HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: isbell@ai.mit.edu (Charles L Isbell)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Subject: Re: Death Penalty, for or against?
Date: 11 Oct 92 17:55:51 GMT
	<HANS.92Oct10140633@ravn.iesd.auc.dk> <BvyMo1.4C2@NCoast.ORG>
Followup-To: soc.culture.african.american
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
In-reply-to: cmort@NCoast.ORG's message of 11 Oct 92 13:55:12 GMT

cmort@NCoast.ORG (Christopher Morton) writes:
|> What I am trying to say is that the U.S. criminal system affects the
|> African-American community disproportionately. For instance, there are
|> more young African-American men in prison than in college. Does that
|> mean that young Af-American men are evil ? A rhetorical question, to
|> which the answer of course is: No! if I were to sketch an explanation,
|> it would be based on the following two observations:

|What you seem to have missed is that CRIME affects the African-American
|community disproportionately.  WHO commits this crime?  It isn't Serbian 
|irregulars.  I'll leave it to you to figure out who commits these crimes 
|against A/As....

Yes, well, this is besides the point.  Given a Black criminal and a
White criminal who have committed the same crime, the Black criminal
is more likely to be indicted, convicted, and spend the most time in
jail.  This, I infer, is the point of the poster.
--
Peace.
                "I tried to get a drink in the terminal bar.  The bartender 
                 asked to see ID.... I was living a nightmare.  I was 
                 stranded in a happy paranoid land where the only people 
                 allowed to drink are people who drive."
                            - Kyle Baker, _Why I Hate Saturn_
                                   -\--/-
    Don't just adopt opinions     |  \/  |       Some of you are homeboys
          develop them.           |  /\  | but only I am The Homeboy From hell
                                   -/--\-
From: ph111-bx@violet.berkeley.edu (;;;;7202)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Subject: Re: Pessimism
Date: 9 Oct 1992 19:49:14 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Distribution: usa
NNTP-Posting-Host: violet.berkeley.edu

In article <1992Oct9.161131.5498@morrow.stanford.edu>
HF.GTD@forsythe.stanford.edu (Gabrielle Daniels) writes:
>What else is also harder to pick out are black folk who "passed"
>into the white race both during and after slavery. "Many thousands
>gone" is an apt description.  White folks are not as white as they
>think they are. Some great-grand, self-hating relative might have
>been black, but one wouldn't know it to see pictures.  Sometimes
>their children showed "throwback;" some people wisely refused to
>have children because of the threat of exposure.

One of the persistent biological myths reflected in these stories is
the commonly held belief that a white-light black marriage might produce
dark, even black, children.  While two individuals of mixed ancestry can,
in fact, have children somewhat darker and somewhat lighter than either
parent, a marriage between a "pure" Causcasoid (whatever that is) and a
black cannot produce offspring darker than the darker parent.  The myth
of black babies coming from such marriages probably arises from the fact
of marriage between phenotypically light blacks and individuals who were
wrong in assuming that they had no African genes.  This could happen in
the south where a good deal of nonmarital intercourse took place (most
often involuntarily on the part of blacks), particularly before the Civil
War.  Genes from such unions, some of them undoubtedly African in origin,
got into the gene pool *socially* defined as white.  It is for this reason
that no southern American can really be sure that he is not "black," at
least as he himself would define the term.  This produces a cultural paranoia
derived from social rules and definitions, as well as misunderstandings of
biology.

Keep in mind, though, that Africans and Europeans exchanged genes for
centuries before the discovery and settlement of America.  Therefore,
there are no pure Caucasians or pure Africans anyway.
From: helfman@aero.org (Robert S. Helfman)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Subject: Re: interracial dating
Date: 13 Oct 1992 03:36:18 GMT
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: aerospace.aero.org

In article <1992Oct12.155918.805@news.cs.indiana.edu> "Lloyd T Jones" <tj@moose.cs.indiana.edu> writes:
>bc205cs@opie.bgsu.edu writes:
>
>
>> 	Mr. Jones I think there is a difference between enslaving your enemies
>>(like tribes in Africa) and enslaving innocent people like the europeans.  I'm
>>suprised that someone with such an education can't tell the difference
>> 
>	Really?  I wonder how one who is enslaved would feel about how or why.
>Is there really a 'more noble' form of enslavement?  I think my education is 
>precisely what allows me to see that there is no real difference, just a 
>different excuse to achieve the same result...

