Personal Experiences with Racism?

[SUMYUNGUY]

Lex, how would you feel if a white man called you a nigger? Think about that next time you throw around the redneck word.

 

[prepstudinsc]

Redneck is not derogatory. Around here, you can go out and get t-shirts and bumper stickers with sayings like "Proud to be a redneck" on them. When is the last time that you heard "redneck" used to oppress anyone? Equating the two words just can not be done.

 

[Dr Rock]

Originally posted by SUMYUNGUY@Sep 12 2005, 10:53 AM
Lex, how would you feel if a white man called you a nigger? Think about that next time you throw around the redneck word.

[post=342505]Quoted post[/post]​

"redneck" is really a cultural slur, not a racial one - the prevalent idea is that while one can technically choose whether or not to be a redneck, with the inevitable connotations it carries, one's skin color is no reflection of inherent personality, or of identification with others whose skin is the same color.

 

[madame_zora]

Originally posted by Dr Rock+Sep 12 2005, 03:20 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Dr Rock &#064; Sep 12 2005, 03:20 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-SUMYUNGUY@Sep 12 2005, 10:53 AM
Lex, how would you feel if a white man called you a nigger? Think about that next time you throw around the redneck word.

[post=342505]Quoted post[/post]​

"redneck" is really a cultural slur, not a racial one - the prevalent idea is that while one can technically choose whether or not to be a redneck, with the inevitable connotations it carries, one&#39;s skin color is no reflection of inherent personality, or of identification with others whose skin is the same color.

[post=342552]Quoted post[/post]​

[/b][/quote]


I had a friend last week give me a good example of that. He&#39;s a skinny white guy, works as a prison guard, weekend warrior in the national guard and drives a jacked-up pick up truck. He was telling me about a party he and some of his friends were having where they had a bonfire taller than the house. The police were called and started bitching about the fire, the beer cans, all the jacked up trucks all over the yard, dogs barking and asked "What&#39;s this all about?" He said "We&#39;re a bunch of rednecks, what do you think?"

He doesn&#39;t get denied jobs for being a redneck, he isn&#39;t socially oppressed. It&#39;s just how he identifies the social group with whom he has chosen to belong. Not the same thing as "nigger" at all, sorry no sale.

 

[SUMYUNGUY]

Anyway, both are disparaging terms. Neither offends me, personaly, because they do indeed fit particular groups of people. Blacks call themselves niggers, or "niggah" all the time. Are you saying now that there are two different definitions to the word? One racist and one not? People going around and calling themselves rednecks or niggers doesn&#39;t excuse the use of the word, nor does it make the term(s) any less disparaging to those who would take issue with it. Trust me, I&#39;ve studied it for years.

I&#39;ve never been denied a job for being black, much like your skinny white friend. Big deal. I will say this, though; you have to actually apply for a job to be denied.

There is racism on the extreme fringes of our society against blacks, but the preceived racism is far worse. As a black man who has risen from poverty with a little elbow grease and some genuine effort, I can say that, if anything, the color of my skin has helped me to get ahead. There is an epidemic in America, to be sure, but it isn&#39;t white on black racism...

 

[madame_zora]

Originally posted by SUMYUNGUY@Sep 12 2005, 09:37 PM
Anyway, both are disparaging terms. Neither offends me, personaly, because they do indeed fit particular groups of people. Blacks call themselves niggers, or "niggah" all the time. Are you saying now that there are two different definitions to the word? One racist and one not? People going around and calling themselves rednecks or niggers doesn&#39;t excuse the use of the word, nor does it make the term(s) any less disparaging to those who would take issue with it. Trust me, I&#39;ve studied it for years.

I&#39;ve never been denied a job for being black, much like your skinny white friend. Big deal. I will say this, though; you have to actually apply for a job to be denied.

There is racism on the extreme fringes of our society against blacks, but the preceived racism is far worse. As a black man who has risen from poverty with a little elbow grease and some genuine effort, I can say that, if anything, the color of my skin has helped me to get ahead. There is an epidemic in America, to be sure, but it isn&#39;t white on black racism...

[post=342630]Quoted post[/post]​

You do make some good points. I guess the difference FOR ME is that "redneck" CAN&#39;T be used to hold someone back, and "nigger" CAN and HAS. I can see where it is still disparaging, but I&#39;ve still never seen "PROUD TO BE A NIGGER" t-shirts with a black guy holding a chicken leg in one hand and a slice of watermelon in the other.

Nonetheless, one would be remiss in not understanding how you feel as one who has made his own way. Good for you, I hope you understand that no insult was intended.

 

[madame_zora]

To clarify, I HAVE been turned down for jobs, both for being a woman, and for being black.

