Morning News Rant

[CiberTHuG]

Oscars were last night. I'm not a fan of the oscars. To me, the SAG and People's Choice are better than the Oscars. But... there is a big hoopla over "African-Americans" (black) receiving the top actor/actress nods.

Well, that sparks lots of rants, but the rant that I want to bring up is...

Why is someone with one black parent and one white parent always considered black? Maybe they aren't always. Maybe they are considered the same as their father. I don't know, I am so terribly confused.

Halle Berry is as black as I am Scottish. Don't let the red beard fool you.

Aside from that, she is a great actress. I didn't see "Monster's Ball", nor "Training Day", so I can't speak as to if they were the best performances of the year. I did want to see "Training Day" however. I might rent it this week. Didn't strike me as a movie with Oscar calibur characters. I'm sure Denzel Washington has done a much better job in any of a half-dozen other movies if for no reason but he had a better character to work with. Maybe "Training Day" will surprise me. Maybe the Academy is just making up for not giving Washington an award sooner.

[SurfDemon]

I scoff at the term African-American. I used to work with a lad from London. Him and his wife (and obviously their son) where black. He immigrated to the states for 10 years, but decided to come back to Britain. His child was classed as an African-American when in School, despite the fact both the kids parents where born and raised in England, and had really thick London accents.

As he kept saying, at what stage do you cease to be "African". It would have been more accurate to say he was "British-American". He felt that the term was slightly racist (from both sides). He nor his wife had ever been to Africa, both their parents had come over when they were in their 20's. Are his great grand children going to be called "Africans".

SD

[CiberTHuG]

See, someone agrees. Why are we not consistent. Sometimes we use the political designations (Mel Gibson is Australia-American), and sometimes the racial (Halle Berry is African-American). But we don't do either of these consistently (Mel Gibson is European-American, and Halle Berry is Native American).

'Course, again... you can have a black parent, a black grand-parent, or a black great-great-great...-grandparent, and you are forever considered black, even if the rest of your parents have been white (or heaven forbid from one of the other gene pools).

[DerFarm]

uhhhhhh.....yeah. right. And Jesse Helms is a flaming liberal.

[CiberTHuG]

But he is not, which implies you are being sarcastic. I'm trying to figure out to what you are being sarcastic about.

[CiberTHuG]

Saw "Training Day" last night. The Academy is full of ****. Washington did a good job, granted, but all he had to do was act like a badass for two hours. That is not a terrible stretch, and is not the best leading male performance of the year.

Now the movie, while a bit aimless, challenges the viewer to get involved. I definitely liked it since it dares you to sympathize and surrender your ethics. It has a little more substance to it than most eye-candy movies (popcorn for the brain).

[ShIzO]

aggree!

i saw that movie yesterday as well and i'm not impressed by his performance! russel crowe should've gotten the oscar!

and that thing you said about that african-american best actress (forgot the name) you're right. it got me thinking about that all day, i mean when do they stop being african-american, like after 6 generations or something? ***

[JPicasso]

I'd have to agree that the term African-american is pretty insulting.
To just about everyone.

But Halle Berry is hot!
Just turn down the sound, and no complaints here.

[thinktank2]

Why is the term "African-American" Insulting ??

[DerFarm]

Children, Children....change takes time. It's taken me 30 years to
figure that out. There is no need to recount the iniquities of the
the 50's and 60's and 70's...you've been inundated with them,
already.

However, you should realize that the perpetrators of those
iniquities are STILL alive and well. In many cases, they are the
ones still in holding power, if not the ones still in office.

Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond (ok in his case, it's his
backers...same thing), Roy Moore, Trent Lott, David Duke, and
more. Many more.

Just as these perpetrators are still around, so are the victims. Is
it any wonder that those want to separate themselves from the
ruling class of "white"? It doesn't really matter whether or not
you agree with them, you need to have empathy. They lived the
nightmare. Not you.

[Jethro]

The oscars were a crock.....

Where was American Pie 2 l ask you.......probably best movie released in last ten years, well since American Pie anyway.


SD

Have some problem downunder...."of Middle East appearance"...

So all those guys from Egypt, Syria, and Palestine look the same l guess.......

[SurfDemon]

Originally posted by DerFarm
It doesn't really matter whether or not
you agree with them, you need to have empathy. They lived the
nightmare. Not you.

In my above example though, my mate was not African, yet his kid was constantly called African American by people trying to have empathy with them.

It is important to see through people colour. Classing everyone together as being of African decent is ignorig all the other factors that go in to making up a person (i.e other races, countries lived in). Am I a Viking, or am I a Saxon or am I a Norman? I'm pretty sure if you go back far enough I have all those mixes of blood in me (as will most Europeans).

SD

[HarryW]

One of the recent things that has bugged me in relation to this general topic is that there is a proposal, if not a definite plan, to lay on extra classes at some schools that are for black kids. Apparently it's to teach them about the achievements made by black people over the years and give them some decent role models. According to whoever comes up with these ideas, this is the cause of the statistics that show that young black males do worse in school on average than the rest of society.

I don't have a problem with giving students who are doing worse extra classes. I think it's a great idea if there's a budget for it and it proves effective. What irks me is the finer detail of the classes.

Why is it that teaching kids specifically about black achievers is seen as the solution? There are two issues here: (a) the kids lack role models and (b) they don't know about enough black role models to satisfy problem (a). Is it just me that sees two solutions to problem (b)? You can either teach them specifically about black role models or you can teach them that it doesn't make a blind bit of difference what the colour of someone's skin is, and it certainly doesn't affect whether you should consider them a role model.

I have no objections to teaching kids about black achievers but I think the bigger issue is that they don't identify with non-black achievers. It's a problem of a needless discrimination based on skin colour.

It seems to me that this issue is seen in lots of places. People are trying to bring about equality without looking at everyone equally. Discrimination - even so-called 'positive discrimination' - is generally a bad idea. If we're all the same treat us all the same and let us (or teach us to) treat each other the same.

You can replace 'black' in the above principles with just about any other group of society that has gripes. Women, homosexuals, asians, the disabled, whatever. The powers that be seem obsessed with solving discrimination with more discrimination. It doesn't make sense to me.

Reading back, this doesn't seem so related any more . Oh well, it's sort of an appropriate place to post it.

[barrk]

Way back when, when I was at college, I thought I had satisfied all of my requirements to graduate and then they told me they had passed a law that I had to take Intercultural Studies course...which had nothing to do with my degree. I spent an extra semester at school taking Women in Business because somebody got their panties in a bunch.....what a waste of my and my instructors time that was!!!

[SurfDemon]

Yeah, I spent a lot of time studying women in college too. I suspect it had a detrimental effect to my exam results......


Since college I have also had a few instances of "taking Women in Business ", I didn't know they ran a course on it though..

SD

[barrk]