First interracial kiss on American television
#1
Posted 01 July 2007 - 03:15 PM
#2
Posted 01 July 2007 - 03:21 PM
#3
Posted 01 July 2007 - 03:29 PM
Yes, that is unfortunately exactly what they mean. But neither the blacks, nor the whites have a monopoly on the word interracial. On top of that, why would a black/white kiss be more shocking to some people than a yellow/white kiss? Why did they make such a fuzz about the first black/white kiss when there were other interracial kisses before that?
#4
Posted 01 July 2007 - 05:09 PM
You have to understand that in the US, when you talk about race, racial inequality, tolerance, and the like, people automatically think Black/White. It's like that in school, it's like that in politics. We very rarely hear about persecution of Asians in school here (although that was rampant, particularly in WWII), but we have entire classes devoted to the Civil Rights Movement. I think the reason for that is that Blacks are the largest minority group in the US by far (although Hispanics are quickly matching up).
#5
Posted 01 July 2007 - 07:15 PM
In part, perhaps, but I think it also has a great deal to do with the relative impact on American society of black/white racial inequality. Asians and Hispanics were discriminated against, to be sure (Chinese workers building the transcontinental railroad had to strike to win the right not to get whipped while working), but that discrimination didn't have the same type of impact. Black enslavement was institutionalized and deemed vital to the Southern economy. The social and political consequences stemming from it ultimately nearly broke the country. For that reason, more than any other, I think it's become the automatic frame of reference in this country. I also think that we still don't fully realize as a society how traumatized the nation still is by that history.
#6
Posted 01 July 2007 - 07:32 PM
#7
Posted 01 July 2007 - 08:14 PM
#8
Posted 02 July 2007 - 01:25 AM
Please explaine this to me. Does "the Civil Rights Movement" have anything to do with excluding other races than blacks and whites from the equasion?
Largest group or not, the way I see it is that humans have never fought for equality. They have only fought for their particular group's rights. I saw Nichelle at a convention a few years ago. And all she could talk about was the problems blacks used to have. When a wheel chair patient misinterpreted that as the problems a minority group has, went to one of the microphones and talked about the problems wheel chair patients have in this world, Nichelle responded that indeed there's much work to be done. But clearly her heart wasn't in it and in the tone of her voice you could clearly hear "but that's not my problem, I'm here to fight for the blacks" between the lines. She never said anything like that, but the tone of her voice really sounded like that. Plus the fact that after this one line "there's much work to be done" she went on talking about the problems of the black people.
So indeed, it's because the blacks are the largest minority group that they make the most noise. And they just won't point out the injustices done to other people than themselves. They won't talk about the whipping of the Chinese railroadworkers, they won't talk about the concentration camps for Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbour, etc. And that's not something I hold against blacks. It's something I hold against humans. Humans always seem to fight for their own problems only.
You mean after all these years it's still a touchy subject???
#9
Posted 02 July 2007 - 01:48 AM
I think you need to aqcuaint yourself with US history. Whether it makes sense to you or not, the Civil Rights Movement is largely characterised as the black struggle for equality and many of its most polemical activists were black people who had had enough of poor treatment and discrimination. As a six year-old I used to see news reports on the BBC and the first time I heard the word "prejudice" it was spoken by a very angry black woman.
Believe me, if you've ever been subject to negative discrimination that unfairly defines you as a person then that is the battle you take forward becasue that is what absorbs all your energy. From recent experience I can definitely say that I never used to think much about disabled rights until my husband became disabled ~ now I uderstand why disabled people have been advancing their cause! I think it's unreasonable to expect only those who have been discriminated against to take on board the whole range of inequality issues, as you say it's a human responsibility.
Maybe it's human nature!
Of course it is! Mr Berns where have you been?
#10
Posted 02 July 2007 - 03:42 AM
Yes it unfortunately is. Humanity has still a long way to go.
I guess I have been in my own little world. Or was it the world created by Roddenberry?
Anyhow, all people are equal now. I find this battle of black vs white quite outdated. What more can they ask for? All races have the right to vote, no human is the property of another human and causing pain to people is illegal. I think adapting the world for disabled a far more urgent cause.
However I agree that racism is a weapon of mass destruction and it is unfair. And there's still a lot of racism in the world. But all the racism in the world will not permit anyone to cause physical harm to people, it will not take away the voting rights of the minorities, etc. And in today's world minorities can get high ranking jobs (I'm sure there are black, yellow, red and white business managers in the US) so I think their battle is over.
But the entire point I'm trying to make here is that since there is proof that the first interracial kiss on TV in the US is NOT the one in Star Trek, this Star Trek kiss only as historical as the second moonlanding. Since we know how yellow people were treated in the early days of the West, at least they should get the honor of being involved in the first interracial kiss on TV. Not accepting that because there was no black person involved is disrespectful towards the orientals.
#11
Posted 02 July 2007 - 06:13 AM
Also as a note Hispanics have officially overtaken Afriican Americans as the top minority group. If Bush's plan gets passed to legalize illegals then that contest wont even be close.
