Uncomfortable topics: Let's talk about race

[Don Coyote]

I did not know that. I thought it was just a descriptor used. "Which black guy?" 'Oh the tall light-skinned guy." which is how I've had people described to me by black people.

It's also a descriptor. It's just one that's loaded with cultural connotations, like "Ginger" is.

Wait, ginger has other stuff going with it? So I can legit lose my shit when people call me one?

[Doktor Howl]

I did not know that. I thought it was just a descriptor used. "Which black guy?" 'Oh the tall light-skinned guy." which is how I've had people described to me by black people.

It's also a descriptor. It's just one that's loaded with cultural connotations, like "Ginger" is.

Wait, ginger has other stuff going with it? So I can legit lose my shit when people call me one?

Why not?  I do.

Especially when they make comments about gingers being hot-tempered.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

In short, if not a single black person that I know finds the term offensive, I don't see why I should.

Maybe nobody you know, but http://www.skincaretalk.com/t/12928/redbone-yellowbone#post_179656

Man, that thread is a perfect example of the obsession with categorizing people by skin tone. Check out the girls who are annoyed by caramel girls calling themselves light. 

[Cain]

I see you as culturally white, no matter how ginger you may be.

[Doktor Howl]

I see you as culturally white, no matter how ginger you may be.

ARRRRRR, YOU YOU...You are absolutely right.  In fact, I fit just about every descriptor of being culturally White.

Advantaged childhood.
Decent education.
Somewhat complacent.
I don't think about race much, because I'm not impacted by it.
Most of my concerns are definitely first-world problems (SHIT!  I'm down to ONE car!)

[Don Coyote]

I did not know that. I thought it was just a descriptor used. "Which black guy?" 'Oh the tall light-skinned guy." which is how I've had people described to me by black people.

It's also a descriptor. It's just one that's loaded with cultural connotations, like "Ginger" is.

Wait, ginger has other stuff going with it? So I can legit lose my shit when people call me one?

Why not?  I do.

Especially when they make comments about gingers being hot-tempered.

I already lose my shit when people ask me if I am Irish.

[Doktor Howl]

I did not know that. I thought it was just a descriptor used. "Which black guy?" 'Oh the tall light-skinned guy." which is how I've had people described to me by black people.

It's also a descriptor. It's just one that's loaded with cultural connotations, like "Ginger" is.

Wait, ginger has other stuff going with it? So I can legit lose my shit when people call me one?

Why not?  I do.

Especially when they make comments about gingers being hot-tempered.

I already lose my shit when people ask me if I am Irish.

Most Welshmen do, for reasons that escape me.

[navkat]

I looked them up, and they're Southern terms that basically mean the same thing as high yellow, usually applied to females, with connotations of sexual attractiveness.

I find that uncomfortable on several levels, personally.

In that context, yeah, but I've never heard it used in the context of denoting sexual attractiveness. At least in the Tidewater area, it seems to just be a slang word for "part black, part something else".

Without sexual connotation I find it less disturbing. Out here we just call it "light". I mean, I am not a huge fan of the common Black practice of categorizing people by skin tone because it's a social hierarchy thing and I know where it came from, but other than that it's not overtly offensive. I guess. Mixed feelings here. (Oh fuck, undeliberate pun! I'm going to leave it.)

The social hierarchy issues associated with skin tone and hair texture are really bothersome. I won't go into the nuances of it right now, but there is a fucked up social dynamic within black communities that is directly descended from the way people were valued in the slave days. A light girl on a plantation would become a house servant because she was more "presentable", so she would be groomed and educated to a certain degree, and possibly even treated with affection (she would probably also be subjected to frequent rape, but hey).

The cultural residue of the higher value (and better treatment) of light-skinned mixes translates to higher social status to this day, and frequently that social status is accompanied by resentment and distrust (often unconscious) on the part of darker-skinned people. Weird dynamic all around. The result is that a weird cliquishness forms around skin tone, and dark girls often won't even try to befriend light girls because they think we're stuck up. And then we often don't approach them because we think they're aloof. So the cycle perpetuates itself.

