Quote:Original post by LessBread
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I suggest that you go back and read the link about reconstruction and the establishment of Jim Crow that I quoted from in the last post. Then maybe you'll forego comments about how the civil war was 150 years ago and so on. Freed slaves tried to just plain get on with their lives but were violently oppressed and legally relegated to second class citizenship for the next 100 years.
I'm quite familiar with the Jim Crow laws and their consequences. You still haven't explained why it's relevant. Yes, shit happened. Life was unfair. Boo fucking hoo.
Life is
always unfair. Sorry, but the universe has never claimed that it owes you or anyone else a damned thing. Shit happens. Deal with it or go jump off a cliff, but stop -- please STOP -- banging on about mistakes that happened over a generation or two ago as if it were still happening
today. Jim Crow laws have been gone since the 1960s, for fuck's sake. That's more than FORTY YEARS AGO.
How long do you intend to hit people over the head with your guilt stick? How long until you realise that the only sensible way to build a bridge is to build both sides at the same time and meet in the middle? Or do you seriously expect Joe Random White Boy to build the whole thing on his own?
At times like this, I wonder whether Black Americans really do want to strive towards integration and equality; it looks like many are quite content to wallow in self-pity.
"Send us your poor, your huddled masses!" Remember that? How many of those who arrived during that period must pay the penalty for crimes committed by people they have never had any connection to? How can you sit there and tell me, to my face -- well, screen -- that every "White Man" is guilty of the crimes you allege? How many Irish, Chinese, Hispanic immigrants, how many Native Americans -- yes, they're generally lumped in with the "White People" label too -- do you think had anything to do with it? How many had any real
voice back then?
And you call
us racist? You say WE generalise? Sheesh!
Quit blaming the "White Man". Point the finger of blame at the English if you must -- we're used to it (and it'll probably be as close to the truth as you get) -- and
move on.
Quote:
I should also point out that "gangsterism" has been a part of mainstream American culture since at least the 1930's. So after you finish complaining about black music videos, don't forget to complain about James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson and on and on.
I haven't seen many 1930s gangster movies where the gangsters were portrayed as role models. Sure, kids liked them, but kids go through a rebellious phase anyway, so that's expected.
Quote: And as a half-Italian you ought to feel the sting of movies made by Coppola and Scorsese and complain about them as well. That damned Al Pacino!!!
Sorry, but that's just pathetic; you're actually supporting my point! Not a single one of those movies
glorified the lifestyle. Yes, they dramatised, but they didn't make a whole bunch of kids want to
be hitmen. I've certainly never seen kids dress up in spats and cheap suits and demanding "Shaddapa you face!" ringtones.
I certainly don't recall hearing Dean Martin singing about going to jail and making it sound cool. Nor have I heard the mythical Caruso top-ten hit single where he croons lovingly about the many people he 'hit' while a kid.
Sean Timarco Baggaley (Est. 1971.)Warning: May contain bollocks.