And I am the Racist? MSNBC Sinks to New Low

Yes, it is possible for MSNBC to sink even lower.



Truly disgusting.

Taboos and Trophy Wives

Sometimes I think I am better off not talking to anyone in Northern Virginia. Nine times out of ten you will be drawn into a conversation that ends up being the same old thing; conservative bad, white equals racist, poor are kept down by the rich, and on it goes. So why I am surprised by this still is something of an amazement. I was out running some errands and got into a conversation with a woman who looked like a perfectly normal rational human being. That is until she started talking. Oh my.



Somehow we got onto the topic of inter-racial marriages (I want you to know this conversation started up because I made a comment on how rude people have become in the age of electronics) and was told in no uncertain terms that a black man who marries a white woman does so because once he becomes successful he has the opportunity to be more accepted in the white community and can go after what is taboo. When he is not successful it isn't an option to him. I was also told that in most cases the black man will eventually cheat on the white wife with a black woman. Really?


Now, has this woman been to places where many young people hang out of late? College campuses or even something as simple as a busy mall or movie theatre on the weekends? Younger people in this country don't see inter-racial relationships as taboo as someone in her age range (I would venture to say fifties or so). While intercultural marriages are still taboo in some communities; the asian cultures don't take to marrying someone other than an Asian all that well. This is still a generality and not a hard and fast rule. Many people of Asian decent are married to people who are not.


My nephew is married to a hispanic woman who he met on a bus. Why he was on a bus, was never made quite clear to me as he has a car, but nevertheless that is how they met. On a bus you don't have a great deal of time to worry about race relations when making a decision to get up the nerve to ask someone out on a date. Since they are now married, obviously he did ask her out. I am sure it never occurred to him that she has a different skin color than he does. My family learned the lesson of not being accepting in the past and welcomed her with open arms. She is a welcome addition to our family and he is madly in love and about to celebrate his first wedding anniversary in a few weeks. Her family had no issues either. No one in my family looks at her as some sort of taboo and he is not looked at some sort of trophy.


This is just something that gets under my skin to no end. We are living in the 21st century, can't we just love who we want to love without judgement? While racism exists in this country and that cannot be denied, it is time that we have the honest discussion about it. It doesn't just exist in the white community. The black community is just as capable of racism as any other. If this woman believes that white woman marrying a black man is well received in some parts of the black community she is sadly mistaken. She is looked down upon by both men and women. Some black woman don't take all that kindly to black man being with a white woman. In some cases the white woman just can't win.


I have worked retail on and off over the period of my life. Once during a big sale I was told that I was racist because I wouldn't give a woman a coupon discount. The problem was she didn't have the coupon. So no, I couldn't give it to her. I was told in no uncertain terms by the manager that morning, no coupon, no discount. When I told her that my boyfriend's skin was darker than hers she said to me that I was just some stuck up white woman who thought I was better than his black family and he was just some sort of race traitor who didn't accept his blackness. So not only was I still a racist, so apparently was he. Who knew?


I brought up this story to her and also mentioned that some black women have told me flat-out that there is a certain jealousy that happens when a successful black man marries a white woman simply because so many black men have issues such as criminal records, drug problems, and children out-of-wedlock with more than woman. She dismissed this as just media hype. I suppose the woman who told me this is not capable of having her own opinion.


She went on to explain to me how much of the problems really stem from conservatives. Sarah Palin in particular. I asked if her if she understood that Sarah Palin is married to man who is a minority. Eskimo's are much more of minority in this country than blacks are. She completely ignored that, and also wouldn't answer me when I wanted to know what exactly Palin has ever said that leads her to believe that she is a racist. I guess being conservative is good enough. Because after all, aren't we all?


I told her that the black community certainly wasn't being helped by the likes of Jesse Jackson Jr. standing up in congress and calling virtually everything a racist issue. If we such a racist country how the heck did Obama become president. Yet another question she didn't answer. She kept repeating over and over again that people didn't understand their history.