#12
Posted 02 July 2007 - 07:41 AM
Thanks,
FHC
#13
Posted 02 July 2007 - 11:11 AM
#14
Posted 02 July 2007 - 01:44 PM
Also as a note Hispanics have officially overtaken Afriican Americans as the top minority group. If Bush's plan gets passed to legalize illegals then that contest wont even be close.
I really love this post, because it's completely true in that we have a long way to go. I've always been an advocate of what I call 'forced desegregation' - for example, busing children from different areas to different schools in order to FORCE people to look beyond the color barrier. In my mind, the perfect classroom has at least several children from each racial group, and hopefully a few from the not-so-much-talked about groups too, like recent first-gen immigrants from Europe, or Africa. Only when you have the barriers broken down for you WILL the barriers break down. It's become a touchy issue of late due to a Supreme Court decision regarding just this.
But here's the reality of human nature - we like to be around people like us, plain and simple. That can go fairly deep under the skin, for instance, here we have people of all different ages from around the world come together to talk about something we love. But a lot of times, and for a lot of people, it's only really skin deep. You very rarely see a small, close group of friends here in the US of multiple races. I remember when people said Friends was racist because there were only White people shown in the Village - no, not true, but the fact that only White people frequented this particular coffee house and only white people were in the core group is essentially accurate.
I think it has to do with culture - no matter how much of a mixing pot the US is, there is an essential difference in culture between different races. That's why, here in DC, we have a Germantown and a Chinatown, in NYC you have areas that are almost totally Italian and others that are totally Polish...to anyone who's actually walked into a store in NYC and can't read any signs or understand any of the people, you know what I'm talking about.
So, our "mindset" of liking to be around people like us carries over everywhere; thehsbr talked about business. If a white person is doing the hiring, then at least, oh, I would say 6-7 times out of ten you'll see them hire a white person to work for them. But the same goes for blacks too...and hispanics. Subconsciously, I suppose these people just assume that they'll work better with people who are the same color - and, a lot of times, the same mindset, at least at their core. I've seen this at my job...there was a department here that was almost entirely white. Then the head of the department, a white woman, left and was replaced with a black woman. Now that person has made her first hire for the department, and she's black, and the next person is black too. It comes as no surprise to me, but you can see what I mean.
#15
Posted 02 July 2007 - 04:49 PM
#16
Posted 02 July 2007 - 05:10 PM
For once we aren't arguing about if we'll like the new movie or what episode Picard was most scholarly in... we are discussing something that affects us as a whole throughout the world.. and in an intelligent and civilized manner!!! I LOVE IT! This is great!
Jules, I would love to hear about your dissertation. I began my masters as a marriage and family therapist with a concentration on gender identity and assume I will be working with a lot of homophobia (since gay teens will be my intended clients), but as stated before, racism and homphobia could go hand in hand...
#17
Posted 02 July 2007 - 08:40 PM
Because on previous occasions topics such as this (of a political nature) have gotten out of hand and turned in to a sledging match. Like Jules has said, we're all adults and I'm sure we can carry on a mature discussion without this thread degenerating into an all out brawl. If it does become an all out brawl, then it will be shut down.
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#18
Posted 03 July 2007 - 12:24 AM
Bernsy
No comment.
#19
Posted 03 July 2007 - 02:43 AM
It is only when we stop deluding ourselves that we are not ~ on some level ~ prejudiced about difference that we can overcome this very human instinct and excise it from our lives as the irrational impulse it is. Recognising that impulse within ourselves, and asking ourselves some very searching questions about how we see ourselves and how we feel about others will do more to remove barriers than any number of liberal initiatives to force quotas upon the unready and the unwilling. It's about seeing the human being beneath the skin, of aside from their sex or sexual orientation, or indeed any attribute that may be used to define or control how we interract with people.
#20
Posted 03 July 2007 - 02:52 AM
Yes, and if you know of the work of polemical, black, homosexual writer, James Baldwin, then the two factors are irreconcileably entwined! I'm doing my dissertation of the work of James Baldwin and his centripetal vision for humanity. I hope to get involved in an intellectual debate on whether "love" really is all you need, and if total acceptance among humans is an acheivable goal, or a Utopia bedevilled by a series of insurmountable paradoxes. Baldwin died in 1987 after a lifetime of writing powerful novels and pungent polemical essays that worked through precisely the issues we have been talking about in in this thread. The debate goes back to points that Berns made in his first posts, and the paradox of civil rights being something that could only ever be advanced by the dispossed and disenfranchised (because those who are not have a vested interest in hanging onto the status quo!) and how this can lead to a certain degree of tunnel vision in that an activist engages soley with his own woes. Of course, civil rights does indeed increase rights for all as a happy by-product, just like the feminist movement as led to men being able to define a version of masculinity that works for them away from the narrow confines of patriarchy.
James Baldwin got a lot of stick ~ as you can imagine ~ by writing novels about race and sex (especially gay sex) in the 1950s and 1960s. He spent a lot of energy espousing self-determination free from the constraints of WASP culture, and he certainly defined his own masculinity in a vigorous way that I see that many who either betrayed themselves for the sake of the status quo, or because they already naturally complied with white, patriarchal, straight culture, would never have had the necessity to do.
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