A Concise History of Black-White Relations In The USA

freed blacks did not have a headstart over irish or germans or italians. germans and italians became normal white folks a generation or two after they came here. blacks did not.

 

The fact is whites even after slavery and up until 1963 and after had many opportunities that blacks did not. Did whites have the opportunity to go to the best schools? Yes. Did your particular grandparents take advantage of that or not? I have no idea answer for yourselves, but if they didn't, then don't pretend they had it just as bad as the black population, because it isn't true. They at least had the opportunity.

The fact is your white families had opportunities that black families didn't.

They had those opportunities at the expense blacks who were enslaved, and then later prevented from many of the opportunities of upward mobility, and for almost 100 years AFTER slavery were prevented from voting in any meaningful way.

Those are facts. They aren't an argument for or against afirmative action.

Meleahy,

Comparing the asian experience with that of blacks isn't the same at all. The blacks for generations after after slavery weren't allowed into good schools, colleges, or to vote. They didn't choose to be here. Asians by and large did choose to be here and came with the goal of taking advantage of all the opportunities they had.

But the earnings of Asian still doesn't give them equality or superiority in our society. Just ask the people in Los Angeles Korea town. During the LA riots initially guards were put around Korea town right next to protect from the rioting which was right in the next neighborhood. Then calls were made and Korea town was abandoned as the security forces moved back to protect Beverly Hills. The rioting then spread into Korea town. It is ashame because both black and asian communities need to get involved in their communities and establish representation in govt. Until that happens minorities including Asians are better trying to form bonds and coalitions to remove the people who hold power.

Also it isn't just blacks that don't do well. Mexicans(not all Latinos) Hawaiians, and NAtive Americans also struggle at the same level. Those groups all have in common that they were enslaved, conquered or colonized.

I will say that none of that is an excuse not to try and succeed, or not to try and move upwards in society, just that there is an inherent difference.

 

Interesting thing is. . . those schools they got into
well . . blacks were not allow to compete to enter those universities
until . . . maybe the lates 60s and 70s
also . . . .even then they were limited by the fact that the books/learning materials
they got were not as accurate/good as those of their white counterparts

Rocket River

 

I'm gonna type this. . but I know it will be used and twisted later but . ..

In India. .they tie a baby elephant to a strong tree with some rope
they struggle and fight it until they give up
When the elephant is grown and can easily break the rope
it doesn't even try . . . Psychologically beaten down

to an extent the Social Effects of slavery were FAR MORE damaging than
the physical and maybe even the economic effects
Remember Slave were KILLED for learning to read . .. and you wonder why Education is not a top priority for their descendents
Remember Slave's families were routinely divided and seperate . . .and you wonder why the family structure in the community of their descendents is a bit askew
Remeber Slaves routinely used and pitted against each other. . . and you wonder why their descendents have internal unification issues

Rocket River
it is not as simple as 2 + 2 = 4
this is chess not checkers

 

Right on. You don't owe anybody anything and should feel absolutely no "white guilt".

 

I agree, the schools are a big reason. And sadly, it is the "Civil Rights" groups who are happy with this status quo, as they block any major reforms to our horrible public school system.

 

I personally think culture is to blame. You risk "acting white" by doing well in school. Now that is sad. Obama agrees with me.

 

THANK YOU!!!!

Equal opportunity my ass!

 

Umm, this is WAY too simplistic of a reason when trying to explain the lack of black professionals.

It's the socio-political equivalent to Cliff's Notes or espousing as fact what we hear a pundit say on tv.

The problem is SO much deeper than external factors like brick and mortar schools. It is SO much more complicated than simply putting the 'better' teachers in inner city schools. And until we (and growing up in a mixed race household has given me a unique perspective on this issue) swallow this, accept it, and take ownership of it, we'll never actually succeed in changing a single thing.

Of course, we'll still be able to complain. Which is our right. We'll still be able to comiserate with each other about how the stars have been aligned against us all of these years and only if we 'had half the chance the white kids have' could we prosper at the same rate. But 50 years from now we'll still be in the same boat. Complaining. Upset. Angry.

Which gets us where? Because you KNOW there is a silent majority of whites that, underneath at all, react to our hostility and angst with hostility of their own. And it will never change.

It is a circuitous cycle.

Forget lip service. Forget about the segment of white society that is consumed with 'white guilt' and will acquiesce in lieu of being branded by the 21st century version of the scarlet letter: being called 'racist'. At the end of the day, it comes down to community. It comes down to culture. It comes down to family. It comes down to self.

Until we put the fire out at the base and direct our energy inward instead of only fighting external causes, then the condition will simply continue.

Think past one's nose. It's like chess. Think 4 steps ahead. Extrapolate what happens if we continue to make the same arguments.

Nothing. Changes.

Again it's a complex problem that, sadly, will probably never get 'fixed'.