I saw it in my own circles, growing up. As an "outsider," I was sort of exempt from a lot of racial role-assignment because I was left completely out of any hierarchy. As a result, I "got around." Sort of a social nomad, I got to see the "inside" of a lot of different groups from the outside, follow?

So I'd see black girls picking on one another for everything from lip-size to who has a "gap." ...A crotch-gap where the thighs touch but there's a little triangle of space, and "who got a bubble-butt." The girls would get black and latina fashion magazines and rip the models to shreds.  People of all colors making fun of each other for everything from "who shops at Brent City," to (please excuse my candor) "bodega niggas who can't afford new sneakahs."

Girls would join kickline and cheerleading, only to mercilessly make fun of each other for what jiggled and what color it was. Latinas and latinos making fun--and then later, extremely violent beatings--for who looks like a "Salvie" (El Salvadorian) and for having "Puerto Rican ears." (WTF?) You had P.R. people getting KKK-level racist about blacks and latinos that "should go back to their own country."

Don't even get me started on the Asian population: Japanese hate Chinese. Taiwanese distinguish themselves from everyone else. Everyone hates the Koreans.

Then you had the white stoners. Now, believe me when I say that I'm not biased against my own race. I've traveled enough and got around the Island and the City enough to understand that it was different in other places but to me, it seemed like the white people I grew up with were the least-smart, least honest and sometimes the trashiest fuckers to walk the earth. Now, I know there were waaaay worse areas of Brentwood but these motherfuckers would have multi-race friends at school they'd act cool with and then ride around town all summer, stealing radios, stealing bikes, acting like punks, talking about carrying a "nigger be good stick." Sometimes it was the "Spick be good stick." They could afford to be stupid so they were.

Kids, left alone too much by working parents. Latch-key kids, all of us (in Reaganomics-speak, that roughly translates into: "We needed a  word to make it okay for 2-income families to leave 7-year-old kids alone because they can't afford daycare so we made one up.") Listening to "L.I.H.C." Willfully ignorant. "Who the fuck is Jack Kerra-whack? Let's get a bottle of Cisco from the Shitgo and go hang out in the convent. God, Jenn, why you gotta use so much big words?" Italian pride. Irish Pride. Fucking white boys who'd never been to either place...whose parents had never been further than Jersey, most likely.

Gay-bashing. All races. Jai (David) Rodriguez went to my school--my sister's class. It's different now but until 1996, it was still very not cool for people to be gay. I used to volunteer at an organization called LIGaLY in Bay Shore. People from the Island act today like they never even heard of gay-bashing but I took the phonecalls on the crisis line. I hugged people who cried on me for hours because they had to be a "minority" (a word that was spat out by whites the way one would spit out the word "nigger,") and gay...or even worse, lesbian. I think the latinos were the cruelest about that.

People are fucked up creatures to each other. Racism is just a brand. And I'm grateful for it, really because we have words for it. We can define it, call it what it is and fucking make contact with something tangible when we punch it upside its ugly head. Make progress that we can see.

What do we call the nasty shit people do to each other that has no name? At the root of allllll this racism and classism and gayism, skinnyism and smartism from the outside aaaand within one's own group, is simply this: "I have shit that hurts so bad, I want to lash out so I've spun an intricate web for myself (or climbed into one pre-made) of reasons why the scapegoat can be you."

There's a few bars in our BIP, right there. All of us. Every fucking one of us.

[Doktor Howl]

I looked them up, and they're Southern terms that basically mean the same thing as high yellow, usually applied to females, with connotations of sexual attractiveness.

I find that uncomfortable on several levels, personally.

In that context, yeah, but I've never heard it used in the context of denoting sexual attractiveness. At least in the Tidewater area, it seems to just be a slang word for "part black, part something else".

