Does "American" = White?

Does "American" = White?

George Bush seems to think so...

"There's a lot of people in the world who don't believe that people whose skin color may not be the same as ours can be free and self-govern. I reject that. I reject that strongly. I believe that people who practice the Muslim faith can self-govern. I believe that people whose skins aren't necessarily "” are a different color than white can self-govern."

From the "Back By Popular Demand" files...

I don't know if bush and white people are trying to be racist or its just apart of there freaking culture. That sounded like non-whites or brown people need whitey puck ass to control us and govern us, thats Bs. I swear one day all those brown people going to unite and kick some whity ass to humble them egocentric pricks.

You mean the black version of Dr Evil? 'yeah, gonna take over the world'.

Yes, the US has been a primarily white nation, founded by white people, formed by white people mostly. And there are plenty of other nations where it was just the same. Is this news to you, or is this therapeutic recital?

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Of course Amercan = white. What else would it mean? It sure as shootin doesn't equal "apache" or "Cherokee" or anything else thats non anglo. As a black man, I must say though, everyone talks about rights in this country and whatnot. Honestly the only ones with the purest claim to rights in this land are the native americans. Prisoner on your own forefathers heritage is just plain sick....

So you'd give up your home, your car, and your family's civil rights in deference to native americans? Interesting. Have you called the closest Indian tribe and told them they can come take your sofa yet?

Does this attitude apply to Africa or Asian as well? Plenty of people who have conquered other people there as well. What year would you say the world should return to?

Back on topic, I think we already know the country was founded by whites. Is there a point to follow this? Hawaii used to be Polynesian descended people, now half the population is Asian. Time has a way of changing things, history is history. So?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by JanesT:
So you'd give up your home, your car, and your family's civil rights in deference to native americans? Interesting. Have you called the closest Indian tribe and told them they can come take your sofa yet?

Someone always ask this question and I always respond with "Yes"........*and I do charitable at various reservations around the country*

Does this attitude apply to Africa or Asian as well? Plenty of people who have conquered other people there as well. What year would you say the world should return to?

No indigenous people have been quite so overrun like the native americans have. Asians still have their countries and more or less so do Africans. I say lets go back to the year around 2300 b.c. when people (more or less) kept to themselves.

Back on topic, I think we already know the country was founded by whites. Is there a point to follow this? Hawaii used to be Polynesian descended people, now half the population is Asian. Time has a way of changing things, history is history. So?[/QUOT

Time does'nt change things. People do. And the asians hav'nt made any drastic distinctions between the polynesians and themselves.

Lookey here, a do-gooder to Indians dude. He must have got permission from the Indians to live here.

Congratulations, you my new hero.

You might want to brush up on African, and Native American history somewhat, there are LOADS of so-called African indigenous people being overun by other african people and being displaced. Same is true of native americans, they fought each other religiously, plenty of native americans conquered other native americans. Entire regions have changed hands as far back as history's beginning.

Nothing remains the same forever, most of all the people's living in any given region over time. Only the factor of time decides who is indigenous, and who isn't. Native americans weren't even american until they migrated from elsewhere, and they themselves did not even believe in 'owning land'.

Why force upon them a belief in land ownership now?

The wars were fought, the indians lost. History marches on. It is the institution of 'law' that predicates who owns what, how resources are distrubuted, and how people live.

All this crap regarding native americans owning the entire continent is silly, native americans themselves were a multitude of different peoples, not all one people. And many of them did not like or get along with others we call native americans.

Get real. You either get off their land YOURSELF, and coax others to do the same, or get a sense of reality. Any clown can run around feeling pity for Indian and anyone else. Question is, do you walk your own talk? You still here, ain't ya? Get over yourself.

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quote:

Yes, the US has been a primarily white nation...

That does not answer the question for the question was not: Does "American" = primarily White.

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Back on topic, I think we already know the country was founded by whites.

That too was not the question nor does it answers the question.

What makes it such a hard question for you?
Your direct answer is what?

Does "American" = White? YES? ... or ... NO?

It's just that simple. No qualifiers. No tangents. No rambling. None of your typical silly shit.
Just a simple, straightforward, no bullshit answer.

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Yes, the US [was] founded by white people, formed by white people mostly.

And that answers the question? HOW??

Umm... "mostly" what?? How does "mostly" answer the question?

With changing demographics and the pending White non-majority status projected for 2050... how exactly is the "founding" and formation by Whites relevant as a meaningful answer to the question?

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Originally posted by JanesT:

You might want to brush up on African, and Native American history.

Entire regions have changed hands as far back as history's beginning.

They themselves did not even believe in 'owning land'.

It is the institution of 'law' that predicates who owns what, how resources are distrubuted, and how people live.

Nothing remains the same forever, most of all the people's living in any given region over time. Only the factor of time decides who is indigenous, and who isn't.

This may be true, Janie, but you may want to brush-up on your European history.

For sheer magnitude and brutality, there is nothing even remotely close to compare with the displacement and subjugation of indigenous populations by Europeans during the Colonial and Imperialist periods. We're talking about displacement on a global scale, not just a few groups of people, and not just a few hundred square miles.