My question to her is how does it get better if you are referring to white woman who are married to black man as some sort of trophy wife? I asked her when would the black community learn that history shows that since the welfare state started in this country the black family has become more separated than ever before? There was a time that the black community stayed together and helped each other out. The black family was much more of unit than it is today. There was a time that a majority of black babies were born to a two parent family. The republican party is not responsible for the breakdown of the black family nucleus. That is something that they themselves have to take responsiblity for. I told her that the republicans are not responsible for making blacks feel that they are not allowed to think for themselves on political issues lest they be called a race traitor. The republican party is not responsible for the sad state of affairs of the public school systems in urban communities. It isn't the republican party that is trying to stop much-needed reform. That it is indeed the NAACP that is calling well-meaning parents race traitors who are only trying to improve the education that their children receive.


I also told her that any child born into the middle class in this country has a much chance as any other in this day and age. While I will concede that is not true when you are born living at or below the poverty level. But it is no easier for a poor white child to get out of poverty than it is for a poor minority child. But one of the reasons that getting out of poverty is so difficult is that government is not helping people to stand on their own, it is giving them what they need to survive and taking away incentive to help themselves. They are constantly listening to I am a victim rhetoric.


The sad reality is that people with her attitude is part of what is holding back some within the black community and makes people who marry someone from another race or culture that they have done something wrong or taboo. Or try to anyway. And one more thing, take Jesus out of politics.  He wasn't a politician. 


I can't say it any better than this:

Quote of the Day - Marion Barry Edition

“The key to keeping this city black is jobs, jobs, jobs for black people so they can have a better quality of life in neighborhoods in the city,” he added. “I believe in integration, but I don’t believe in the apartheid we have in Ward 8. You don’t see corner stores in Ward 3. You don’t see the liquor stores.”

Marion Barry - D.C. Council Member on his reaction to the census data that has shown DC to be a more racially diverse city. 


You remember Marion Barry, the former mayor of DC that was arrested after a video surfaced of him smoking crack.  Yeah, not only is he still around, he is an elected official in DC, go figure. 

Ward 3 is the part of DC that is majority of white people, apparently he feels if they had more liquor stores they would have more black people.  Ward 3 is Georgetown and borders Northern Virginia.  Georgetown is known for it's sidewalk cafes, brownstones, and shopping.  That is one of the main reasons that people go to Georgetown not just to live, but to visit as well. 

So I guess he is saying that since black people don't have an easy time getting all liquored up they don't want to live there.  Nice. 

Truly mindblowing. 

Affirmative Action Cupcake Sale

This is a discussion worth having.   Affirmative actions laws were necessary when they first came into existence, but I feel that they have become outdated and are now becoming discriminatory.  There is no reason that people of Asian backgrounds should be required to have a higher SAT score than other nationalities or colors.  I say remove all that information from the application process and admit students based on performance.  We are a diverse nation, the numbers will take care of themselves. 

Marco Rubio Not A Good Cuban American?

I didn't know that there are stereotypes of Cuban Americans.  I am completely unaware of them. 

Also, dear Alicia's father was born in America.  So to say that her family has the same experience seems a little odd to me.  She is generations away from the experience that Rubio had.  As a first generation American, I can tell you that when you grow up around people who were born in another country, your viewpoints of this country are different.  It is not something that can be then given to another generation, no one in my families next generation understand what my parents experience was.  It is a unique experience that dear Alicia cannot possibly understand.  Oh, I don't think it helps that she is the child of a dem senator from the very blue state of New Jersey.  Somehow I don't think that growing up in that environment is even remotely close to growing up in the Miami area like Rubio did.  They are night and day. 

Uncle Tom - A Profile in Conviction

Conservatives who happen to be people of color hear the words “Uncle Tom” on a regular basis. I have heard that term ever since I can remember. The term has always been to me a put down. During an interview of Alveda King, the niece of Martin, she said she viewed it as a compliment and viewed Uncle Tom as a hero.



