They wanna look more like us, and we wanna be more like them i.e. tanning salons, spray on tans, tanning creams
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A Question For The White Folks.......
- Thread starter Phalex
- Start date
They wanna look more like us, and we wanna be more like them i.e. tanning salons, spray on tans, tanning creams
You mean give up?,...after one lucky (but killer) chip in,...nah.
engage backpedal thrusters
My friend didn't make much of it at the time,...and looking back it's not really that big of a deal,...just sort of stand out-ish in my mind.
...you aren't born with it, it's taught, either with intent or just from "being in the air". Thankfully, despite growing up in the southern US, my family did not subscribe to any of these attitudes, and I don't give a rat's @$$ if you're white, black, purple, or green - you're either a good person, or you're not.
My story of dealing with racism:
Back in '83, I was working as a bartender in a small bar in Slidell, LA (where I grew up - bar is long gone now), it was open 24 hours, 7 days a week (they take partying SERIOUSLY in southern Louisiana!
), and I had the 11-7 shift, which catered mainly to 3rd shift NASA Michoud Assembly Facility workers heading home to Slidell (Michoud is where they build the external fuel tanks for the shuttle).
I'd been working there for several months, and enjoyed the job for the most part, until one night a black guy came in and sat alone at the bar. I went over, greeted him, took his order, filled it, chatted a bit with him, not giving it a thought - he's a customer to me, and seemed like a good dude, just wanted a couple drinks on the way home. Place was empty (well, except for the poker game in the back room...
...so the BAR was empty), so I was just hangin' and talkin' with the guy, nothing else to do (place was already cleaned up, my other "job").
Bar owner comes over to me about 10 minutes later, tells me that we're shutting down, to get the guy's last order and button up.
I ask the boss "Really? Closing???", and he replies "Yeah, tell him to get his last one and head on out.".
What do I know? Maybe we ARE....
....so I go over, apologize to the guy, tell him the boss has told me we're shutting down, and it's last call.
Dude nods, smiles, thanks me, says not to sweat the last call, he needs to head home anyhow, finishes up the drink he's got, leaves me a couple bucks for a tip and heads out.
So, being naive, I begin to do what I think is "closing up". Boss comes out, and asks what I'm doing...closing up, right boss? Nope, just get ready for the shift change....
...I go home at 7, sleep until 3 or so...wake up...still thinking about it....
...4 pm, I head in to the bar, walk up to the owner who'd just gotten there, and told him he needed to find a new 11-7 bartender, I don't work for chicken $417 liars, biggots, or racists. No, I'm not giving my "notice", I'm QUITTING NOW, right now, m**********r.
I've seen it work the other way as well:
In my present job, I had a local guy that at one time worked in our shop, prior to my being there, call and ask about buying a set of replacement Bartolini pickups for his bass. I asked the boss how to price him out, got the numbers together and waited for him to show up. He didn't work for Roscoe long, a few months, but we accommodated him pretty well on pricing because of his association. Understand he did not ask for a price on the phone, just asked if he could get them, then said he'd be by to do so in a while.
He shows up with a friend and the friend's kid in tow, about 2 hrs later. I give him the price, which was VERY reasonable, and he began arguing with me about it. I explained that I was merely giving him the number the owner had instructed, and further that it was far below not only what he would pay at retail, but lower than a retailer would pay to get the pickups (specifically: our cost on the pickups, plus what the pro-rated shipping would be).
He immediately thereafter made this statement:
"You're only overcharging me because I'm black!"
What???
I told him that we were finished talking, and that he was welcome to go buy the damned pickups somewhere else.
Racism sucks, no matter what your skin color is. Using racism as a weapon is as unconscionable as being a victim of it.
My story of dealing with racism:
Back in '83, I was working as a bartender in a small bar in Slidell, LA (where I grew up - bar is long gone now), it was open 24 hours, 7 days a week (they take partying SERIOUSLY in southern Louisiana!
), and I had the 11-7 shift, which catered mainly to 3rd shift NASA Michoud Assembly Facility workers heading home to Slidell (Michoud is where they build the external fuel tanks for the shuttle). I'd been working there for several months, and enjoyed the job for the most part, until one night a black guy came in and sat alone at the bar. I went over, greeted him, took his order, filled it, chatted a bit with him, not giving it a thought - he's a customer to me, and seemed like a good dude, just wanted a couple drinks on the way home. Place was empty (well, except for the poker game in the back room...
...so the BAR was empty), so I was just hangin' and talkin' with the guy, nothing else to do (place was already cleaned up, my other "job").Bar owner comes over to me about 10 minutes later, tells me that we're shutting down, to get the guy's last order and button up.