 

I'm a Chinese American who is considered and who's parents are considered part of the Model Minority. My dad grew up poor and destitute in Hong Kong and he came here and got a PHD in Rice and now is the head of a biology department in a major university. I graduated in the top 5 percent of my highschool went to UC Berkeley got my Masters at the U of MN with a thesis that was considered groundbreaking, have been published in academic journals and started a company.

Now why do I bother saying all of this other than to stoke my own ego? Because I believe the Model Minority myth is a crock.

My dad was poor but he was smart and worked hard to get here on his own choice. He was fortunate enough to get here after other minorities, mostly African-Americans, had fought the battles to end segregation so that I could go to good schools. My parents were self-selected immigrants who came here because they were among the most ambitious and smart. I being born to ambitious and smart parents in a society already had built in advantages. My family could come here with a clean slate.

Yet surprise much of my Dad's family that remained behind in Hong Kong stayed poor. They didn't have the brains or ambition that my dad had. In short it took an exceptional effort on his part to get here and he's an exceptional person for it. The same goes for most of the surge generations of Asian immigrants. These were a self-selected group of the smartest and most ambitious who had the skill base to benefit once legalized discrimination was ended. Even the Vietnamese refugees many of these weren't poor farmers but were successful South Vietnamese who fled the Communists. True they came here poor but at the same time had the skill and make up to survive. Compare that the Hmong refugees who were poor ignorant hill tribes even though they are Asian many of them are still poor, suffering crime and other problems that affect many other minority groups.

As for the PRC and India yes they have succeeded largely because there economies were repressed for so long under stupid central planning and their leadership has the foresight to make some smart decisions but don't presume that all Chinese or Indians are well off. Their populations are huge so the huge size of the successful hides the vast amount of people who are still poor or even those who have come on the short end of economic liberalization. In India and PRC there are more people struggling to survive in each country than probably the whole population of the US. For every affluent resident of Shanghai or Mumbai there are probably at least 10 struggling farmer or itinerant worker. Those countries are on the right track but they've got a long way to go and it has nothing to do with the genetic makeup of Indians or Chinese.

As for this country yes it is true that oppurtunities are great but the long shadow of racism and institutionalized discrimination is hard to shake off. Asians like myself had the benefit of not being bound by the history of that and could get a fresh start. It might've been a far different matter if we were brought here in chains and then legally discriminated against. In fact I don't need to imagine since Chinese were legally discriminated for most of this country's history and largely restricted to farms or ghettos of Chinatowns. The legacy of that still persists and even now in many of the historical Chinatowns there still is an older generation of poorer Chinese.

So yes hard work is important. Education is important. Ambition is important. There are great opportunities. We can't ignore though that racism, slavery and institutional discrimination existed and has left a long legacy. As minorities who came here after others fought to remove the barriers of legal discrimination and free of the knowledge that this government legally kept down our immediate ancestors our situation isn't the same as other minorities.

We get to be a Model Minority because we stand on the shoulders of other minorities.

 

Visit China town in New York and San Francisco, if you look hard enough you'll find a cycle of poverty among a large group of people there that works in remedial jobs and really didn't get into the rest of the society. Many recent Chinese immigrants that come here are able to (or their offspring are able to) be successful, but that's more because a lot of the recent Chinese immigrants came from college educated families or are extremelly self motivated. Even if they start out poor, they are in a better situation then those of similiar wealth because some of the innate properties they possess.

Imagine if everything you own tommorow is gone, that you worked for your life, and you had to start again, with just your children and your wife, I would argue that your chance of success is greater than your peers of equal value because you've gotten to that point before and you have a better idea of how to get back.

If you would rather look at how the vietnamnese refugees (many who are uneducated farmers) after the vietname wars are coping and you'll see a much different picture than your typical model minority view.

Look, I've argued before that the black commnunnity needs to have a mindset change before (made a post about it, was called racist) but I also believe that the society as a whole will have to help if we are trully going to be succssful.

 

Race relations is the red herring in socio-economic class debates. There's poor Asians and there's poor whites. Though sometimes it looks like poor whites are content with their status as long as blacks are held back from entitlements. OTOH nationally prominent "Black leaders" seem only to get theirs as well by grabbing as much aid and money they can while disregarding principle core issues of their original cause.

It's all about money...

 

Two more points on the difference of social status between the Asian immigrants and the blacks. Aside from the Asian immigrants being more motivated, they have first hand experience between the system of US and their home countries, which makes them cherish their opportunities more. The first generations of blacks have no such contrast available for the lack of opportunities.

Another factor is the succession of cultural heritage. The Asians are molded by the Eastern cultures which stress on hard work and education. Coming to USA doesn't deprive them of their identity and belief. The blacks were a different story. They were enslaved and fast losing their own cultures. They don't even remember their family names anymore. To succeed they need to find their identity first, and believe me, it's hard to do spiritual uplift when the environment is against you.

 

It could be argued that modern black Americans benefitted more from the institution of slavery than modern white Americans.