I have no memory of reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I am sure that I read it in school, but I don’t remember the book at all. A few months back I picked up the book and started reading it on a very irregular basis. I went into reading this not believing that I would view Uncle Tom in this way. I was mostly wrong.


I found the book to be sad. Harriet Beecher Stowe wasn’t above racism herself. The narrative that she gave in the book makes that very clear. Although one must remember the time that this was written in. Racism was the acceptable view point. It was never questioned, not even by the northerners. While they felt that slavery should end, they certainly didn’t want to embrace the black community. Many whites wanted to round them up and send them all back to Africa. If you read deeply into the history books it seems that this was the view point that President Lincoln held as well. He was killed so shortly after the civil war ended that we will never know if this was his plan, but there is historical evidence to back up that view.


Black conservatives are called Uncle Tom’s all the time. They are also called Oreo’s, race traitors and many more derogatory names. Allen West recently said this during his tax day tea party speech. Many believe that he is turning his back on his race by embracing conservative views. I have never quite understood why it is that some believe that all blacks must walk in lockstep to a certain political ideology. How exactly is that equality if everyone must think alike?


I just finished the book today. I was totally blown away by the book, and realized I read the second half of the book much more quickly than I did the first half. I finished the book with a much greater understanding of what Ms. King was trying to say. The way that Tom lived his life is admirable.


Tom was a man who lived by his convictions. Tom was before anything else a Christian. He viewed his life through this prism. He loved his family and he lived his life in an honorable and decent way. At the beginning of the book Tom is sold to cover some debts of his original owner. His wife encourages him to run away with Eliza, another slave that was about to have her son sold away from her. Eliza couldn’t bear the thought of living without her son, so she ran. Tom told his wife that he couldn’t do that. His original master, Shelby, treated him fairly, as far as Tom was concerned. He felt that Shelby wouldn’t be doing this if it were not necessary. Tom read his bible and said his goodbye’s to his family. He left with the belief that he would be back to his family when the money was there.


Tom was sold to yet another “master” who treated him as well as one could expect during the time of slavery. Time went by and many things happen over the course of Tom living in Louisiana under his new circumstances. Tom was set to be freed by St. Clare but he died suddenly and that didn’t happen. Tom was eventually sold to one more Master. This one was a brutal and mean spirited man. Legree asks Tom to beat an older woman who is poor health; he is beaten when he refuses. Legree ends up killing Uncle Tom when he refuses to rat out his fellow slaves who have runaway. Sadly it was just before Shelby family raised enough money to bring him back to his family, where he would have been a free man with his family.


The point being that Tom never walked away from his own convictions. His belief system sustained him throughout his life. A life that was never easy and almost always sad. Tom was a man who used passive resistance to his existence. He certainly wasn’t one to be called a “sell out” or “race traitor”. There is nothing in the book that should make one jump to that conclusion.

When St Clare asks him if he would not be better off a slave than a free man, Tom responds with a straight: "No." "Why Tom, you couldn't possibly have earned, by your work, such clothes and such living as I have given you," says St Clare. "Know's all that Mas'r," says Tom. "But I'd rather have poor clothes, poor house, poor everything and have 'em mine, than have the best, and have 'em any man else's."


The narrative of the sell out actually began several decades after the books release. It started around the turn of the century. While slavery had ended decades earlier the institutionalized racism certainly had not ended. The traveling minstrel shows were very popular during the times of the First World War, and “Uncle Tom” type shows were the rage. This is where much of the narrative started.


While I may not necessarily call Uncle Tom a hero in the same way that Ms. King has referred to him as, what I will say if a politician is being called an Uncle Tom; they may just be someone worth voting for. Uncle Tom was man who lived by his convictions, loved his God, loved his family, and never wavered from what he believed in and what was important in his life. He did what was right, instead of what was easy. Wouldn’t it be nice if more of our politicians were like that?

Black History Month - NBC Celebrates & Demeans All At The Same Time

 What, no watermelon on the menu?  How do they keep minorities employed there? 

H/T to Truth from a non-hyphenanted American