'White Pride'

[CaptJodan]

Why can't is simply be "American pride" since it takes both blacks and whites to overcome racism? Why must people insist of excluding other races when they want to be proud of the achievements of the human race?

Because black people suffered more than the minority of white people who tried to help (a false statement, given that so called "nigger lovers" often were beaten or killed just as severely as any black man or woman.)

Because the majority of America was white, and the majority of America through much of the early Civil Rights movement was against Civil Rights, then America, I suppose, was something of the enemy at the time. Simply calling it "American Pride" would include those very people who were trying to stop them from gaining equal rights.

And I imagine there's really nothing to be proud about that we even had to go through something as horrific as the Civil Rights struggle in the first place. It's great it was won (or continues to be won) properly, but it's shameful that it ever had to take place to begin with.

[CaptJodan]

Edit:

This isn't to say I don't agree in priniple to what you're saying. As I said, I would prefer that none of those terms were used. I equally despise the term "Gay Pride" for similar reasons, even though that struggle for equal rights continues. That fight, like the Civil Rights movement, isn't fought by just gays.

Culturally, we honor and take pride in those who fought and died for freedoms we have today. Black people deserve to have pride in the history of their people who fought for their rights just as Americans as a whole have pride in those who fight in wars to protect such freedoms. But as I've pointed out, no group really fights in a vacuum, and blacks were helped in their fight by people of other skin colors just as gays today in their fight for equal rights are helped by heterosexuals. I think such blanket terms like "Gay Pride" or "Black Pride" automatically cut out those people who didn't happen to be the same skin color or sexual orientation who were still in support of such movements.

[Frank Hipper]

Claiming "pride" for something that you are not responsible for makes me wonder "How does that work?"...

[wolveraptor]

I'm sick of all these pride slogans. Honestly, can't you define yourself using something other than an arbitrary characteristic like sexual orientation or skin color? I'd have no problem with platitudes containing the words "equality" or "equal rights for *blank*".

[Frank Hipper]

I'm sick of all these pride slogans. Honestly, can't you define yourself using something other than an arbitrary characteristic like sexual orientation or skin color? I'd have no problem with platitudes containing the words "equality" or "equal rights for *blank*".

When you're faced with legislated bigotry for your sexuality or skin color, "defining" yourself as a member of that group has been done for you.

[wolveraptor]

I'm sick of all these pride slogans. Honestly, can't you define yourself using something other than an arbitrary characteristic like sexual orientation or skin color? I'd have no problem with platitudes containing the words "equality" or "equal rights for *blank*".

When you're faced with legislated bigotry for your sexuality or skin color, "defining" yourself as a member of that group has been done for you.

All the more reason to rebel against such unfair classifications.

[RedImperator]

"Black Pride" may also signify a true pride that African Americans were able to overcome a lot of the social boundries that they were forced into ever since the country was founded. It could be a historical issue where they feel pride in themselves and in their ancestors that they were able to overcome those limitations, from Rosa Parks to MLK jr and everything in between. And they should be proud of those people who came before them and helped to fight for that freedom.

Why can't is simply be "American pride" since it takes both blacks and whites to overcome racism? Why must people insist of excluding other races when they want to be proud of the achievements of the human race?

Because, bluntly, African Americans were on their own for most of the slavery era, and again for most of the Jim Crow era. Abolitionists were a tiny minority of whites from 1618 to around the 1840s, and right up until the Civil War they were still regarded as radicals by whites on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. Then after abolition, after Reconstruction was sabotaged by southern whites looking to retain as much of the prewar status quo as possible, whites in the north abandoned them again, and they spent 90 years suffering systematic abuse and humiliation at thee hands of whites in the north and south, and even those whites who weren't participating in it generally regarded them as, if not deserving of it, then not capable of much better. The white mainstream regarded African Americans as nothing more than niggers (they didn't hold Hispanics, Indians, or Asians in very high regard, either, but blacks took the worst of it practically everywhere), and it took a century of struggle for blacks to convince enough white Americans otherwise that the Civil Rights movement became multiracial.

The reason why it's black pride and not American pride because only a racist or a fool would be proud of the profoundly disgraceful behavior of the American government, the states, and the white mainstream between 1877 and 1964.

[Hillary]

Claiming "pride" for something that you are not responsible for makes me wonder "How does that work?"...

Absolutely right - it's nonsense. I'm proud of my career and what I've made of my life. I'm proud that I'm not racist, sexist or homophobic. If I had kids, I could be proud of how I had raised them and what they had achieved.

As for being white and born in England in a time of relative peace - I'm not proud of that, just truly, truly grateful as it made the life I have much easier to obtain.

