DANTRIFICATION: American Cuisine

Friday, September 28, 2007

American Cuisine

Thoughts on Sylviagate here.

7 Comments:

Zyanya said...: Bill O’Reilly’s comments didn’t surprise me one bit. Neither did the miscarriages of justice that were perpetrated on those young, black men down in Jena, LA. I am even less surprised that, given the opportunity, the Bush controlled media would have gladly let these stories, and others like them, be swept under the rug. However, I am pleasantly surprised that, given all of the reports of how apathetic the hip-hop generation has become, we quickly rallied together to get the truth out to those who would care to hear it. It is encouraging to know that the ideals of the original hip-hop generation are being passed on to people who will continue to fight for it’s legacy of truth, knowledge, justice and humanity for all races and not just a select group.

Danny, you spoke about the influence growing up in Columbia, MD had on you. Having moved from a predominately black city as a child to an all white, small, country town and then to Columbia, MD as a teenager, my experience of the multicultural haven that is Columbia was a little different.

As a child growing up in Washington, DC in the early 70’s, I absolutely LOVED my environment. There was always something to do and see, black people were running things for the first time and the music and spirit of the 70’s was in full effect. Moving to all white, Fairport, NY I thought I had been consigned to Hell. This is a place where there is snow on the ground 8 months out of the year, a good time for the kids was playing hide-and-seek in the cornfields and culture consisted of hunting pheasant and listening to REO Speedwagon. When my parents told us we were moving to Columbia, MD and how diverse it was I thought to myself “YES, I will be around black people again! I won’t have to deal with these lame, trifling, white people who look at me as sub-human anymore.” Well, I was right…partially.

Moving to Columbia, MD was a HUGE wake-up call. It’s true; I was immediately accepted as a complete human being without any question of my inalienable rights to be treated like any other person. What surprised me was that this acceptance came from my white classmates and not the black classmates whose camaraderie and shared ethnic identity I had longed for the past nine years. From my own people, I was treated with derision and disdain for…once again…simply the way I looked. I was frequently subjected to scowls of disapproval and occasionally given “the look”, where I am inspected from head to toe and dismissed (sometimes verbally) with “She’s light skinned with long hair, I bet she thinks she’s cute.” Unfortunately, friendships with my own people were not to be found until I went away to college.

It was those early years living in Columbia, MD, that I came to terms with my own prejudices; to realize that black people were not the end-all-be-all to a rich, culturally infused existence and that they could be just as lame and trifling as anybody else. I came to look at each person as an individual and I worked on getting to know that person as a human being not just a member of a particular race or religion. It was a lesson well learned and one that I drilled (with great success) into my daughter.

In many ways, I think hip-hop has been trying to accomplish the same goals globally as Columbia, MD did with me locally. It strives for all of us to come together as members of the human race first and foremost and to put any other classification as a distant second. Once we get to know each other on a human level, the rest of little significance.

The problem with the Mr. O’Reilly’s of the world is they don’t care to know anyone outside their inner circle on a human level. They have been and will continue to look at anyone different than themselves as “others”. The beauty of this scenario is that the hip-hop generation has the two great advantages of numbers and time. The number of people in this world who are embracing the ideals of the hip-hop generation are increasing exponentially while the number of close-minded bigots is dwindling as the baby boomers and their preceding generation get older and start dying off. We have the luxury of waiting them out while we instill our ideals upon our children who can pass on our blessed legacy on to future generations.; September 30, 2007
ronnie brown said...: zyanya,
while i appreciate your comments, let us not forget that "i bet she thinks she's cute" is a product of white supremacy's poisoning of our collective Black mind...that division was created, not inherent in our people...; October 01, 2007
Zyanya said...: Ronnie, I agree with you completely that it is a result of the poison white supremacy has inflicted upon our collective consciousness.
However, we are all well acquainted with their divisive tricks and should not continue to perpetuate this foolishness by continuing to degrade each other with these asinine remarks.

Racism is learned behavior. No child is ever born hating a group of people, ignorance can only be taught. If we do not point out the fallacy of these comments, we are authenticating the belief that one person is superior than another because of their appearance.; October 01, 2007
ronnie brown said...: Zyanya,
i question the notion that we are so "well acquainted"...that learned behavior we continue to pass on from generation to generation. In my mind, Black folk have yet to recover from decades of enslavement and exclusion. Our trauma has been routinely dismissed as "victimhood" or "whining", the spirit of affirmative action has been reduced to unqualified slackers receiving "something for nothing" (that's why Clarence Thomas has lost his natural mind!) and reparations as a form of redress is good for the Japanese-American, Jewish folk, the Native-Americans...everybody but Black people...white supremacy as a force continues to wear us out on a lot of levels.

lastly, while i agree that racism is a learned behavior; i don't consider it an act of ignorance...there are multitudes of people on this planet that in my lifetime, i will never meet or live next to...

but if i go to a particular region of the world and i'm prejudged as an "ugly american", what are they basing that on?...namely, my smugness, my sense of entitlement...so, what is the root of my smugness?...my pride!...any notion that i'm more gifted, more worth, more deserving, more SUPREME is nothing more that wicked pride.

Racism is not what don't know about an individual, it's that we think, for whatever reason, we are their BETTER.; October 02, 2007
Zyanya said...: I agree with you that black folks have been and continue to feel the negative effects of enslavement and exclusion. I also agree that if other groups can get reparations for atrocities suffered at the hands of a government, we should definitely receive some type of compensation. I will agree with you a third time and state that affirmative action has been used to further the agenda of the neo-conservatives and that Clarence Thomas is a perfect example of that (by the way, he never lost his natural mind because I don’t think he ever had one). Having said that, there is no way black people are going to make any advances as a people waiting around for somebody to give them 40 acres and a mule while simultaneously apologizing for years of inhuman and unjust treatment and recruiting young black people into mentoring programs so they can become engineers and doctors. Not gonna happen.

I respectfully disagree with you that after centuries of oppression, we are not fully aware of the tricks of the trade. After living in the hen house a while, the chicken knows what moves the fox is going to make. We know that one of their main weapons is to divide and conquer yet some of us still play into the light skin/dark skin bullshit. We know that knowledge is power yet young black children will still ostracize the student who makes good grades. We know that many of our neighborhoods are crime ridden yet we refuse to work with police and actively promote a “stop snitchin’ mentality.

Yes terrible crimes have been committed against us as a people and to those who have wronged us; may the gasoline spewing hounds of hell consider them a fire hydrant (to use one of my favorite quotes from my father). But we cannot rely on anyone but ourselves to make our lives better. Those who have oppressed us do not care if we succeed or fail, but we should…and we need to start acting like it.; October 02, 2007
ronnie brown said...: Zyanya,
i'm not in disagreement with you...i guess what i'm trying to say is, why we are not acting on the knowledge/information we already have?; October 03, 2007
Zyanya said...: Ronnie,

That is the big question. If we know the tricks they use to keep us down, why do we continue to let them do it?; October 04, 2007

Friday, September 28, 2007

American Cuisine

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