Yet more problematic stuff

[Sean Hayden]

Today the term is flung around so often that it has become synonymous with sycophant to many Black Americans and is also erroneously used to shame individuals who are educated, use proper diction, have many White friends, are fair-skinned, live in suburban neighborhoods or even participate in sports or activities that some deem to be the arena of Whites. Indeed, there have often been times where I have witnessed an individual be deemed a house Negro simply for reminding his co-workers of certain rules and regulations.

--some random guy online

[Seabass]

I don't know what else to tell you. Clearly I was using the Malcom X meaning which in my experience is the normal usage. I'm not really interested in semantics battle.

[Sean Hayden]

It's toxic either way.

[Seabass]

Fine, is this better?

*****

Thomas Sowell.

• Asian-Americans are well off, not because of government policies, but because of culture? What a joke. I've already explained elsewhere that Asian-Americans do well in the US because of Civil Rights era changes to immigration policies.
• The US isn't a meritocracy. Not a very good one, anyway.
• Britain wasn't the first country to abolish slavery.
• This guy claims that black Americans adopted "redneck culture" from poor Southern whites. This is ridiculous on its face. Why would black Americans adopt "redneck culture" at a higher rate than white Americans?
• Descendants of white slaves do better in the US than ancestors of black slaves because eventually they are accepted as white. Honestly, does this even require explanation?
  
  Historically downtrodden white cohorts eventually get promoted into the upper caste because white supremacy is self-defeating since biracial people don't get to be white (e.g. Obama is considered black rather than white despite being mixed). If Irish, Italians, Slavs, etc., weren't given white status, "white" would only be comprised of an ever-shrinking number of WASPS, and "white" people would quickly be outnumbered. For obvious reasons, very few black people will ever attain white status in this country.

Sowell is an insane revisionist. It's no wonder that he is every American racist's favorite black apologist for white supremacy.

Sowell argues that systemic racism is an untested, questionable hypothesis that is a piece of propaganda pushed on the American people. Sowell has said that "it really has no meaning that can be specified and tested in the way that one tests hypotheses" and "it's one of many words that I don't think even the people who use it have any clear idea what they're saying". He has argued that it is a propaganda tactic akin to those used by Joseph Goebbels because it comes with an attitude that it must be "repeated long enough and loud enough" until it is believed and people "cave in" to it.

Two weeks before the 2016 presidential election, Sowell urged voters to vote for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. In 2018, when asked on his thoughts of Trump's presidency, Sowell replied "I think he's better than the previous president."[51]

In March 2019, Sowell commented on the public's response to mainstream media's allegations that Trump is a racist: "What's tragic is that there's so many people out there who simply respond to words rather than ask themselves 'Is what this person says true? How can I check it?' And so on."[52] A month later, Sowell again defended Trump against media charges of racism, stating: "I've seen no hard evidence. And, unfortunately, we're living in a time where no one expects hard evidence. You just repeat some familiar words and people will react pretty much the way Pavlov's dog was conditioned to react to certain sounds."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell

[Seabass]

Today the term is flung around so often that it has become synonymous with sycophant to many Black Americans and is also erroneously used to shame individuals who are educated, use proper diction, have many White friends, are fair-skinned, live in suburban neighborhoods or even participate in sports or activities that some deem to be the arena of Whites. Indeed, there have often been times where I have witnessed an individual be deemed a house Negro simply for reminding his co-workers of certain rules and regulations.

--some random guy online

Dude, that's a quote mine. Why did you discard the rest of it? In the rest of the article, he uses the term the way that I used it and the way it was used by Malcom X. He even embedded video of the relevant Malcom X speech.


https://theshadowleague.com/the-sad-and ... use-negro/

The Sad And Confused Mindset Of The Modern House Negro


Several weeks ago, while searching for interesting authors of African descent at BookExpo of America at the Jacob Javitz Center in New York, I came across a kindly older Black gentleman wearing a uniform that appeared to be of the same type worn by Confederate officers during the War of Southern Insurrection, more commonly known as the Civil War.