"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my
idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference,
is no democracy." [A. Lincoln, 1858]

"...'You toil and work and earn bread, and I'll eat it.' No matter in what
shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the
people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from
one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the
same tyrannical principle." [A. Lincoln, 1858]

"..he who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny
freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God,
cannot long retain it." [A. Lincoln, 1859]
From: st902523@pip.cc.brandeis.edu (David Miller)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Subject: Freemasonry/Masons
Date: 16 Oct 92 02:58:19 GMT
Reply-To: st902523@pip.cc.brandeis.edu
Organization: Brandeis University

Hello,

	My name is David Miller.  I'm from Chicago going to school in Waltham,
Ma at BrAndeis University.  This past summer I joined the fraternal order of 
freemasonry.  I was wondering if anyone knew of any four-letter (A.F.& A.M.)
predominantly Black lodges near/in Waltham or maybe in the Boston area.  If
you do could you please e-mail me at the above address or call me at (617)
736-5950.
	So to all my brothers "So Mote It Be" and to my sisters (any Eastern 
Stars), I'll see you in the East.

						Peace,
							Bro. David Miller
From: kevinc@sequent.com (Kevin Closson)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Subject: Re: interracial dating
Date: 13 Oct 92 17:34:27 GMT
Article-I.D.: sequent.1992Oct13.173427.9199
Organization: .

In article <1992Oct13.042441.10250@news2.cis.umn.edu> mmoore@staff.tc.umn.edu ("None of ya Bizness") writes:

>no fuckin job!"   If the woman I'm dating is white I DO IT SIMPLY TO
>BE A SELL-OUT, TOKEN-ASS NIGGA, nothing else.  (gasp, gasp! I did it!
>I admitted it! I'm a sell out!!! Can I still keep my ghetto pass,
>though?)

      Yes.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
From: eah0065@venus.tamu.edu (HASKIN, EDWARD ARTHUR)
Subject: Racist White Greek Party at Texas A&M
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 16:53:00 GMT

Here at Texas A&M a white Fraternity held a jungle theme party at their Frat 
house on Oct 2. A band member that performed at the party wrote to the school
paper in disgust that no one present at the party seemed to think that the theme
was insensitive and racist.

The Fraternity, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, had their pledges dress in black face and
grass skirts while carrying around spears. Active members were dressed in 
hunting outfits chasing the pledges around the house. At one point someone got
up on the band stage and yelled that "We don't have Niggers in our house."

Although a great number of the details have been refuted the Fraternity does
not deny that the pledges and actives were dressed in the manner just explained
they deny that the pledges were being chased around the party.

While the party was a theme party all other party attendees were dressed in 
some type of jungle costume. The fraternity members have apologized to anyone 
that was offended by this social activity and they claim that they still don't 
recognize that the party was racist in any way.

My Opinions

THe fact that people  can't see that supposedly inferior members such as pledges
were dressed in Black face, and no one else was dressed in this manner suggests
that black people are inferior also. Depicting a race of people in a jovial, 
joking manner suggests a lack of respect. The fraternity members claim that
it was just done in fun and Black people should not be offended because they
have a Black member in their chapter. (He did not attend the party) 

Besides the lack of respect shown to people of African descent, the act of 
chasing pledges dressed in Black face (If assumed true) pokes fun at the
greatest crime ever committed by the human race. This lack of sensitivity
has enraged the the Black student population here and further shown how
uncomfortable this University can make a person of color feel. 

I would like to ask others to give testimony in this forum where they have
felt insensitivity expressed towards them or their race. Many times we want
to paint a pretty picture if college life but for many, it can be a nightmare.


Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Date: Wed,  7 Oct 1992 19:20:05 -0400 
From: Dean Calloway <dc4l+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Its about F****** time!

