From: mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman)
Newsgroups: misc.education,soc.culture.african.american
Subject: Re: What A White Person Learned in College About AfAm Culture
Date: 28 Dec 92 19:55:43 GMT
Organization: Oracle Corporation
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by an unauthenticated user
              at Oracle Corporation.  The opinions expressed are those
              of the user and not necessarily those of Oracle.

Greg, please do not delete attribution lines.

In article <iw9gwB1w165w@netlink.cts.com> galan@netlink.cts.com (Greg Gross) writes:

>> > b) I know more than a few Asians and Jews who would probably ask you 
>> >    rather pointedly "where you do get this "once FACED prejudice in the 
>> >    U.S., white boy?" As if this were all a thing of the past.  Maybe it
>> >    is where you live, but not around here.

>from Michael Friedman:

>> So now we should have AA for Jews and Asians?

>Was stating a simple truth. Affirmative action is your fixation, not 
>mine.

So what's your point?  The sky is blue.  Simple truth.  Also irrelevant.

>> >2) In your workplace or your academic environment, do you ever look 
>> >around you and feel isolated, cut off from the mainstream, and otherwise 
>> >very much alone? If you do, you *might* be able to understand some of the 
>> >motivation behind the formation of Black Student Unions. If you don,'t, 
>> >you don't.

>> Occasionally.  So what?  You live with it.  

>Like I said, if you don't, you don't. And come to think of it, who cares 
>if you don't?  We hardly need your approval.

And if you do you do.  As I said before, so what?  You live with it.

>> >   How well do you know your own family? How far back can you trace
>> >it? 

>> To my great grandparents.  No further.  Somehow I endure.

>I wonder if there was a conscious effort to strip you of your family 
>heritage? 

Nope.  Just to kill them.

>There was in our case, and it was largely successful. 

Unless you are an American Indian rather than a Black, this is
manifestly untrue.  There was no concious effort to "strip [Blacks] of
[their] family heritage".  By the way, what exactly is a "family
heritage"?  

>> >Do you have 
>> >an understanding of your history, your heritage? 

>> Yup.

You deleted my point about my heritage starting here in the mid-1600s
with Jamestown.

>> >If you 
>> >know all of that, or were taught all of that early on, either at school 
>> >or on your mother's knee, then maybe you have no need to pursue this kind 
>> >of knowledge today. If so, congratulations.  I and my breathren do not, 
>> >for the most part, share your good fortune, which is why we need to learn 
>> >and research these things for ourselves at this late date.

>> I don't see why you can't learn American history just like I did.
>> After all, if you are an American then that is your history.

>Right. My father was American too, but when he went overseas to fight for 
>"freedom," he and the rest of his segregated unit were treated with less 
>courtesy and given lesser facilities than German POWs. That too is part 
>of the history. My great-uncle before him fought Germans in WW1 for this 
>country, well enough to win the Silver Star. Didn't actually *receive* 
>til 1960, though; seems black soldiers who had to fight with French units 
>(because the U.S. Army didn't think they were good enough) weren't 
>recognized for their service along with everyone else. A little more of 
>the history.

So what's your point?

>Your comments concerning Eastern European history I take for a weak 
>attempt at sarcasm, one of several.

Not at all.  I am pointing out that your focus on an African heritage
is ridiculous by showing you what it looks like from outside.  I did
this by showing you what I would be doing if I was running arround
looking for the equivalent heritage for myself.

>> >3) My situation is not the same as that of an Asian, a Catholic, an 
>> >Italian, an Irishman, a Jew. Nor are any of theirs the same as anyone 
>> >else's. 

>> In part, but by the same token your situation is not the same as
>> anyone else's.  In that case we can't group anyone together.  So much
>> for any policy thatr recognizes the concept of race.

>> >When you lump everyone together in one breath and say: "They all 
>> >faced prjudice but they made it without whining; why can't you?" Whether 
>> >you realize it or not, you are doing exactly what you've been denying you 
>> >were doing.

>> Nope.  I denied claiming that the experiences were identical.  I will
>> happily agree that I claim that the experiences had many similar
>> aspects and that we can learn by making comparisons.

>Make all the comparisons you wish, for whatever jollies you may derive 
>from it. But when you're done, an apple will still be an apple, an orange 
>will still be an orange, and the experience of different minorities in 
>this country will still be different.

Certainly.  And the experiences of different people in this country
will still be different.  But we still find it useful to deal with
groups of people and it is still useful to deal with groups of
minorities.

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am not an official Oracle spokesman.  I speak for myself and no one else.