And Europeans called them "savages". I think it was the other way around.

Yes, "Ownership" is a legal concept, with conditions and terms. Native Americans may not have known the idea of "ownership" of land as we do, but they certainly understood the idea of tribal possession and control, a concept not too distant from our idea of joint or corporate "ownership". If you don't believe this, go talk to the Lakhota Sioux about the Black Hills and see what they say.

You may want to brush-up on your economics while you're at it, Janie. I don't know what planet you're from, but last time I checked here in the good ol' U.S.A., it was supply and demand that determines price, which in turn determines the allocation of resources.

And I can't say much good about the "institution of law" concerning the way Black folks live. The "law" even in recent times, has often been a nightstick, a fist, or a club.

Also, xxGAMBITxx is right. Time doesn't change a damn thing. People and the forces of nature do. Time is an abstraction, stupid. Get it right.
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Whites depended on the Naturalization Act of 1790, to make all European immigrants eligible for nearly automatic citizenship, with rights above all persons of color. Whites depended on land giveaways like the Homestead Act, and housing subsidies that were essentially white-only for many years, like FHA and VA loans. Even the GI Bill was largely for whites only, and all of these government-sponsored efforts were instrumental in creating the white middle class. But it goes deeper than that.

From the earliest days, "whites" were dependent on the land and natural resources of the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Since Europe offered no substantial natural riches from its soil, European economic advance and expansion was entirely reliant on the taking of other people's land by force, trickery or coercion.

Then these same Europeans relied on slave labor to build a new nation and to create wealth for whites; wealth that was instrumental to financing the American Revolution, as well as allowing the textile and tobacco industries to emerge as international powerhouses. From 1790 to 1860 alone, whites and the overall economy reaped the benefits of as much as $40 billion in unpaid black labor. Even if your people never owned slaves that unpaid dept help created businesses which employed whites & also went into the countries economy.

Throughout U.S. labor history, whites have depended on the subordination of workers of color; by the marking of black and brown peoples as the bottom rung on the ladder--a rung below which they would not be allowed to fall. By virtue of this racialized class system whites could receive the "psychological wage" of whiteness, even if their real wages left them destitute. Even if whites are poor they still think "i am white and not colored" i live in a white country and my people will look out for me.

Even today, African Americans spend over $500 billion with white-owned companies: money that goes mostly into the pockets of the white owners, white employees, white stockholders, and white communities in which they live. Same with asians and latinos eventhough thier .. isn't as large.

Who's murdered, raped, and enslaved hundreds of billions of people, charging thier cultures, religions, ideologies, languages and made them as strangers on thier own lands?? Who was the first to invent the gun and weapons of mass destruction?? Who makes and sells the majority of guns and WMD worldwide? Who caused both world wars and the majority of wars that`s happen on this planet? What about this new war in iraq and arabia. And you call my people criminals?

Look at this stolen country made rich off chattel slavery and native american lands. Look at western europe made rich off colonialism which is more theft, genocide and slavery. They continue to exploit non-whites and it continues to be a major factor in their success. So when they act like they`re where their at in life because of hard work and were at where we are at in life because were lazy thats some bullsh*t think again.

They call us lazy but brown and black people build this country while white people sat on their lazy azzez. Even the china man build the railroads (90% of the labor used to build the Central Pacific Railroad in the 1860`s were Chinese). Mexicans taught them how to extract gold from riverbeds and quartz--critical to the growth of the national economy in the mid to late 1800`s. They also needed the mexicans in the mid 20th century under the bracero program, through which over five million Mexicans were brought into the country for cheap agricultural work, and then sent back across the border.

Now you see the same sh!t happening today wih mexican immigrants...What about the plantation owners in the South, surely the were dependent on blacks, and for more than field labor. They relied on black women to suckle and care for there children. They relied on blacks to build the levees that kept rivers like the Mississippi from our doorstep. They relied on black girls to fan thre sleeping white ladies so as to ensure their comfort. They relied on blacks to do everything from cooking, to cleaning, to making there beds, to polishing the shoes, to chopping the wood to heat the homes, to nursing them back to health when they fell ill. They prided themselves on being (or aspiring to be) men and women of leisure, while black and brown folks did all the work.

That, and a lot more, is dependence; and yet they still insist we are the lazy ones. White folks need us, we don't need them.

Well when foreigners who have never been here talk about 'Americans', they usually ain't talking about Black people.

And when you see Usama ibn Laden and his cronies talking about messing up 'Americans', they're thinking 'white people'. Specifically the government I guess, but who's that? White People.

In all honesty I don't mind. With all the crap this country is about, it's an embarrassment to be called 'American. As a matter of fact, I refuse to display their flag on me, near me, or on my property and I go out of my way to avoid wearing the colors red, white, and blue at the same time.

Being an 'American' ain't all it's cracked up to be.

quote:

In all honesty I don't mind. With all the crap this country is about, it's an embarrassment to be called 'American. As a matter of fact, I refuse to display their flag on me, near me, or on my property and I go out of my way to avoid wearing the colors red, white, and blue at the same time.

Being an 'American' ain't all it's cracked up to be.