Had slavery not existed in America, what would this country be like? Since it was modeled after and populated with mostly European immigrants, one would assume that it would be much like the nations that birthed it, basically western Europe. So, if slavery had never existed in America, even allowing that without slavery America would not have risen to become an economic superpower (a thesis I don't agree with, but will allow for the sake of argument) the average white American would have a life not dissimilar to the average western European.

What about the average black American? Had slavery never existed in America, then their ancestors would not have been imported to America. The majority of the black Americans whose ancestors came to America as slaves would still be living in sub-Saharan west Africa. That means that they would have a life not dissimilar to the average west African.

What is the bigger step up then, the life of an Englishman to that of a white American, or the life of an Angolan to that of a black American?

This is not to say that balck Americans should be happy that their ancestors were taken as slaves, or should be thankful that they get to live in America. Slavery was a horrible blight in American history. Let's just not oversimplify things and say that white America is the devil and they are systematically keeping black America down. Everyone in America today has benefitted from slavery to one extent or another, and that will be true as long as America stays a free nation and the world operates in a somewhat capitalist system (ie if it becomes like star trek and the whole world is paradise, then people are no longer reaping ancillary benefits of slavery ).

What is left is to move forward and deal with the hear and now. Now we can have no law that treats a man differently based on the color of his skin. We can have a system by which every person is given the same building blocks by the government: free primary education, some level of social welfare for those who need it, an infrastucture of roads, power grids, etc. that everyone has equal access to. It is up to this generation to teach our kids the value of education, to decry descrimination whenever we see it, and to not fall back on the past patterns in building the future.

 

I know, I can't believe we don't have a national 'Thank the Slave Owners, Slavery Appreciation' holiday.

 

heres another view of the model minority stereotype (from modelminority.com):

 

When I look at the comic strip that started this thread I laughed because it is funny and I'm suprised that so many people were offended by it. Somewhere down the line of history everyone has done something that is not quite moral. I'm not condoning slavery in any way, but it happened and we all know that it happened, we (as citizens and more importantly human beings) learned from this heinous mistake and have moved on in society.

As a minority I've been the recipient of some racial slurs and discrimination, even by some of my own people because I'm not quite "brown" enough. It makes me laugh that people judge me according to my race or based on how I look or treat me different when they think I'm white and they hear my name and find out I'm Mexican, because those people are ignorant to judge me based on those things and not the content of my character.

I consider myself successful and I've gotten where I am by sacrifice and hard work. My parents used to pick vegetables, fruits and cotton down in the valley and dropped out of school early to help their respective families. I am proud to be Mexican, Latin, Hispanic, Mexican-American, Chicano, or whatever else people call my race and where I come from, but it doesn't define who I am or what limitations I have. As cliche' as it sounds, the sky's the limit, it just depends on how hard you are willing to work and what you're willing to sacrifice to achieve your goals.

 

The slave trade and colonialism are the primary reason Africa is what it is today. Before the onset of European imperialism, Africa had birthed culutres that had made significant discoveries in math and science, as well as art, dance, etc. The majority of poitical problems we see today (e.g. Hutus vs. Tutsis in Rwanda) are almost entirely the result of colonial policies imposed by European countries. If the slave trade had never existed, Africa would be much different than it is today. Moreover, the idea that a group of people should be okay with being oppressed in one place because they may have had it worse had they not been initially oppressed, is not very compassionate logic.

And how do we do insure that happens without law? It's still almost impossible to get hired if you have a "black" sounding name (a thread was posted on this a few months ago). Even when you control for class, or even the exact school attended, blacks tend to score lower on standardized tests than whites. Here's just one example of how racism effects people beyond class or tangible opportunity:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/etc/gap.html

This study has been repeated many times and the result is the same, telling students the test measures their abilities effects blacks but not whites. Racism effects people not only materially, but psychologically and emotionally as well. Simply "teaching our kids the value of education" or "denying discrimination" is not enough. You can't get away with a racist remark on tv these days (Trent Lott) yet we still see problems with racism's effect on society. Simply decrying it in a public forum does nothing to rectify what everyone thinks on the inside

I agree with much of what you say, of course it's important for individual's and families to try to take responsibility. But if there's not actiont taken through the law, and we rely on a slow evolution of values, many people will still have to innocently labor under the force of discrimination before the tide has turned. That seems pretty unfair to me.

 

This line of thinking is very offensive. first of all it doesn't take into account what people who were kidnapped from Africa had to go through on their way here. nothing justifies that, not even if you can argue that blacks are better off. second, as bullard4life already explained, there is the other side of the descrution European colonialism did to the African continent.

blacks in this country have no sense of their history, their past. we don't know what lands we came from, what religions we practiced. our whole culture has been stripped from us and current culture is based on our beginnings as slaves in this country. and that is another reason why the asian immigrant comparison doesn't work.

 

Excellent point!