Stunned by the seemingly ludicrous nature of the entire scenario, I had to get a closer look. Indeed, it was a Black man dressed as a Confederate officer to promote a book he had written discussing how a famous Confederate officer was instrumental in building schools for freed slaves.

The author was kind, informative and passionate about his work. However, I simply couldnt get past the fact that a brother born in New York City would want to write a book about Confederate altruism. His presentation was accentuated with beautiful paintings and historical artifacts that caught the eye, but the very existence of such a person was as offensive as any neo-Nazi, quasi-Confederate I could fathom.

It was a Black man who was basically saying Look, the Confederate wasnt all bad, to which my entire constitution screamed The hell if it wasnt.

Despite that, I remained respectful as he explained his point of view. He handed me his card, shook my hand and bid me farewell, to which I simply nodded my head. Once outside I retrieved his business card from my pocket and gazed at it for a long second.

Man, (expletive) this house Negro, I said before tearing his card to pieces and tossing it in the trash- an act that I regretted immediately.

I also regretted mentally disregarding the mans message from the moment I laid eyes upon him; but all true stories deserve to be told, including stories that we don’t want to hear.

The Modern House Negro

In the greater American lexicon the N-word is one that has caused much handwringing and debate lately. Well its better to say it is causing those adjectives to be performed at a rate far greater than in the past.

However, there is another word that many feel outweighs that word in its ability to scare the dignity of proud men and women of African descent- house Negro.

That term finds its origins in the plantation hierarchy of the antebellum south hundreds of years ago. The field Negro, generally of a darker complexion than the house Negro, worked in the fields with the animals and performed most of the dirty work.

The house Negroes worked as butlers and servants and assisted with child weening, house keep and kitchen work. His and her sleeping quarters were usually very close to the main house, while the field Negroes were often relegated to shacks and shanties away from main house. The field Negroes were considered dirty and unclean by the master, his overseers and the house Negro; the house Negro believed that he was blessed to be able to be so close to his master on a day-to-day basis. He was so favored as he was able to wear his masters hand-me-down clothing opposed to the tattered rags the field Negro wore. He was vehement in his allegiance to his master, oftentimes spying on the field Negroes and reporting back to his masters.

The field Negroes were his family in many cases; his maternal brothers and sisters and first cousins. Though his numbers were few, the house Negro proved to be equally ravenous in his desire to subjugate, limit, curse and vilify the field Negro to curry favor from his master.

There was no greater explanation of how this phenomenon affected American-born slave descendants than Malcolm Xs famous speech at Michigan State University in 1963.



So whenever that house Negro identified himself, he always identified himself in the same sense that his master would of himself. When his master said, “We have good food,” the house Negro would say, “Yes, we have plenty of good food.” “We” have plenty of good food. When the master said that “we have a fine home here,” the house Negro said, “Yes, we have a fine home here.” When the master would be sick, the house Negro identified himself so much with his master he’d say, “What’s the matter boss, we sick?” His master’s pain was his pain and it hurt him more for his master to be sick than for him to be sick himself. When the house started burning down, that type of Negro would fight harder to put the master’s house out than the master would himself.

Today the term is flung around so often that it has become synonymous with sycophant to many Black Americans and is also erroneously used to shame individuals who are educated, use proper diction, have many White friends, are fair-skinned, live in suburban neighborhoods or even participate in sports or activities that some deem to be the arena of Whites. Indeed, there have often been times where I have witnessed an individual be deemed a house Negro simply for reminding his co-workers of certain rules and regulations.

The term house Negro is often used unfairly and out of frustration, whether real or imagined, with the manner in which plantation politics still play themselves out in just about any place of employment where Blacks make up a significant portion of the workforce.

I have used the term in consternation many times in my life and it is almost a foregone conclusion that I will do so again.

But that doesnt mean I have a right to do so.

Though the n-word is often the term of contention within the overarching American Black community, and in American popular culture as a whole as of late, the term house Negro carries connotations of self-hatred, betrayal, brainwashing and antebellum hierarchy. All attributes that far outweigh the negativity of the n-word in my opinion.

