|
Edited on Tue Feb-06-07 09:05 PM by SemperEadem
It is a foregone conclusion in this country to too many whites that a black person who is articulate and well spoken is the exception and not the rule for African Americans. "Why", you ask? Because up until around 1863 it used to be AGAINST THE LAW to teach a black person to read. Illegal. 'Thrown in jail and ostracized from society, in danger of having your house burnt to the ground with you and your wife and babies in it--and no witnesses' illegal. Vigilantes would round up their "good ol' boys" to intimidate you (because none of them ever had the balls to do it by themselves.) The laws were drawn up in order to keep the slaves ignorant so that they could not counter the oppressive laws of the country with knowledge and flinging the truth of that knowledge back into the teeth of the oppressors. That was being uppity and an uppity negro would soon find themselves swinging dead from the nearest tree.
Then it was that blacks and white could not attend the same school. The law of the land said separate but equal. Needless to say, black schools were woefully equipped, unlike the white schools. That many overcame obstacles the law placed in their paths should not be something that strikes whites as different or an anomoly, yet it does. They'd overcome quite a bit by that time.
It wasn't but 40 years ago that blacks could not sit at the same lunch counter as whites; or could not drink out of the same water fountain; or could not attend the same schools; black women had only 4 professions open to them: teacher, nurse hairdresser or housekeeper/maid. 40 years, not 140 years. Not 240 years. In my lifetime.
Many whites take strides to face and resolve their issues regarding race. They should be commended. However, it can't be ignored that their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents, on whose knees and in whose arms they as a child sat, were brought up with a very, very different mentality with regards to their status, their 'caste' and their sense of entitlement. The white child's impressionable mind absorbed the ugliness they heard their parents/grandparents/great-grandparents spew about blacks, which was done to inculcate in them the lie and false sense of superiority, caste and entitlement which their parents/grandparents/great-grandparents felt was their birthright, a birthright they didn't want to give up.
When a white person says that a black person is articulate, it is not meant as a compliment, as the white person believes it is. He may have thought that he was extending a compliment, but it is a backhanded compliment. It is meant that they didn't expect for the black person to be equal in expression as they know themselves to be and take for granted they are; they didn't expect to be taken aback and bested (and rendered intimidated) by the black person's intellect--surprised by something about which they should not be surprised in the first place.
To the whites making a fuss about being 'politically correct': You should not be surprised or feel bested, therefore intimidated, by the intellect of any person, yet you are time and time again. And the first refuge you seek is to find fault everywhere else but with how you intially perceived that person and attempted to diminish their intellect by backhanding them with a 'compliment', which is as complimentary as someone throwing up on your shoes. Why can't you just say "that was a strong argument; well done"?
There is a long, ugly and painful history behind a white person telling a black person 'wow--you're so articulate' and it's not the responsibility of the black person to shield the white person from his/her own boorishness. It's each of our responsibility to face our own boorishness and check ourselves.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
