Black or African-American?

[wendybeth]

Oh, he doesn't get a total pass in my book, but I am trying to be a little bit understanding. Here's the story that provides more background. It may have been a slip, but now it's becoming politicized and many of the players in this particular story have no right to throw stones. Spokane is not very diverse, although we are becoming more so, and these old white dudes that have run this town for so long are having a rough go of it. Oh, and 'colored' was a term used very much in the Deep South when I lived down there 20 or so years ago, and not just by white people. It's not okay in my book and wasn't then, but I was shocked by how many people did use it.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

GD: I understand the shorthand of shared experience. I don't understand it being an "identity" that needs to be preserved, protected, rejoiced, worshipped, or otherwise as objectively important. If you hadn't been raised the way you were (say your parents ran away from home and started a peach farm in rural Georgia) would you (and more importantly should you) still identify as East European Jew?

Honestly, that's a hard question for me to answer. I've seen both sides of the coin on that one. I guess for me, the bottom line is that I do see value in it, but I don't see it as something to get as angry about as some people do. I understand, and participate in to an extent, the desire to preserve and promote that kind of trans-generational cultural identity. But I'd never consider someone a "traitor" or disown them for "deserting" said community as some would. That's just silly.

[blueerica]

Really, it's about how we identify ourselves, right?

I was raised by my very Japanese Grandmother. Though I identify myself as Caucasian, there is a part of my upbringing that is very much Japanese, as untraditional as it may be considered by anyone. Though I have difficulty speaking Japanese, I still understand a great deal of it, and the rice and tofu was the "meat and potatoes" of my upbringing. Please, give me meat and potatoes! (OK, so I do like rice and tofu, too....)

Race or no, there are things we've come to understand, know and respect about one another that are a product of our experiences, whether they're from our childhood or from our adulthood. They affect who we choose as a mate, who we choose as friends; they affect how we think and feel, as logical as we may be from time to time (some of us more than others). I think it's pretty truthful to what I've come to know.

Race remains a mere identifier, only there when a simpler term isn't available (IMHO).

[innerSpaceman]

And I've recently been wondering why, despite having 50 or so active friend and acquaintenships .... everyone I know is white. There's an Asian or two in there. Lots of straights and gays mixed. But no blacks. No Latinos. No Middle Easterners.

Is it a matter of staying among my own kind? Or is it simply that only whites (and a spattering of Asians) have been drawn to Disneyland, The Renaisance Faire, Rocky Horror and Star Wars?

I live in a city that's the melting pot of the modern world. But no melting is ever going to go on if people raised in differing cultures have zero common interests.


Interestingly, if I'd been a normal guy into sports - - I might have more interracial friends. But perhaps a lack of gay pals.




Sorry, I know this is not really the topic at hand, but it's been on my mind of late ... and this is the LoT thread where I can squeeze it in most plausibly.

[mousepod]

Good point, iSm. I've been putting together the Song of the South episode of the MousePod, and to prepare, I've been reading many threads on various boards and listening to other podcasts (there were two SotS "Zip-a-dee-doo-pods"). The conversation about the controversy surrounding the movie is similar to this thread - a bunch of mostly well-meaning, mostly white folks talking about what black people might find offensive. I decided to include some first-hand perspectives from black people, and I realized that while that a great percentage of my work associates are black, I currently don't have any black friends. I'm not sure if it has to do with common interests - I do know that it feels odd...

[Alex]

I don't have any black friends, but I do'nt particularly care that I do'nt have any black friends. I don't have any Canadian friends either. Nor Arabic.

I have very few friends (less than a dozen, I'd say) but I've accumulated them randomly and they are what they are.

When I first started this reply I actually began with "all my friends are white as well" but then I realized "no...Lani's Asian." And then, "no...Shannon's Puerto Rican." and then "no...Kevin's Pacific Islander (Hawaiian)" and "of course, Paola's Mexican" and so on. While none are black, my circle of friends is actually pretty diverse but their race is so far down the list of relevant characteristics I don't think I'd ever noticed before just how diverse it is.

What categories go into having a properly diverse circle of friends. Is Stas, my guy from from Russia diverse or just white?

[Not Afraid]

I very rarely think about the ethnicity of my friends. It seems we are all just a munch of mutts anyways.

[blueerica]

Huh... I'm quite the mutt and haven't really paused to think about who my friends are. My closest tend to be white, asian and latino, but that probably has more to do with who lives around me. At school, I have friends of all races, but I don't think it's something I've chosen... I'm just a product of my surroundings.

Besides, who actually goes out of their way to make friends with a certain "race" of people? Well, I'm sure people do, but that's downright creepy.

[€uroMeinke]

Stepping off the plane I was amazed at how diverse London was; Indian, Pakistani, African, etc. But I realized, someone growing up in London must feel the same way landing in LA; Chinese, Latino, etc. - we get used to our surroundings and they seem less foreign I suppose.

[Prudence]

One advantage of the school I currently attend is that the student population is more diverse than other places I've been. My law school buddies really are a wide assortment of ethnicities, backgrounds (family, geographic, educational, economic, etc...), whatnot. I hadn't really thought about that before, but it is kind of nice to feel like I have connections with an assortment of different groups. I should remember that for interviews.

The downside is that many of my friends were recruited from elsewhere and plan to leave ASAP because they feel so unwelcome here.