I ask the boss "Really? Closing???", and he replies "Yeah, tell him to get his last one and head on out.".
What do I know? Maybe we ARE....
....so I go over, apologize to the guy, tell him the boss has told me we're shutting down, and it's last call.Dude nods, smiles, thanks me, says not to sweat the last call, he needs to head home anyhow, finishes up the drink he's got, leaves me a couple bucks for a tip and heads out.
So, being naive, I begin to do what I think is "closing up". Boss comes out, and asks what I'm doing...closing up, right boss? Nope, just get ready for the shift change....
...I go home at 7, sleep until 3 or so...wake up...still thinking about it....
...4 pm, I head in to the bar, walk up to the owner who'd just gotten there, and told him he needed to find a new 11-7 bartender, I don't work for chicken $417 liars, biggots, or racists. No, I'm not giving my "notice", I'm QUITTING NOW, right now, m**********r.
I've seen it work the other way as well:
In my present job, I had a local guy that at one time worked in our shop, prior to my being there, call and ask about buying a set of replacement Bartolini pickups for his bass. I asked the boss how to price him out, got the numbers together and waited for him to show up. He didn't work for Roscoe long, a few months, but we accommodated him pretty well on pricing because of his association. Understand he did not ask for a price on the phone, just asked if he could get them, then said he'd be by to do so in a while.
He shows up with a friend and the friend's kid in tow, about 2 hrs later. I give him the price, which was VERY reasonable, and he began arguing with me about it. I explained that I was merely giving him the number the owner had instructed, and further that it was far below not only what he would pay at retail, but lower than a retailer would pay to get the pickups (specifically: our cost on the pickups, plus what the pro-rated shipping would be).
He immediately thereafter made this statement:
"You're only overcharging me because I'm black!"
What???
I told him that we were finished talking, and that he was welcome to go buy the damned pickups somewhere else.
Racism sucks, no matter what your skin color is. Using racism as a weapon is as unconscionable as being a victim of it.
I have no more duty as a white person to educate whites about race than I do about religion, personal creed, or philosophy. I am not racist, but find that most of the human race (all of them) are -- to paraphrase Hobbes -- short, brutish, and nasty! You can't educate "dumbassity" out of anyone regardless of race -- and I'm not interested in trying. If the parents didn't get it right, by the time they get to me its way too late
You know that's not what I said in my post. I said that instead of telling a black person how bad racism is, a concerned white person would do better to try to cut out racism in his or her own community. I said nothing about anyone having a duty to fight racism.
Criticize me all you want, but please criticize what I actually say.
It's not just skin color, it's also ethnicity, language, religion, age, obesity, height or lack of it, anything that sets you apart from a person's perception of the "norm". In my younger days I experienced bigotry because of my language - I'm French-Canadian, and there's been a long period of animosity between French and English-speaking Canadians. I'll tell you all, the epiteth "frog" cuts as much as "n*****" or "spick" or "wop", especially to an impressionable teenager trying to fit in to an English-speaking high school. I dealt with it by keeping, as the British would say, a stiff upper lip. Besides, if I recognized any of them while playing hockey, I wasn't above taking a run at them!
- Feb 8, 2005
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- 1,053
- Disclosures
- Endorsing Artist: Bag End - Dean Markley - Thunderfunk
They wanna look more like us, and we wanna be more like them i.e. tanning salons, spray on tans, tanning creams
It's the whole "they" and "us" thing I have a problem with in the first place.
...you aren't born with it, it's taught, either with intent or just from "being in the air". Thankfully, despite growing up in the southern US, my family did not subscribe to any of these attitudes, and I don't give a rat's @$$ if you're white, black, purple, or green - you're either a good person, or you're not.
My story of dealing with racism:
Back in '83, I was working as a bartender in a small bar in Slidell, LA (where I grew up - bar is long gone now), it was open 24 hours, 7 days a week (they take partying SERIOUSLY in southern Louisiana!
My mom's brother and his wife, both Canadian-born, moved down to Bay St. Louis MS many many years ago - he works on a navy vessel, and his office duties take place near the NASA facilities, I believe.
I remember going with my wife (girlfriend at the time) to visit them, when my two cousins (American-born) were young, I think the youngest of the two was about 9 or 10 at the time. My wife is black, and from my visit to Mississippi and Louisiana, it seems that "mixed" couples were still unusual enough to warrant a lot of stares (this wasn't so long ago, about 1997 or '98). When we showed up at their house, my youngest cousin just stared at us for a bit - I think she honestly didn't know what to think about the two of us being together, and I was a little bit worried, frankly, as I found it somewhat disturbing that this seemed to bother her.
