Shame

[17th Angel]

Originally Posted by Francis king

A: it's easier to get a job if you are white. You won't experience much racism.

B:it is any surprise black ppl don't do rock music?

A: Blacks are even more racist then whites... So yeah...

B: You obviously are not into much rock/metal are you? Oh what? Did someone say HED:Pe? Oh lead singer? Black? Okthx... Kravitz Kill switch Engage Living color Wicked Wisdom DC Talk sevendust.... I'll stop there....

[wil]

Originally Posted by 17th Angel

... Kravitz Kill switch Engage Living color Wicked Wisdom DC Talk sevendust.... I'll stop there....

Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Mary J. Blige, Jimi Hendrix...

I don't know about the rest of the world....but gang violence/drug territory disputes in the US is primarily black on black and hispanic on hispanic...

If we want to see a change we need an economic and education revolution in our inner cities....

[17th Angel]

I was going to add more lol but we made our point... May find interesting to research where rock was founded and by whom.....

[Francis king]

yeah, u know what I'm saying though... nice to know there's so many black rockers around! rock on!

[flowperson]

Francis, 17th...
In the 1960's when Mick and the guys wanted to learn from the masters everything there was about how to make soulful music in the right ways, they went to the south side of Chicago, visited the Chess Recording studios, hung out and jammed with Willie Dixon, Pinetop Perkins, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, and all the rest of the masters of roots music of that era. And the rest is history. Please educate all of your friends and enemies of these facts

The Blues had a baby and they called it Rock 'n Roll. Case closed.

flow....

[Pathless]

For me, it comes down to how can I not support an unjust system that I am embedded in yet do not approve of? And for me, the answer seems to be in dropping out of that system, moving outside of it to work creatively. There of course is a limit on how possible that is. I can't move completely out of the system. Yet the work I do within that system I want to be subversive in the best, most creative way--not simply tearing down walls, although that is part of it, but also cleaning up the mess, beautifying.

Francis, I appreciate your sentiments. Good for you for tearing down those posters. We should all strive to tear down a few offending posters every day of our lives, metaphorically speaking. Even better, replace them with supportive, constructive, beautiful pieces of art.

[Francis king]

that sounds like a campaign, pathless... replacing such posters with art... mmm...

[Pathless]

"As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage."

--Peggy McIntosh

I'd like to clarify that I'm not ashamed of my white skin in the way that someone might be ashamed of their nose, or extra layers of fat. It's not a cosmetic thing. Perhaps shame and being ashamed aren't even the right words. I am frustrated at appearing, because of my white skin, to be intimately connected to a system that I don't approve of. The color of my skin confers onto me special privileges that I don't deserve nor really want. Rather than being happy about this, as Francis suggested, it pisses me off. For no reason other than cosmetics, I am lumped into a set of attributes that I reject. My objective then becomes to dissociate myself, cosmetically and stylistically as well as intellectually and spiritually, from these inborn qualities that give me advantages over other non-white people.

What is white? Race Traitor offers a workable definition:

The white race is a historically constructed social formation. It consists of all those who partake of the privileges of the white skin in this society. Its most wretched members share a status higher, in certain respects, than that of the most exalted persons excluded from it, in return for which they give their support to a system that degrades them.

And again Peggy McIntosh deepens this discussion:

I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was "meant" to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks.

Describing white privilege makes one newly accountable. As we in women's studies work to reveal male privilege and ask men to give up some of their power, so one who writes about having white privilege must ask, "having described it, what will I do to lessen or end it?"

What will I do to lessen or end it? To me that is an important question. Being aware of white privilege is one step, an analytical step, one that raises awareness. It's an important one to take. After analyzing, one must also be willing to act. I am interested in ways to reject and refute white privilege. It can be seen everywhere, especially in integration and multi-culturalism, which may surprise some. What are we asked to integrate into? Traditionally it is not white people who integrate into anything. They facilitate integration of other, non-white people into whiteness. And so a trend of racial superiority continues in a refined way, made more subtle, more invisible. Similarly, multi-culturalism seems to serve the white system by commodifying the cultures of others and bringing them into the marketplace. We are then all able to buy ethnic food and clothing, even allowed to feel that we are doing a great service to other cultures in doing so--by supporting environmentally friendly, socially responsible, fair-traded goods. This is all well and good as long as we are working within the system. But I think the system is sick, and when we bring other cultures into the annointed folds of the system, we are simply spreading the disease.

How can we dissasemble this system before it homogonizes everything in the world? Is it even desirable to tear it down? I think it is. It may strike some as primitive or insane, but I think we should be moving away from globalization in many respects, not towards it. The horrible nightmare I see in globalization is a complete loss of culture, everything having been turned into a commodity. Sure, there will be convenience and economy, but there will be no soul, no spirit, and no community. This frightens me, and I think it far more desirable to have a world that is not globalized homogenously. Loosely interconnected, yes. Communicating with itself, yes. But there should be no central global brain, which is a frightening goal of fascist globalization.

I am digressing. I don't want to take a detour into a critique of capitalism right now, but I think that is connected. I think in challenging the standards of whiteness, we also must challenge this idea that capitalism is a gold standard as well. Life should not be about accomodating or, worse, worshipping an economic system. In America, that seems to be the situation we have quite literally worked our way into, and we are unwilling to let it go. Many people don't find it a problem at all, and when someone does ask questions about it, they risk marginalization and labeling at the very least.

And so I find the rejection of capitalism as a defining factor of global quality of life is a good starting point for someone who is ostensibly 'white' to begin to work their way out of an oppressive system. Even though I am, to look at me, white, I do consider myself oppressed. All of my life I have felt pressure to contort myself into externally-imposed values. I am not going to do that anymore. Hell, I haven't been doing it for a while now. As an American, as a Human Being, freedom is important to me. I don't feel free in capitalist America, and I won't feel free in a fascistly capitalized world. And so I refuse to participate in the "American Dream" as it is percieved today. It's not really a dream, but a stupor, a simple closing of the eyes and refusing to see.

Screw that. America, I am not putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.



"To me, freedom of speech is something that represents the very dignity of what a human being is…That’s what marks us off from the stones and the stars. You can speak freely. It is really the thing that marks us as just below the angels."

--Mario Savio

[Pathless]

Originally Posted by cyberpi

If you are depressed with the society you were born in then why not travel and explore a different part of the world?

and

Originally Posted by Tao

I think you should travel, (though dont let Cyberpi pack your bags, he may include a natural disaster machine for you to unwittingly unleash on any country but the U,S of A), even to Mexico!! Or South America. I would love to have the time/cash to go visit the social revolution in Venezuela or Bolivia. Thats where its happenin.

Tao, why is it only happening 'over there'? There are plenty of problems in the countries where you and I are. I'm not going to abandon my own country in order to go work on problems in some other country that I am not familiar wtih. To me, that is foolishness.

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by Francis king

that sounds like a campaign, pathless... replacing such posters with art... mmm...

If you are pressed for time you could always ask Mee to send you some sweet utopian multi-racial posters?

Tao

[Francis king]

lol