Excerpts from netnews.soc.culture.african.american: 7-Oct-92 Re: Its
about F****** time! by Chris Waldron@microsoft. 
> ...And it won't end just because Clinton is in the White House.
>  
> ChrisWa.

Of course not.  That's silly.  Jesus Lord Almighty could be elected
tomorrow and people would still behave short-sightedly and with little
compassion or regard for their fellows.  However, the current slide
downhill is absolutely ridiculous and needs to at least be moderated.

DCAL
From: ronaldd@cbnewse.cb.att.com (ronald.h.davis)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Subject: Re: Interracial Dating
Date: 16 Oct 92 20:14:57 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: AT&T

In article <1992Oct16.164831.3580@athena.mit.edu> femibyte@athena.mit.edu (Olufemi G Anthony) writes:
>In the midst of all this talk about dating or not dating white people,
>someone mentioned that he had a white girlfriend, but yet his politics
>was "black". I'm sorry, but I have a problem with that. How can one's
>politics be "black", yet the person has a white woman? Maybe some of you
>
i don't "necessarily" see a contradiction here.  on matters of race, racism,
and racial politics the issue is one of common interests shared across a
group of people.  dating, however, can be a personal and not a group
activity.  when a black person dates a black woman, he's dating that person
not the *entire* race of black people, and whether the relationship works
out or fails depends primarily upon the interpersonal dynamics between the
involved parties.  likewise may be said if a black person dates a white
person.

this is a somewhat idealized version of the situation.  in reality people
don't cut themselves off from the rest of society just because they are
dating, so the opinions of outsiders can influence the course of the
association.

the other case, of course, which i have neglected here is what i call
the "vivasectionalist" case:  where one dates a person [especially of
another group] *because* they are a different race.  maybe they are
curious about various stereotypes [is it true?], etc.  or maybe they
think significant others of other races will do things for them that
those of their own race won't.  here one's "group" view does collide
which what i consider to be an "individual" view.  in this case, i
suspect there could be a contridiction between one's dating habits
and one's politics.  i guess it's everyone's
right to choose as they see fit although race is not the only meter
that i've seen used.  i've known some guys from the northeast who have
a real thing about southern women [the mystique an all i suppose].  i
think this is every bit as frivolous as using race;  but it's not the
same.  when race is used, i think the "opinions of outsiders" that i
referred to in the last paragraph would be significantly different.

>Don't do black women a disservice by suggesting that they only like
>hoodlums. Give them more respect than that. If we do not respect the
>
agreed!!!

-- 
  __  ______  __  / __/ |       at&t bell laboratories, naperville il, usa
_/ (_(_) / (_(_/_/_(_/  .       ronald@iexist.att.com / att!iexist!ronald
"if you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes" -- edmund wilson
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
From: jdurbin@nl.oracle.com (Jason Durbin)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Subject: Re: Death Penalty, for or against?
Date: 7 Oct 92 14:39:50 GMT
Organization: Oracle Europe

In article <1at04hINN6m5@uwm.edu>, price@convex.csd.uwm.edu (Gregory Neil Price) writes:
|> The sentiments expressed by hans@iesd.auc.dk in regard to the death
|> penalty appear sentimental, and besides the point. The fact that the
|> death penalty disproportionately, and unjustly affects Black Americans
|> is not a sufficient reason to reconsider, or abolish it. From a
|> contractarian viewpoint, allowing the state to execute criminals
|> can be rationalized, regardless of disparities in its application
|> across race, gender, and class.
|> 
|> 
|> What's the point? A good civil society must have a death penalty.
|> In fact, one could argue that a (civil) society with a death penalty
|> is a good one. Considerations of racial disparities in death sentences
|> are  purely sentimental, nor do they completely reveal   how fair
|> and just a society is--- A Fair and Just Society must have a Death
|> Penaly. (Otherwise how many strongmen would join, or continue  to
|> live in it?) 
|> 
|> G. N. Price

Uh, pardon me? You've just elevated most third world dictatorships to the
status of "good civil societies" and demoted most every nation in Europe
to "unfair" (and , perhaps unenlightened by you definitions) societies.