Without sexual connotation I find it less disturbing. Out here we just call it "light". I mean, I am not a huge fan of the common Black practice of categorizing people by skin tone because it's a social hierarchy thing and I know where it came from, but other than that it's not overtly offensive. I guess. Mixed feelings here. (Oh fuck, undeliberate pun! I'm going to leave it.)

The social hierarchy issues associated with skin tone and hair texture are really bothersome. I won't go into the nuances of it right now, but there is a fucked up social dynamic within black communities that is directly descended from the way people were valued in the slave days. A light girl on a plantation would become a house servant because she was more "presentable", so she would be groomed and educated to a certain degree, and possibly even treated with affection (she would probably also be subjected to frequent rape, but hey).

The cultural residue of the higher value (and better treatment) of light-skinned mixes translates to higher social status to this day, and frequently that social status is accompanied by resentment and distrust (often unconscious) on the part of darker-skinned people. Weird dynamic all around. The result is that a weird cliquishness forms around skin tone, and dark girls often won't even try to befriend light girls because they think we're stuck up. And then we often don't approach them because we think they're aloof. So the cycle perpetuates itself.

I saw it in my own circles, growing up. As an "outsider," I was sort of exempt from a lot of racial role-assignment because I was left completely out of any hierarchy. As a result, I "got around." Sort of a social nomad, I got to see the "inside" of a lot of different groups from the outside, follow?

So I'd see black girls picking on one another for everything from lip-size to who has a "gap." ...A crotch-gap where the thighs touch but there's a little triangle of space, and "who got a bubble-butt." The girls would get black and latina fashion magazines and rip the models to shreds.  People of all colors making fun of each other for everything from "who shops at Brent City," to (please excuse my candor) "bodega niggas who can't afford new sneakahs."

Girls would join kickline and cheerleading, only to mercilessly make fun of each other for what jiggled and what color it was. Latinas and latinos making fun--and then later, extremely violent beatings--for who looks like a "Salvie" (El Salvadorian) and for having "Puerto Rican ears." (WTF?) You had P.R. people getting KKK-level racist about blacks and latinos that "should go back to their own country."

Don't even get me started on the Asian population: Japanese hate Chinese. Taiwanese distinguish themselves from everyone else. Everyone hates the Koreans.

Then you had the white stoners. Now, believe me when I say that I'm not biased against my own race. I've traveled enough and got around the Island and the City enough to understand that it was different in other places but to me, it seemed like the white people I grew up with were the least-smart, least honest and sometimes the trashiest fuckers to walk the earth. Now, I know there were waaaay worse areas of Brentwood but these motherfuckers would have multi-race friends at school they'd act cool with and then ride around town all summer, stealing radios, stealing bikes, acting like punks, talking about carrying a "nigger be good stick." Sometimes it was the "Spick be good stick." They could afford to be stupid so they were.

Kids, left alone too much by working parents. Latch-key kids, all of us (in Reaganomics-speak, that roughly translates into: "We needed a  word to make it okay for 2-income families to leave 7-year-old kids alone because they can't afford daycare so we made one up.") Listening to "L.I.H.C." Willfully ignorant. "Who the fuck is Jack Kerra-whack? Let's get a bottle of Cisco from the Shitgo and go hang out in the convent. God, Jenn, why you gotta use so much big words?" Italian pride. Irish Pride. Fucking white boys who'd never been to either place...whose parents had never been further than Jersey, most likely.

Gay-bashing. All races. Jai (David) Rodriguez went to my school--my sister's class. It's different now but until 1996, it was still very not cool for people to be gay. I used to volunteer at an organization called LIGaLY in Bay Shore. People from the Island act today like they never even heard of gay-bashing but I took the phonecalls on the crisis line. I hugged people who cried on me for hours because they had to be a "minority" (a word that was spat out by whites the way one would spit out the word "nigger,") and gay...or even worse, lesbian. I think the latinos were the cruelest about that.

People are fucked up creatures to each other. Racism is just a brand. And I'm grateful for it, really because we have words for it. We can define it, call it what it is and fucking make contact with something tangible when we punch it upside its ugly head. Make progress that we can see.

