Newsgroups: misc.education,soc.culture.african.american
From: mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman)
Subject: Re: What A White Person Learned in College About AfAm Culture
Organization: Oracle Corporation
Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1992 21:27:07 GMT
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In article <k1o1VB2w165w@netlink.cts.com> galan@netlink.cts.com (Greg Gross) writes:
>mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes:

>> In article <y2kNVB1w165w@netlink.cts.com> galan@netlink.cts.com (Greg Gross) 
>> >mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes:

>> >> In article <RZuaVB3w165w@netlink.cts.com> galan@netlink.cts.com (Greg Gros
>> >> >mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes:


>Michael:

>Why I disagree with you? Let me count the ways...

>1) "...Catholics, Orientals, Jews, Italians and Irish. All of these 
>groups once faced prejudice in the U.S." Your words, I believe. 
> a) You deny lumping these groups together in terms of their experience,
>   ...and then you go ahead and do it, repeatedly. But if you haven't
>   recognized that by this time, you're not likely to recognize it now,
>   so don't worry about it.
> 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.

So now we should have AA for Jews and Asians?

>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.  

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

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

>Do you know how you came to have the surname that you have?

Nope.  

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

Yup.

>How far back?

To Jamestown, Virginia in 1650 or so - I don't know about you, but I'm
an American.

>And do you 
>understand how all or any of that plays a role in the present? 

Yup.

>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.

If you think I should be worrying about Eastern European history, well
what I know of that I picked up by reading in late highschool and
college.  Somehow I never really felt a lack.

>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.

>PS: the last official anti-black majority riots were Detroit 1943 and 
>Selma, AL 1962.
>cheers

Well, here you really have informed me - I thought the last such riot
was when U Miss was desegregated.



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