Fixed your post question. The next question is how does one go from poor to rich and hopefully staying away from going rich to poor.
Racism - It's a real thing.
- Thread starter NM11046
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Guy Chamberlin
Active member
Good Lord did you miss the point.
If you are a rich or comfortably middle class white guy, and your skin turns black overnight, you will wake to find a country that treats you differently in ways small and large, and in situations you hadn't even imagined.
When conservatives insist that racism is simply an anecdotal pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps issue, it proves the point.
I think a lot of issues in the world are class issues rather than race issues, but race allows you to color-code the bias and it takes on a life of its own.
So please don't fix my post. Just answer the question.
Would you Archy 1221 rather be black or white?
You are more than welcome to come to my neighborhood anytime you like which has plenty of the following: mixed race couples (Black/white Mexican/White, CA transplants with Mexican heritage, African American families, Indian family’s, 2 Asian couples). Have had this conversation over drinks with many of them, though not all, none hold the same view as you. Three of the African couples/mixed couples feel they would probably be treated different if they lived in two distinct areas of my metro. Currently they feel on par with anyone else in the neighborhood and their employers. None believe the country is currently inherently racist and we all believe that there is a small amount of racist people in all races of people.
Question: do you or others you know judge the white hillbillies or the poor white unshaven, poorly dressed/neck tattooed sideways hat/low pants person different than your black well dressed decently well off economically CA neighbor? Full discloser, I most likely would. Is that because of race or bias towards who looks like a decent member of society.
I didn’t miss your point, just made the better point to help you out.
To answer your question: I only know being the race that I am so I would choose what I currently am. I would have no problem being black. I would rather be middle class or above way more than it matters to me what class of individual I am. Just don’t want to be Canadian.
Guy Chamberlin
Active member
I guess we hang out with different people. The decently dressed and well-off blacks and Latinos I know can all tell stories of being treated like the the worst white hillbilly, In situations they did and didn't expect. I have mixed race friends who tell heartbreaking stories about how their children have been treated in their upper class world. It doesn't come up often over cocktails with the friendly white neighbors, but when they see this racist s#!t on the news, they know exactly what they're talking about.
Honestly, there's a lot of sociological study on both the blatant and subversive effects of systemic racism. Check it out.
If I'm reading it correctly, you think race was a problem prior to the 1960s, but has been pretty well ironed out since then. Suggesting the Black folk still angry and agitating are making too big a deal about the occasional police misunderstanding, or a random U.S. President speaking up on behalf of the Confederacy.
Enhance
Administrator
100% agree with the bolded.
I'm simply pointing out that we have to be cognizant and empathetic to the fact that a several hundred year problem can't simply be fixed by waking up one day and saying "I'm going to make good decisions today," which is the tone that B.B. is very much giving off here and it's ridiculous. If it were that easy, we wouldn't have any problems in the world. This country stacked odds against black people for hundreds of years and the damages it did have been felt for generations to this day. Is it getting better? I think so. But, as they say, Rome wasn't built in a day.
I've spent a lot of time in my life volunteering and mentoring kids... especially a lot of young black men. I'm white, so I can't relate to their experiences personally, but I listen to them. So many people here have no idea how challenging it is to get advice from me or another mentor, and then go home to a family environment where drugs and sex are sold like candy. These kids are constantly being fed conflicting ideals... for the good and bad. It's not easy for them to make the right choices. And choices made by past leaders and governments have fed that beast. Next thing you know, a new generation of bad decision makers is developed.
So, when I see people say things like B.B. is saying, it gives off the vibe that they've never really taken the time to get to know the people or understand the actual problem. I'm not casting that aspersion onto B.B. Maybe he has. I don't know him personally. It's just the aura surrounding the word choices is obtuse.
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ZRod
Active member
P.I.M.P. by 50 cent was 18 years ago... Big Pimpin was 21 years ago. If we're gonna go back: Garth Brooks sings about f#&%ing a cougar, a one night stand with a girl from Baton Rouge, Mom cheating on dad and dad running her and the lover over with a semi, a drunk crashing a party. Fancy talks about a mom making her daughter become a prostitute. Willie sings about loving them and leaving them, and picking up hookers instead of his pen
Maybe rap and rock are a better comparison then, and country and R&B are closer? Does that work?
B.B. Hemingway
Donor
It's about all i listened to when I was high school. Then I grew up, had my first daughter, and quickly realized it wasn't something a father of a daughter should listen to.
B.B. Hemingway
Donor
knapplc
Active member
So woke people realize that's not something the father of a daughter should listen to.
And woke people have the option of turning away from the lifestyle portrayed in that music. Because that wasn't the lifestyle they were immersed in.
B.B. Hemingway
Donor
Well, the good news for those immersed in that culture is that they can leave that lifestyle at any point they would like to. The sooner, the better, I would imagine.
Though, with the way rap music romanticizes that lifestyle, I'm not sure a lot of them do want to get away from it.
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knapplc
Active member
When did you leave the inner city and pull yourself up by your bootstraps to become the industry leader you are today?
What was it like to just leave your ghetto hood and prosper? How did you do it?
B.B. Hemingway
Donor
Well, I'm not sure you'd call it a ghetto, but if you watched the video a few pages back about the people in Appalachia, I grew up around quite a few people like that. We were really poor, living in a crappy trailer. I had/have a wonderful mother (so thankful), but also had an angry, verbally abusive (sometimes physically) father. Drug abusers in the family.... Not deadly violence, but violence nonetheless.
Lucky for me, I feel like I had a good head on my shoulders, had a great mother (as I mentioned), and found a good woman that became my wife. For those reasons, I did turn out to be more successful than I ever expected to be, I'm proud of it, and I make no apologies for being proud of it. So there's that.
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