Thankfully, both of my cousins grew up to be really open-minded individuals. (was it the Canadian influence?
)
My mom's brother and his wife, both Canadian-born, moved down to Bay St. Louis MS many many years ago - he works on a navy vessel, and his office duties take place near the NASA facilities, I believe.
I remember going with my wife (girlfriend at the time) to visit them, when my two cousins (American-born) were young, I think the youngest of the two was about 9 or 10 at the time. My wife is black, and from my visit to Mississippi and Louisiana, it seems that "mixed" couples were still unusual enough to warrant a lot of stares (this wasn't so long ago, about 1997 or '98). When we showed up at their house, my youngest cousin just stared at us for a bit - I think she honestly didn't know what to think about the two of us being together, and I was a little bit worried, frankly, as I found it somewhat disturbing that this seemed to bother her.
Thankfully, both of my cousins grew up to be really open-minded individuals. (was it the Canadian influence?
My experiences in the area are a bit out of date, as I last lived in Slidell in 1984, and last lived in the state of Louisiana in 2001.
Here's what my observations were:
Tolerance between the "races" (which I never saw as an actual definition, personally) was actually very good, in both directions. However, sadly, "mixing" was not well-received in either direction, both sides of the divide sadly "frowned" upon it.
Don't know if it has changed much, if at all, now.
Wow, that sucks. And it embarrasses me, too. I'm an anglo Montrealer from the west island. My dad's parents were definitely products of that prejudice, which was hard-wired into anglo culture in the old days -- this odious sense of superiority. :^/
I think the biggest problem is segregation. The anglo community used to be so separate -- which allowed the old stereotypes and assumptions to go untested by everyday communal interaction.
My dad (recently deceased at age 93!) himself was this strange blend of his parent's prejudice, and his own much wider experience of the French community.
He would say the most outrageously prejudiced things about francophones -- completely unhooked from reality. But then, when he was dealing with them in person, everything would be just fine. Sometimes afterwards he would say something like _He's_ all right -- as if this individual French Québecois was an exception to the rule! But it seemed like every single Québecois that he dealt with in person turned out, after all, to be "all right". ! :^D
Anyway, considering he was born in the anglo community in 1914, I don't think he caused _too_ much pain from his prejudice. It just made us, his kids, squirm in embarrassment, when he said bigoted things.
Thankfully -- at least in the Montréal region -- most of the previous separation of communities based on language has been gradually breaking down. Most neighbourhoods have families of various backgrounds, and even the Montréal west island is at least 1/3 or more francophone now.
The next generation in our family (my brother's kids -- I have no kids) is all completely bilingual, and hardly notice which language they're speaking.
So there's hope!
I'm glad to see that things are progressing for the better in La Belle Province! There's never any room for any kind of prejudice, whether is by race here in the USA, by religion in the Middle East, by ethnicity in Catalonia, or by language in Quebec. However, sometimes it takes a long time, several generations in fact, for old prejudices to weed themselves out. It took a helluva long time for the sectarian violence to finally end in Northern Ireland, just as it took a long time for the Sinhalese and the Tamils to stop fighting in Sri Lanka.
We humans are such social animals, constantly seeking out and associating with our own kind, and we've been like this for as long as there have been humans on this planet. We've kept this mentality since prehistory, forming tribes with those we perceive to be like us, and viewing "the Other" with suspicion, lest he steal our food or our women. I think humanity is progressing in the right direction, but how long it will be before humans are truly prejudice-free is anyone's guess.
I don't work in HR, so I have nothing at all to do with hiring. I don't work in finance, so I have nothing to do with extending credit. Never speculated in real estate, and really only have a rudimentary understanding of gentrification. I have one friend in particular that gets pulled over for DWB with some regularity, but I'm not affiliated with local or state law enforcement.
I agree that these are all important issues that affect minorities, but I think to the majority of us guys, they are more academic. We never have to deal with them. There are even some of us who will deny their existance altogether.
I was lamenting the the fact that random white people with some pretty messed up views on race and religion (I know a guy that has the key to ending terrorism) feel the need to take me into their confidence.
No one has ever denied me a loan based on my race (as far as I'm aware). Taxi cabs will stop and pick me up. The more insideous aspects of rascism have never effected me, so I really have no great appreciation or understanding. (And I think threads dealing with these issues do help foster understanding)
The N word was right up there with the F word when I was growing up. It's an offensive curse word, and my mother would have beat me silly for uttering it.
