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Obama running in these elections seems to have opened up a whole can of worms on race and pride. The internet seems to be littered with discussions of Obama's viewpoints and links to Africa, and how that will have an affect on the US. My little run in with Mr Joe Blogs from New York White Pride has also brought a lot of traffic my way regarding the subject, and while doing a bit of searching ran into another blog entry entitled "Why is "White Pride" Considered Racist and Taboo?"...
The article came from problogs.com, and was talking about how Black People can have their Black Pride, but White People can't have their White Pride, how Black People can have Black only beauty Pageants and Whites can't and also how Black have Black history month and ...well you know the rest.
It was an interesting article, and I couldn't help but share my opinion on the point. So I did so, and tried my best to be much more amicable than my last reply to Mr Joe Blogs.
This was my reply:
I think you have brought up some great points here, and it does signal a double standard of sorts. Now before I come up with my explanation or view of things, I should let you know that I am a British black male, now living in the USA. I was born in Ghana, and brought up in England where I lived for about 24 years, where the racial segregation is not as bad as it is in the USA. I totally agree with and understand your frustration, and don't totally agree with how things are playing out in the world. However, it has to be taken in a historical context.
I think the main reason the "white pride" is more of a taboo these days and "black pride" is not is because it is seen that in the past the concept of "white pride" in a sense was abused and led to feelings of superiority culminating in slavery, differences in class structure etc, a lot of which still exists today. Whereas the concept of "black pride" does not have that same history and was actually non-existent for a long time. To be honest the public concept of "black pride" is relatively new when compared to "white pride". I would prefer if both eradicated and replaced with a general "humankind pride". Skin colour shouldn't be a thing to separate people in this way.
Also about "black history month". The only reason it is being publicized in this way, is because for 100's of years it was pretty much forgotten, and not really recognized in mainstream education. A lot of history is written from the perspective of europeans/north american whites. The introduction of Black history month was to instill a balance of both histories which are both relevant, although I agree it isn't being done in the right way.
Lastly the beauty pageants in the past were actually all white, with black women not being allowed to participate. This was during the time of racial segregation. Although, I don't agree of how in our day, you get black only beauty pageants, and not white only ones. I think there should be no segregation when it comes to all people, not just beautiful women.
In conclusion (and I have written way too much), this unfairness you talk about is more because of the historical contexts of racism, and peoples attempts to rectify it, than black people imposing their rule and way on things. I know a lot of it doesn't seem fair, but hey, what in the world is fair? All we can do is make the best of it and spread love.
Peace
K
One thing I left out, which would have been good to include was the similarities with this and sexism. Women have feminism, but men don't have masculinism, you have women's studies, but don't have men's studies for similar reasons as I have placed above. It's been nearly 2 days since I left my reply, and so far I have not had a response. It would be interesting to get one, so I will keep on checking.
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