The first was when I was 19. I went to work for a grocery warehouse that was installing a new produce department. I was hired to set it up and maintain it, it was an experiment by the company to see if their wholesale clients would buy fresh produce. I came with an extensive background in produce marketing, as my family has been in that business for generations and I had currently been working as a manager in my uncle&#39;s store. Basically, after I got it set up and it was turning unexpected profits, I was told that I was no longer needed as they were "going to need a man to do the job". Came right out and said it&#33; What was really going on was that because of the money it was bringing in (that I helped create) the owner knew I would soon be in a position to demand a higher wage and he didn&#39;t want a girl making more money than the men.

I hired an attourney. He assured me I had an open and shut case winner, because the idiot admitted over the phone that he fired me for being a woman. Some days later (after he had taken my money) the attourney called to let me know he was dropping the case due to a conflict of interest. He never explained what he meant or returned my money. &#036;300 is a lot of money to a 19 year old without a job&#33;

The latter one was less obvious, but still stung. I was in my 30&#39;s in the mortgage business, looking for a new company after a very successful track record with my former company. I got objections like "I don&#39;t know if you&#39;d be comfortable here" and "We&#39;re looking for team players" and shit like that. I didn&#39;t get the job, so I took another one. A few weeks later, after I was already working elsewhere, the guy calls me back and apologises (I don&#39;t mind saying it was H&R Block Home Mortgage). He says one of his employees (who was a friend of mine, of Spanish decent) told him what a money maker I was and he&#39;d like me to reconsider. Hmmph. He goes on to say he didn&#39;t know I was Indian and asked me about India, about which I know very little. Eventually it comes out that he thought I was African and I am able to connect the dots as to why I wasn&#39;t hired. I told him that I don&#39;t lend my talents to racist assholes, but I would take every opportunity I could to attract as many of his clients as I could to my new employer. I assured him he would suffer financially for his discrimination because in addition to being a monster in sales, I also turn in legitimate business without fudging the laws, which is rare in that industry. I happen to know he hired a black friend of mine the next week, so many of us knew each other, it was almost incestuous. I decided to stop using their system, I made my own- hit &#39;em in the wallet.

I don&#39;t like being treated like a "nigger". I might look down my nose at a "redneck" but that won&#39;t seriously impact their lives. That was my point of perspective.

 

[Lex]

Where I am talking about IS where there are rednecks. Not because *I* think they are, but because THEY say they are--I have friends that are rednecks--and proud of it. Loud and proud of it. For christsakes, my BOYFRIEND is a redneck mountain man from western Maryland.

And I don&#39;t really get bent out of shape when someone calls me a nigger as I am at a point where I have chosen to not let the derogatory words of another person effect me as such. I am not a nigger no matter who may choose to impose that framework upon me.

 

[prepstudinsc]

Where I live, people are proud to be rednecks, too. Just because 20 miles from here is a major city (Charlotte, NC) doesn&#39;t mean that the surrounding communities have the same class that the city does. While there is a college here, all one needs to do is go 10 minutes into the country to drive into the heart of redneckville. People have confederate flags hanging in their front yards and cars up on blocks and jacked up "pick-em-up" trucks out front. They are proud to be redneck--it&#39;s a way of life.

It&#39;s not a repressive term, Chimera. While that article you quoted claims that whites will be in the "minority" in the next few years, because of how society is, whites will have the upper hand in business, politics, etc. It&#39;s not fair, but rich white people always seem to control things, so no matter how you think you are discriminated against, you&#39;ve got it pretty easy compared to anyone who is not white.

I&#39;m glad that Lex has chosen not to let the term "nigger" define who he is. It&#39;s an ugly term that&#39;s been used to hold people back. He&#39;s risen above it and that just shows what kind of a person he is.

 

[madame_zora]

Hell, the whole state of Kentucky boasts people who claim to be redneck, but so does Ohio- even inside the metropolitan areas.

Who knows what changes will come in the future in relation to changing population percentages, but futurising serves no purpose. I only said that holding back someone by calling them a redneck hasn&#39;t happened and doesn&#39;t happen, at least in any significant way. Yes, if a lot of things lined up differently it is possible, but let&#39;s get mad about that if it ever happens. I prefer to stick to reality rather than hypotheticals, as always.

 

[jonb]

Originally posted by Dr. Bubbles@Sep 9 2005, 03:44 PM
We have over 58,000 people, which quite frankly scare the crap out of some of the other tribes.

[post=341891]Quoted post[/post]​

Except for those of us with over 100,000 and growing. I&#39;ve seen couples with a new kid like every 10 months on Cheyenne River, which is strangely the exact opposite of traditional ideas about family, where a woman might have children like once every five or six years.