I just really don't get why these people assume that since I'm white, I must share their screwed up point of view.
There is always gonna be a "them and us," but whether thats referring to race, sex, city folk/country folk, us and squirrels, squirrels and apricots whatever. In my post I made no reference to race, I was talking about darker skinned peoples and fairer skinned people, meant as a comment on peoples insecurities and how the human race is a generally insecure species and always striving for what they may perceive as being more attractive, but how there is no universal beauty and all thoughts of what it is lie in an individuals head.
You filled in that blank sir
- Feb 8, 2005
- 3,636
- 1,053
- Disclosures
- Endorsing Artist: Bag End - Dean Markley - Thunderfunk
As did you. I simply made a statement. Feel free to read into it what you will.
Not that surprising, that part of the world is very white. My folks live in a village in Sussex, and I have a feeling that people there are a bit like that too. Whereabouts in the New Forest was it?
- Feb 27, 2005
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- Full disclosure, I'm a certified Fender technician working in a music store that carries Fender, Yamaha, and Ibanez products among others.
Generally, I grunt and walk away. I heard construction workers of all races say some pretty awful stuff at me as if I was going to agree with them just because I was wearing a toolbelt...white guys complaining about the black guy on sight, the black guy complaining about the Mexicans (never mind that they were most likely Americans of hispanic descent) who were driving down wages, whatever. I'd say "ah" and go about my business unless they were too obnoxious, in which case I'd ask them to not use that kind of language around me, I don't appreciate, and don't think anyone else would either.
Dealing with some of my older relatives was a bit more difficult...my grandma on my dad's side wasn't in the habit of spewing racial slurs, but occasionally she would say something that was exactly the opposite of what my parents were teaching me, like an offhand comment during a news report, or her name for Brazil nuts which I won't repeat here. I mean, I knew at a young age from my parents and church that what she said and thought were wrong, but how do you talk back to grandma?
A few years back when I lived in the Bay Area, my parents and in-laws joined my family for a backyard BBQ. Since a lot of them had grown up in Baltimore, they started reminisicing. This was great, until one of my in-laws turned the conversation towards "there goes the neighborhood, not a fit place to live," because of the changing demographic in the area. My mom was mortified, had no idea how to respond, my wife was embarassed, and to top it off, my 3-year old son's best friend was the little kid next door, who also happened to be black and playing in his backyard at the time. I asked the in-law to please save that conversation for when kids weren't around, and not at my house.
I can't stop people from being idiots or rascist (at least, I haven't yet) but I can sure as hell stop them from laying that kind of garbage down in earshot of me and my family.
Dealing with some of my older relatives was a bit more difficult...my grandma on my dad's side wasn't in the habit of spewing racial slurs, but occasionally she would say something that was exactly the opposite of what my parents were teaching me, like an offhand comment during a news report, or her name for Brazil nuts which I won't repeat here. I mean, I knew at a young age from my parents and church that what she said and thought were wrong, but how do you talk back to grandma?
A few years back when I lived in the Bay Area, my parents and in-laws joined my family for a backyard BBQ. Since a lot of them had grown up in Baltimore, they started reminisicing. This was great, until one of my in-laws turned the conversation towards "there goes the neighborhood, not a fit place to live," because of the changing demographic in the area. My mom was mortified, had no idea how to respond, my wife was embarassed, and to top it off, my 3-year old son's best friend was the little kid next door, who also happened to be black and playing in his backyard at the time. I asked the in-law to please save that conversation for when kids weren't around, and not at my house.
I can't stop people from being idiots or rascist (at least, I haven't yet) but I can sure as hell stop them from laying that kind of garbage down in earshot of me and my family.
to be fair, discrimination is not just about skin colour. afterall, white people hate other kinds of white people. Bosnians and Croatians, Americans and Russians, etc, etc. And if it's not people it's places. I'm married to an English girl who's parents moved them all out here when she was 6. Now Australia is a superior place to live in so many ways for them, but they can't help themselves. My father in law in particular. He is ALWAYS raggin on Australia and telling me why the 'UK' was better in 1981 in almost every concievable way (except for drywall apparently?)Why don't they just move back there? Well I have no idea. I just laugh at them for being totally conflicted and not even getting it.
No. I mean pick it up. Take the max score (we always play double par max) and move to the next hole so the group behind you can play.
Hey kid, maybe youre reading yesterdays newspapers, but the Russians are alright these days. (they bring us vodka!)