What do we call the nasty shit people do to each other that has no name? At the root of allllll this racism and classism and gayism, skinnyism and smartism from the outside aaaand within one's own group, is simply this: "I have shit that hurts so bad, I want to lash out so I've spun an intricate web for myself (or climbed into one pre-made) of reasons why the scapegoat can be you."

There's a few bars in our BIP, right there. All of us. Every fucking one of us.

Very well put.

[AnnaMaeBollocks]

I looked them up, and they're Southern terms that basically mean the same thing as high yellow, usually applied to females, with connotations of sexual attractiveness.

I find that uncomfortable on several levels, personally.

In that context, yeah, but I've never heard it used in the context of denoting sexual attractiveness. At least in the Tidewater area, it seems to just be a slang word for "part black, part something else".

Without sexual connotation I find it less disturbing. Out here we just call it "light". I mean, I am not a huge fan of the common Black practice of categorizing people by skin tone because it's a social hierarchy thing and I know where it came from, but other than that it's not overtly offensive. I guess. Mixed feelings here. (Oh fuck, undeliberate pun! I'm going to leave it.)

The social hierarchy issues associated with skin tone and hair texture are really bothersome. I won't go into the nuances of it right now, but there is a fucked up social dynamic within black communities that is directly descended from the way people were valued in the slave days. A light girl on a plantation would become a house servant because she was more "presentable", so she would be groomed and educated to a certain degree, and possibly even treated with affection (she would probably also be subjected to frequent rape, but hey).

The cultural residue of the higher value (and better treatment) of light-skinned mixes translates to higher social status to this day, and frequently that social status is accompanied by resentment and distrust (often unconscious) on the part of darker-skinned people. Weird dynamic all around. The result is that a weird cliquishness forms around skin tone, and dark girls often won't even try to befriend light girls because they think we're stuck up. And then we often don't approach them because we think they're aloof. So the cycle perpetuates itself.

I see Mexicans doing it too, favoring people with lighter skin and making comments like "My grandfather was Spanish, he had blue eyes" like it's somehow more special to have colonizing shitheels in the family than Indians.

[Doktor Howl]

I looked them up, and they're Southern terms that basically mean the same thing as high yellow, usually applied to females, with connotations of sexual attractiveness.

I find that uncomfortable on several levels, personally.

In that context, yeah, but I've never heard it used in the context of denoting sexual attractiveness. At least in the Tidewater area, it seems to just be a slang word for "part black, part something else".

Without sexual connotation I find it less disturbing. Out here we just call it "light". I mean, I am not a huge fan of the common Black practice of categorizing people by skin tone because it's a social hierarchy thing and I know where it came from, but other than that it's not overtly offensive. I guess. Mixed feelings here. (Oh fuck, undeliberate pun! I'm going to leave it.)

The social hierarchy issues associated with skin tone and hair texture are really bothersome. I won't go into the nuances of it right now, but there is a fucked up social dynamic within black communities that is directly descended from the way people were valued in the slave days. A light girl on a plantation would become a house servant because she was more "presentable", so she would be groomed and educated to a certain degree, and possibly even treated with affection (she would probably also be subjected to frequent rape, but hey).

The cultural residue of the higher value (and better treatment) of light-skinned mixes translates to higher social status to this day, and frequently that social status is accompanied by resentment and distrust (often unconscious) on the part of darker-skinned people. Weird dynamic all around. The result is that a weird cliquishness forms around skin tone, and dark girls often won't even try to befriend light girls because they think we're stuck up. And then we often don't approach them because we think they're aloof. So the cycle perpetuates itself.

I see Mexicans doing it too, favoring people with lighter skin and making comments like "My grandfather was Spanish, he had blue eyes" like it's somehow more special to have colonizing shitheels in the family than Indians.

The Indios call them Gallegos, I am told, and despise them just as much.