Do you know J.J.C. Martillo perchance?

J. Durbin
Oracle Europe (Who speaks for itself)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
From: buckmr@vccnw05.its.rpi.edu (Ron Buckmire)
Subject: Re: Black Nobel Laureate
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 21:12:41 GMT

HF.GTD@forsythe.stanford.edu (Gabrielle Daniels) writes:

>Well, well, well, WELL.  A black Caribbean brother living in the
>U.S. and teaching at Boston University, Derek Walcott, is at the
>top of the literary heap this morning, children.  He beat out
>sister Toni Morrison, among others, for the Nobel Prize for
>Literature this year.  I will say this:  Walcott has been
>laboring in the vineyard for quite a while.  He's a poet and a
>playwright.  He does have friends in high places.  W.S. Merwin
>said of him that it might come as a shock that the most eloquent
>man writing in English today may be a black man.  A backhanded
>compliment, perhaps, but apt.  He gets $1.2 million buckos, too.
>He says he's still going to teach, but hey...if he don wanna, he
>don hafta.  Work it, brotherman, and congratulations!

Well, it would have been cool if TONI MORRISON had won it, but I'm sure she
still has a few more years to work on it.

I have never even read any of Walcott's stuff, though I had heard of him.

-- 
RON BUCKMIRE, 11 Colvin Circle, Troy, NY 12180-3735. ***Clinton-Gore '92***
vox:(518)-276-8910 fax:(518)-276-6920 buckmr@rpi.edu buckmr@rpitsmts.bitnet
Feminism "...encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children,
practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians." -- Pat Robertson.
From: dc4l+@andrew.cmu.edu (Dean Calloway)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Subject: Re: Interracial Dating
Date: 12 Oct 92 17:52:24 GMT
Article-I.D.: andrew.AeqWjM_00iV3Q7BHRD
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Excerpts from netnews.soc.culture.african.american: 12-Oct-92 Re:
Interracial Dating by Lloyd T Jones@moose.cs.i 
> soon find that it might have the opposite effect.  You have to put up with
> ignoramuses from both races who can't seem to get over the fact that maybe,
> just maybe, you actually married for LOVE.  I know.  It's an amazing concept.
> You really should try it sometime.

My mother is white and I believe that, indeed, many black men do see
white women as a symbol of making it.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
From: HF.GTD@forsythe.stanford.edu (Gabrielle Daniels)
Subject: Spike vs. Liz Claiborne
Organization: Stanford University, California, USA
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 00:09:52 GMT

Have you guys heard of this one:

I was checking out an article by Barbara Grizzuti Harrison on The
X Man, Spike Lee.  Spike declared during the interview that black
shopping women oughta boycott Liz Claiborne because the broad has
an ugly opinion of big beautiful black women.  In other words,
baby got (too much) "back".  Claiborne supposedly blurted out her
major problem on Oprah's show a couple of years ago and my girl
Oprah had to set her straight.

Harrison checked out Lee's claim and found it to be erroneous.
Liz Claiborne, it appears, has never guested on Oprah's show, and
that comes from Harpo Productions, Ms. Winfrey's arm.  Even
Parade mag (you know, the Sunday supplement!) seconded that
emotion.

When I was working as a saleswoman in the Macy Woman Department
at Stanford Shopping Center in the late 1980s, the word that was
in our shop that Liz was resisting making big girl clothes (unlike
Adrienne Vittadini and others) because, personally, she couldn't
stand big girls. Like we were out of control or something. Making
big girl sizes was being touted as her mea culpa for making such a
disastrous statement on all places, Oprah's show.  Being a generous,
but well-shaped girl myself, I was rather put off enough by what I
had heard not to even try to buy her clothes, and then again,
a designer is a law unto his/herself...but the black aspect never
entered into the story which is about 6 years old, until now.
                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I dunno.  I have never seen a clip from the infamous Oprah show
that Claiborne guested and I'm certainly into facking (fact-ing)
whatever I say.  I'm asking if anyone's heard the story, or other
versions of the story; or happened to see the Oprah show, or
heard/saw both, to say a few syllables about what they think.  Is
this Spike starting something (again) or what?
From: isbell@ai.mit.edu (Charles L Isbell)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Subject: Re: Those debates
Date: 12 Oct 92 19:34:31 GMT
	<1bcf2gINN4a5@agate.berkeley.edu>
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
In-reply-to: ph111-bx@violet.berkeley.edu's message of 12 Oct 92 18:10:24 GMT