[Lord Woodlouse]

I suppose the difference is that there's more of a kind of black sub-culture in western society (and to a lesser degree with asians, though they tend to ID themselves more on a national basis, I think). White is not really a single culture. It's just a skin colour. There's nothing more to it than that.

Neither of it is particularly good, I think. But as has already been demonstrated a few times in this thread "black pride" certainly makes more sense, given historical context. In modern society, however, I don't think either is good. It encourages too much of a "us" and "them" mentality which was the cause of all the problems in the first place. In this day and age the colour of a person's skin should have no more significance than the colour of our hair or our eyes, I think.

[Hillary]

I suppose the difference is that there's more of a kind of black sub-culture in western society (and to a lesser degree with asians, though they tend to ID themselves more on a national basis, I think). White is not really a single culture. It's just a skin colour. There's nothing more to it than that.

Neither of it is particularly good, I think. But as has already been demonstrated a few times in this thread "black pride" certainly makes more sense, given historical context. In modern society, however, I don't think either is good. It encourages too much of a "us" and "them" mentality which was the cause of all the problems in the first place. In this day and age the colour of a person's skin should have no more significance than the colour of our hair or our eyes, I think.

This rather leads on to issues raised in the recent Gangsta thread. By nurturing an "us and them" mentality, you get the situation where blacks don't study, don't articulate themselves and don't get careers because that's what whites do. You become a race-traiter if you try and better yourselves.

The Notting Hill Carnival is on this weekend. I've heard the opinion that whites shouldn't be allowed to attend as it's a "black thing". The bottom line is that blacks can be just as racist as whites and the whole "black pride" thing simply gets hijacked by those with a racist agenda.

This in turn gives amunition to the BNP and other white supremacy nutjobs. All in all, it's a very bad thing in my opinion.

[Darth Wong]

I also hate the way blacks tend to assume that the word "racism" means "blacks vs whites", as if other races are irrelevant. And I'll tell you this: when I was growing up, I received more racial abuse from blacks than whites. What does that say?

[Talanth]

I don't think race or culture is what these people have a problem with as much as diference. I was bulied in my first school because, esentialy, I was a tall brunette in a village of short blonds (non-white people being unheared of in that area). "Black vs White" has just become the most steriotypical strugle, but all such strugles have the same cause.

More on topic I've never understood being proud about being white any more than I have pride in being brunette, or pride in having a left foot. They arn't parts of me I have any choice in, so why try to take the credit?

[Darth Wong]

More on topic I've never understood being proud about being white any more than I have pride in being brunette, or pride in having a left foot. They arn't parts of me I have any choice in, so why try to take the credit?

People who have nothing else to be proud of tend to take excessive pride in their "racial heritage".

[GuppyShark]

I don't see a problem with looking back at your ancestors. You may not be able to take credit for them but they're still a part of you in a very literal sense.

There's nothing wrong with pride in your ancestry per se. I think it's neat that I'm descended from some of the greatest civilising people in the history of mankind. Rule of law? Democracy? Yeah. We came up with that.

The problem of course is when you start looking down on other people.

[Darth Wong]

I don't see a problem with looking back at your ancestors.

I do. It's no better than taking pride in the fact that your Daddy is rich.

[b00tleg]

"White pride" is about as racist a slogan/term etc. as you can get. I know, because I useto use it that way in my younger more moronic days of skinheadery. There is absolutely no cause to use the term unless you are deliberatly trying to invoke unity or solidarity among racist people, or provoke people who aren't white into a fury or violence.

Saying that the term "Black pride" is on equal footing with that is just silly. Black people use the term to try to achieve pride where there literaly was none. White people use it as a "shield" against all things not white.

By the way I am half mexican and half sicilian... go figure.

I find this to be a little illogical. White people can't claim any sort of pride in their ancestry, heritage, and culture? For anyone race to claim "pride" in their ethnicticty is to claim exclusive rights on it and therefore makes it exclusive by definition. I don't see the logic in black people being able to take pride in who they are and where they come from, and I, being white, not able to participate in the same action.

Saying white people use it as a shield against anything non-white is stereo-typing. Not all whites are the same. Just as not all blacks, asians, and middle-easterners are not the same. I can't be proud of who I am just because I'm white?

[Lord Woodlouse]

I don't see a problem with looking back at your ancestors.

I do. It's no better than taking pride in the fact that your Daddy is rich.

How would it compare to, say, taking pride in your daddy winning at sports day? (and I'm not trying to provoke you with this question, I am genuinely curious).

[RedImperator]

I find this to be a little illogical. White people can't claim any sort of pride in their ancestry, heritage, and culture?