[EK WAFFLR]

A combination of illiteracy and white people being so scared to be perceived as racist that they'll err on the side of caution to the point of ridiculousness.

I don't worry about that, since I couldn't give less of a fuck if someone mistakenly thinks I'm a racist. I know what's in my heart and am confident in that. And anyone that thinks I'm a racist obviously doesn't know the first thing about me anyway.

Actually in all fairness I do harbor some internal racism, it's just all directed at white people. but on a case-by-case basis some of you are OK.

Does hating the human race count as racism?

No, that's speciesism.

[Doktor Howl]

A combination of illiteracy and white people being so scared to be perceived as racist that they'll err on the side of caution to the point of ridiculousness.

I don't worry about that, since I couldn't give less of a fuck if someone mistakenly thinks I'm a racist. I know what's in my heart and am confident in that. And anyone that thinks I'm a racist obviously doesn't know the first thing about me anyway.

Actually in all fairness I do harbor some internal racism, it's just all directed at white people. but on a case-by-case basis some of you are OK.

Does hating the human race count as racism?

No, that's speciesism.

Oh, okay.  Then I'm on solid ground.

[AnnaMaeBollocks]

I looked them up, and they're Southern terms that basically mean the same thing as high yellow, usually applied to females, with connotations of sexual attractiveness.

I find that uncomfortable on several levels, personally.

In that context, yeah, but I've never heard it used in the context of denoting sexual attractiveness. At least in the Tidewater area, it seems to just be a slang word for "part black, part something else".

Without sexual connotation I find it less disturbing. Out here we just call it "light". I mean, I am not a huge fan of the common Black practice of categorizing people by skin tone because it's a social hierarchy thing and I know where it came from, but other than that it's not overtly offensive. I guess. Mixed feelings here. (Oh fuck, undeliberate pun! I'm going to leave it.)

The social hierarchy issues associated with skin tone and hair texture are really bothersome. I won't go into the nuances of it right now, but there is a fucked up social dynamic within black communities that is directly descended from the way people were valued in the slave days. A light girl on a plantation would become a house servant because she was more "presentable", so she would be groomed and educated to a certain degree, and possibly even treated with affection (she would probably also be subjected to frequent rape, but hey).

The cultural residue of the higher value (and better treatment) of light-skinned mixes translates to higher social status to this day, and frequently that social status is accompanied by resentment and distrust (often unconscious) on the part of darker-skinned people. Weird dynamic all around. The result is that a weird cliquishness forms around skin tone, and dark girls often won't even try to befriend light girls because they think we're stuck up. And then we often don't approach them because we think they're aloof. So the cycle perpetuates itself.

I see Mexicans doing it too, favoring people with lighter skin and making comments like "My grandfather was Spanish, he had blue eyes" like it's somehow more special to have colonizing shitheels in the family than Indians.

The Indios call them Gallegos, I am told, and despise them just as much.

That one hasn't made it here yet, when it does at least I'll know what they're talking about now.
And we have white people who think Native Americans stop at the Rio Grand and Mexicans begin, I don't think they know what an Aztec is. And South Texas was Lipan Apache, a lot of the people here who identify as Mexican could be superimposed into a picture with Cochise's kids and you couldn't pick them out if you weren't familiar with the photo already. There's really no border at all, it's just political bs.

[Cain]

Peru had a similar thing - the upper class was pretty much "pureblood Spaniard", whatever that means (I suppose all those Moors and Visigoths kept to their own, amirite?), whereas the lower classes are mestizo - mixed Aymara and Spanish ancestery.  As they are of much smaller build than the aristocratic Spanish (though that has much to do with a protein poor diet as anything), and of darker skin, and usually only speak broken Spanish, there was great value in being seen as lightskinned, as it held all the connotations of belonging to that aristocratic grouping.

The history of political involvement concerning the mestizos and Japanese-Peruvians is quite interesting - especially since the former tended to sympathise with the Shining Path, while one of the latter oversaw a near genocidal campaign against them.