However, since the n-word was, and is, used to belittle, mentally emasculate and castrate victims of White supremacy even today, I completely understand why many are vehemently against its use.

As far as literal definitions go, being called a house Negro is equal to being called a human dog. No matter how much you abuse it, curse at it, belittle it or ignore it, the dog remains loyal. So too does the house Negro.

But there are also many times when house Negro is the only term that can be used to describe the actions and behaviors of certain sectors of Black folk. Whenever there is any kind of political, economic, corporate or legal conflict in which individuals Blacks become pundits for conservative, capitalist and religious measures that clearly run counter to the interests of minorities, women, immigrants and the poor.

Complicated is an understatement. One cannot be certain of anyones intentions based on words or beliefs, but how else is one to be labeled when his or her beliefs run lockstep with those of rich old White males?

On June 19 the nation awoke to the horrific realization that there was a terrorist attack on American soil. Nine Black victims were gunned down by white supremacist Dylann Roof during Bible Study at Mother Emmanuel AME in Charleston, South Carolina. Roof was captured a day later in North Carolina where was treated to a meal at Burger King before being taken to lockup.

Though I mourned that day, I knew that a plague of Black conservatives would soon materialize and divert the national discourse into a muddy ditch of politicization and demagoguery. After all, It is moments like these that house Negroes butter their bread.

It wasnt long before frequent Fox News guest Jesse Lee Paterson, conservative Black preacher who is on record for doubting the existence of modern-day racism, was on to Newsmax TV to parrot white denial on the role White supremacy played in the mind of Roof. He blamed the terrorists actions on Blacks not allowing (Roof) to express himself. Yes, I sh*t you not!

The man that killed these people said to them before killing them that Black people have been raping and killing our people or raping our women and killing them, and this is like a payback, he explained. Ive been saying to White Americans for the last 25 years, warning them and warning them that you need to start speaking up instead of holding that anger in, because you could get so angry that youll come out fighting in the wrong manner.

Then theres the increasing fame associated with 13-year-old Black conservative CJ Pearson. Though he is educated and articulate, his beliefs are flawed, it is a shame that I must cast him in the same pot as the aforementioned Mr. Paterson. The young man said that Obama politicized the shooting in a widely popular Youtube video.

Guns dont kill people. People kill people. Stupid people kill people. And thats how you be objective, President Obama, Pearson said in his emotional video.

Your presidency has been pathetic and this is one testament to it, he concludes.

Young, old, rich or poor, whenever racism in America is the topic of the day the conservative right trots out these facsimiles of American negritude to sooth the right and admonish the left in general, Black people in particular.

President Obama, You dont love America. If you really did love America, you would call ISIS what it really is: an assault on Christianity, an assault on America and downright hate for the American values that our country holds. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion and every single thing that our country stands for.



Mind you, this is the same kid who defended former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani. So, take it however you want.

But if young Mr. Pearson believes that ISIS is an assault on Christianity then the question begs to be asked whether he feels the recent spate of Black churches being burned to a cinder in the south are also an attack on Christianity or whether he even feels theyre racist at all.

Since the terrorist attack on Mother Emmanuel AME the nation has been roiled in a debate over the antiquated and offensive Confederate battle flag that flies in South Carolina and Mississippi and is used in some fashion (license plates, historical monuments) in Alabama and Georgia.

Supporters of the flag claim it as their southern heritage, but many Blacks see it as being akin to a Nazi swastika- a grisly reminder of nationalism and racial bias run horribly amok.

Nearly 200,000 Black men served in the Union Army during the Civil War. As the flame of the rebellion grew dimmer, their armies routed on many fronts, Confederate president Jefferson Davis and the Confederate Congress passed a bill on March 13, 1865 allowing Black men to fight in their army. The desperate ploy only managed to scrape up around 2,500 soldiers, few of whom ever actually saw any combat at all. So imagine my surprise when I turn on the television, read an article or even scan social media, and see one Black face after another singing the praises of the Confederate battle flag.