Which is why people in this thread are arguing that it's racist for Irish-Americans to celebrate St. Patrick's Day or Italian-Americans to eat the seven fishes on Christmas Eve....oh wait.

For anyone race to claim "pride" in their ethnicticty is to claim exclusive rights on it and therefore makes it exclusive by definition. I don't see the logic in black people being able to take pride in who they are and where they come from, and I, being white, not able to participate in the same action.

The difference is that African-Americans are a single ethnic group and European Americans are not. The terms "black" and "white" muddy the issue--the example of recent African immigrants being brought up before in this thread--but black pride is, at best, another flavor of the ethnic pride. At its worst, it does conflate race and ethnicity and become another kind of racism, sometimes just as virulent as the worst white racism, but the concept in and of itself is not any more inherently racist than a tee shirt that says "Kiss me, I'm Irish".

White pride is another matter entirely. Whites don't share a common ethnic or cultural heritage. So what is someone who proclaims "white pride" proud of except his skin color? Then there's the matter that, even if white pride was inherently neutral as a term and a concept, it's been coopted by racists and has become a racist term. "Sieg Heil" without its historical concext is a fairly innocuous phrase too, but it's impossible to strip its historical context.

Saying white people use it as a shield against anything non-white is stereo-typing. Not all whites are the same. Just as not all blacks, asians, and middle-easterners are not the same. I can't be proud of who I am just because I'm white?

Nobody said that. It's pride in whiteness itself which is the problem, and that's what white pride means.

[PrinceofLowLight]

The difference is that African-Americans are a single ethnic group and European Americans are not. The terms "black" and "white" muddy the issue--the example of recent African immigrants being brought up before in this thread--but black pride is, at best, another flavor of the ethnic pride. At its worst, it does conflate race and ethnicity and become another kind of racism, sometimes just as virulent as the worst white racism, but the concept in and of itself is not any more inherently racist than a tee shirt that says "Kiss me, I'm Irish".

White pride is another matter entirely. Whites don't share a common ethnic or cultural heritage. So what is someone who proclaims "white pride" proud of except his skin color? Then there's the matter that, even if white pride was inherently neutral as a term and a concept, it's been coopted by racists and has become a racist term. "Sieg Heil" without its historical concext is a fairly innocuous phrase too, but it's impossible to strip its historical context.

It's even worse than that. "White" did not really refer to skin color. "The wogs begin at Calais" It was the magic word to denote which people got treated like human beings. Plenty of white-skinned people didn't get called white because it mean they couldn't be exploited anymore. Catholics (especially Italians) , Jews, even damn Cornish weren't considered white at various points.

[SAMAS]

I also hate the way blacks tend to assume that the word "racism" means "blacks vs whites", as if other races are irrelevant. And I'll tell you this: when I was growing up, I received more racial abuse from blacks than whites. What does that say?

We're not the only ones who make that mistake. IIRC, blacks didn't invent the term "Reverse Racism".

Which is, of course, misnamed. Uncle Ruckus practices Reverse Racism, not Louis Farrakhan, who is just plain Racist.

[wolveraptor]

Rule of law? Democracy? Yeah. We came up with that.

Just why the fuck are you taking credit for something your ancestors did? Did you contribute toward's democracy's development at all?

How would it compare to, say, taking pride in your daddy winning at sports day? (and I'm not trying to provoke you with this question, I am genuinely curious).

You'd be proud of your father (I'd think), but you wouldn't go around boasting of "Fatherly Pride" or anything.

[GuppyShark]

Rule of law? Democracy? Yeah. We came up with that.

Just why the fuck are you taking credit for something your ancestors did? Did you contribute toward's democracy's development at all?

Learn to read. I covered that in my post.

[Darth Wong]

Learn to read. I covered that in my post.

No you didn't.

[Lord Zentei]

Rule of law? Democracy? Yeah. We came up with that.

Just why the fuck are you taking credit for something your ancestors did? Did you contribute toward's democracy's development at all?

Learn to read. I covered that in my post.

I think he means you, personally. As in "so your ancestors did such and such - what claim do you have to be proud because of this?"

It's not like being proud of your kid's accomplishments, since in that case you had a hand in the upbringing and can justifyably claim some credit (and blame) for what happens.

[brianeyci]

Ancestry bites. I don't want to meet the relatives who live half a world away just because I share some DNA with them. Nor do I want to know about my ancestors did.

If they did something great... I don't really care. I would only care about their mistakes so I could learn not to repeat history and then in a detached unemotional way instead of pride.

Some may say I'm a piece of shit for not visiting my dad's grave more than once a year, but I'm a busy man and I honor his legacy better by focusing on the now instead of the then. When I'm dead I definitely don't want people wasting their time with me personally unless they're getting something useful out of it.

Brian