Before I post my message, let me preface it by saying that I am in no way being racist or attacking anyone.
Why is it that in many things they always list the first black person or for example at this one hospital 1952 first black woman to graduate. What about the first white woman/man? Why is it that people highlight the fact that in that year the first minority accomplished it? Why do you never hear about the first white person or whatever race also? I think people are being hypocrites when they talk about equality but then small things like this happen...
It's not a "small thing" for an African American to be the first to graduate from a particular institution. The United States has been obsessed with race since its inception and continues to be to this day. When certain "color barriers" are broken, people consider that to be a milestone and a step in the direction of true equality. I think publicizing events like that and writing them down in the text books emphasizes what is important in this country, what cultural values the authors hold, and it serves as an example to others what they have the potential to accomplish. Non-minorities are not hindered based solely on their race, so highlighting a minorities achievement "despite all odds" is something that many people want to hear about. It also, perhaps, reduces the emphasis on the tremendous amount of failure and hardship minorities in the U.S. have undergone.
But then you are saying that their accomplishment is greater than another persons. Its saying hey this person graduated as the first one, but yet it mentions nothing about the other scores of people that did too. Yes being the first is an amazing accomplishment, but at the same time publicizing it is only making it stand out further, both in a good and bad way. It down plays the success of non minorities and hypes the success of the minorities. Another example is black history month, why isn't there a nationally celebrated white, hispanic, etc month as well?
Again before anyone thinks that I am, I am not being racist just asking. But I'm sure someone will believe me to be.
If Hillary had won the presidency then she would have been referred to as the first female president. That would certainly would have been made the history books. When anything not the norm happens it makes the history books.
Since the history books are full of wealthy white christian men accomplishing things then when it happens again it seems less amazing. It's still amazing just less so. It may not be very fair but that's just the way it is.
If a black person was the first to graduate from a college where 1000 white people had already done it then that's noteworthy since that person obviously had to overcome whatever it was that had kept people of his race out. Ditto for a woman graduating from an all male college for example.
It's not a "small thing" for an African American to be the first to graduate from a particular institution. The United States has been obsessed with race since its inception and continues to be to this day. When certain "color barriers" are broken, people consider that to be a milestone and a step in the direction of true equality. I think publicizing events like that and writing them down in the text books emphasizes what is important in this country, what cultural values the authors hold, and it serves as an example to others what they have the potential to accomplish. Non-minorities are not hindered based solely on their race, so highlighting a minorities achievement "despite all odds" is something that many people want to hear about. It also, perhaps, reduces the emphasis on the tremendous amount of failure and hardship minorities in the U.S. have undergone.
Yep, and from a 13 year old point of view, reconstruction after the civil war STILL isn't complete.
reconstruction after the civil war STILL isn't complete.
Reconstruction delt with how to reintegrate the Confederate states back ito the Union. Reconstruction is complete. The question is whether the civil rights movement is over.
I guess i should have named this a civil rights topic, because im about to jump off topic...
Do/Why do all black people think whites are the only ones to enslave them? On facebook (yeah this is a crude example) a person posted wanting to know when whites were going to apologize for enslaving his people.
Discrimination is a fundamental state of being, and there are two ways to approach this- to take for granted that since discrimination exists that we ought to, in the spirit of egalitarianism, acknowledge minorities. It's complex and nobody is saying it is perfect.
The other approach is to note the existence of positive discrimination: the practice of discriminating in favor of something as a reaction to previous negative discrimination a minority may have experienced. With regards to these, I think there are much better (commonly used) examples- and I will explain why your examples aren't great in just a moment. Before that, I'll point out that where positive discrimination is controversially discussed is in employment and benefits, as well as say educational minority entry schemes and busuraries. The questions revolve around whether any discrimination should exist at all (your question, in essence), and ultimately what is justice, and how does one put injustices right.
Which brings me to dealing with the original generalisations. We are now living in an age where people are responding just as much to an established victim mentality as the discrimination that engendered it. If you study the history though, you will realise that the dominant suppressive, paternalistic forces in the world come from colonialism. Colonialism (and, ealier, imperialist expansionism) was practiced by many empires over the past, but the ones that eventually prevailed just so happened to be the ones initiated by "white" people. This is not to say that whites are the only ones that colonised and subjugated other peoples but that currently it is the 'dominant culture', not least because most of the history we study is generated by such.
Do/Why do all black people think whites are the only ones to enslave them?
this is true, they have been inslaved by many others.
You haven't actually addressed my point. My point is that you think all black people think whites are the only ones the enslave them. I highly doubt this is true.
More appropriately you should have said "most blacks". This may seem like a minor issue but the wording is very important since you just criticised people for making, wait for it, false generalisations.
yes i should have put most because i know many that do not act like that, it was a bad generalization on my part, from the few that i have seen/heard talk about it, they almost all complain that they are being mistreated for being black.
Well, yeah I do get your point. Just thought I'd get nitty-gritty because in a real argument you will get pulled up for making that kind of mistake and it will cost you ground, so best not to.
I would actually go so far as to say that merely the expression of victim mentality applies to some individuals within the minoritites, so much so that it appears unwarranted. This is natural, however, and made complicated by the fact that elsewhere discrimination that does warrant this victim mentality is being perpetrated upon other individuals.
Yeah I know, that's why I discussed this on here, because in real life unless it was a close friend this talk would never happen. All too often it seems that anytime a white person talks about how much a minority is getting attention in a positive way, i.e. my earlier example, the minority claims the person is a racist. One real example (ex 1) I saw was when I was at work the person would say they got taken off their previous "station" because they were black or (ex2) because the white people looked better at that station or that they didn't do anything, BUT (ex1)the person they replaced the original with was still black, the other started working at a desk, (ex2)the person that complained about not doing anything actually was not doing his job.
I think that it is also a hypocritical situation when blacks are complaining that they are being discriminated against and that cops are using bias and stereotypes and profiling to arrest/pull them over. But the person doesn't pay attention to the fact that the gangsters etc are using the same kind of public visualization; i.e. loud stereo, deeply tinted windows, big rims, colors, etc., to show their status, and whether its wrong or not sometimes profiling is decent to a certain extent.
I am not a minority but I do know how it feels to be stereotype, I am in a fraternity. First assumption anyone? That I am a raging alcoholic, I am a dog, I treat girls horribly etc. However, I do not drink, and when I have its been at the most 4 shots, I have a girlfriend that I have been with for almost a year, and I treat her with respect and I treat her well. (kinda a long rant)