ph111-bx@violet.berkeley.edu (;;;;7202) writes:
|(Charles L Isbell) writes:
|->Perot won the soundbite war.  The best line:
|->
|->On Bush's claim of experience:  "Well, they got a point.  I don't have
|->any experience running up a 4 trillon dollar debt."

|I thought his best line was: "If you've got a better idea, I'm all ears." 

Nah, that was just the funniest.
--
Peace.
             "There was always a rational explanation of the 
              haunting, but they had a dog that could talk."  
                               -- Joe E. on Scooby-Doo
                                   -\--/-
    Don't just adopt opinions     |  \/  |       Some of you are homeboys
          develop them.           |  /\  | but only I am The Homeboy From hell
                                   -/--\-
From: jthomp@mainz-emh2.army.mil (JEFFREY THOMPSON)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Subject: A tribute to our forefathers (continued)(PS: only one more segment)
Date: 15 Oct 1992 03:12:35 -0500
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

To:       soc-culture-african-american%cs.utexas.edu@vm1.nodak.edu

Subject:  I Saw a Slave Ship {continued}

While we stayed on the coast I was mostly on deck; and one day, to my great
astonishment, I saw one of these vessels coming in with the sails up. As
soon as the whites saw it, they gave a great shout, at which we were
amazed; and the more so as the vessel appeared larger by approaching
nearer. At least she came to an anchor in my sight and when the anchor was let
go I and my countrymen who saw it were lost in astonishment to observe the
vessel stop; and were now convinced it was done by magic.

Soon after this the other ship got her boaats ouut, and they came on board
of us, and the people of both ships seemed very glad to see each other.
Sevveral of the strangers also shook hands with us black people, and made
motions with their hands, signifying I suppose, we were to go to their
country; but we did not understand them.

At last, when the ship we were in had got in all her cargo, they made ready
with fearful noises, and we were all put under deck, so that we could not see
how they managed the vessel.

But this disappointment was the least of my sorrow. The stench of the hole
while we were on the coast was so intolerably loathsome that it was dangerous
to remain there for any time, and some of us had been permitted to stay on deck
for the fresh air; but now that the whole ship's cargo were confined together,
it became absolutely pestilential.

The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in
the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarecly room to turn himself,
almost suffocated us. This produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon 
became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought
on sickness among the slaves, of which many died, thus falling victims to the
improvident avarice, as I may call it, of their purchasers.

This wretched situation was again aggravated by the galling of the chains, and
now become insupportable; and the filth of the necessary tubs, into which the
children often fell, and were almost suffocated. the shrieks of the women,
and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole a scene of horror almost
inconceivable.

Happily perhaps for myself I was reduced so low here that it was thought
necessary to keep me almost always on deck; and from my extreme youth I was
not put in fetters. In this situation I expected every hour to share the fate
of my companions, some of whom were almost daily brought upon deck at the point
of death, which I began to hope would soon put an end to my miseries. Often did
I think many of the inhabitants of the deep much more happy than myself. I 
envied them the freedom they enjoyed, and as often wish I could change my
condition for theirs.

To be continued (the last segment)...

Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
From: llk@kepler.unh.edu (Local Genius)
Subject: Re: Pessimism
Organization: Department of Mathematics
Distribution: usa
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 02:55:04 GMT

In article <1b4nnqINN3s4@agate.berkeley.edu> ph111-bx@violet.berkeley.edu (;;;;7202) writes:

[....]
>Keep in mind, though, that Africans and Europeans exchanged genes for
>centuries   before the discovery and settlement of America.  Therefore,
>there are no pure Caucasians or pure Africans anyway.
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I beg to differ....this is a sweeping statement which is not
necessarily true....

--
lk(with the man in the yellow hat)    











Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american