies?
In the school district that my kids go to, there are close to 30 languages represented, a very diverse community...I'd say its impossible to tell the difference between a new comer trinidadian "black" and child who's family has been here since slavery. Certainly, the color of ones skin may make people immediately think "slave background" but unless you sit and talk, NO ONE knows for sure. So my kids father is mistaken repeatedly as a "black" man within my sons school by "black" children. DS has taken to responding "yeah he is dark isn't he?" (Hmm maybe yet another forgotten relative in his background?)
I don't think its so much about being colorblind its about how rediculous it is to ask about ethnicity in todays world... My family just happened to be "world travelers" a generation or so before alot of other families, our ethnicity did not exist long before my grandparents left their countries of birth, if it ever existed at all. Dh's family "hid" history in the old south...ya just don't know.
So hopefully with the next child, (my third) entering school in the future we will focus more on the diversity of our community and less on the "history" of each individual child. It was a waste of school time during my education and its a waste now..focusing on the "fact" that as a community we ALL experience pretty much the same things...PTA, sports, Walmart, educating children, shopping for food and just plain living and of course celebrating black history month as well as St Pats day and all the other myriad of holiday.
Do I negate what happened in this country? Nope! but I'm not willing to say that EVERY dark skinned human in my community is of the same background...its just not accurate nor should we paint every "white" skinned individual as a WASP...
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