As if pulled from a Dave Chappelle skit, there are people of African descent throughout the south who claim the Confederate battle flag as part of their southern heritage as well, as preposterous as that might seem. However, it is a heritage of pain and death. Why side with such an abomination to ones very essence unless rejecting said essence was is what is intended, though no one would readily admit they dont want to be Black anymore. Actions speak louder than words.



White people on the wrong side of history always have a pocket full of house Negroes on standby.

For about a week or so New York-born Virginian Karen Cooper has been making the rounds in media over her unpopular support of this object.

I actually think that it represents freedom, Cooper, a tea party supporter, says. It represents a people who stood up to tyranny.

Yes, it represents a people who stood up for the right to subjugate her ancestors. Yet she relates to the viewpoint of slavers more so than slaves? The very definition of a house Negro. She is a member of the Virginia Flaggers, a conservative activist group that rejects the notion that the Confederate flag is a symbol of racism and American terrorism despite many, many white Confederate battle flag supporters admitting it is just that.

I would like to reject the notion that I have to pay taxes and I would also like to reject the notion that certain neighborhoods are dangerous after dark. However, just because I want to reject a notion doesnt make said notion less true. Cooper is also the same village idiot who said slavery was a choice. Shes not alone either. Theyre all over the place.

One brother who attends the University of South Carolina wrote an article in the Washington Post defending his pride for the battle flag.

“For me and many Southerners, the flag celebrates my heritage and regional pride. One of my ancestors, Benjamin Thomas, was a black Confederate cook, and I do not want to turn my back on his service to the South. So I hang the flag in honor of his hard work and dedication to South Carolina during the Civil War.

My Confederate flag isnt racist; after all, I am black.”

What the gentleman omits is that his ancestor likely would have never cooked for the Confederate Army had he been given a choice to do so. Second, he states that HIS Confederate flag isnt racist because hes black. Uh, no Bo-Bo, its just as racist. Perhaps even more so considering the manner in which it has charmed him into believing the Confederates and her proxy agents were anything but detrimental to Black independence.

But apparently Black Confederate apologists represent a much larger issue within the American Black dialectic. One in which political allegiance to extremely conservative viewpoints is indicative of a mindset that would much rather be cosigned and approved by Whites than to be truly free in thought, spirit and bank account.

Sad.

https://theshadowleague.com/the-sad-and ... use-negro/

[Sean Hayden]

It's not a quote mine. He gave an example of how it's commonly used and understood, something you claimed you had literally never heard.

It's interesting that you believe you can use the term house negro without running into problems like calling blacks who like learning "white". Do you think the two are wholly separate and with different origins? That's a strange thought.

[Sean Hayden]

My problem with Sowell is the usual: I don't see society from the perspective of a callous gardener. I believe in the creative power of humanity to arrange society such that we can appreciate our differences, those we can control and those we cannot, without allowing them to lead to excluding people from a good life.

[Seabass]

It's not a quote mine. He gave an example of how it's commonly used and understood, something you claimed you had literally never heard.

It's interesting that you believe you can use the term house negro without running into problems like calling blacks who like learning "white". Do you think the two are wholly separate and with different origins? That's a strange thought.

Of course it's a quote mine. Why didn't you provide a link to the article? Why did you disregard all the rest of the article in which he uses the term exactly the way I used it?

For 99% of the article, he uses the term the way that I used it, and cites Malcom X's speech, as I did, to explain the meaning of the term. Even in the paragraph that you quoted, he cites those as examples of misusage.

So why are you still trying to convince me that I'm wrong and you're right?

So some people use the term incorrectly. So what? A lot of people use a lot of words incorrectly. That doesn't mean that I should also use words incorrectly. Nor does it mean that I'm in the wrong for using a term correctly, just because you've seen it used incorrectly.

My exposure to term probably comes mostly from reading history. I've probably also seen it used on TV and in movies as well. I used the term in the way that I am familiar with it being used, which, as it turns out, is the correct way to use it.

[Seabass]

My problem with Sowell is the usual: I don't see society from the perspective of a callous gardener. I believe in the creative power of humanity to arrange society such that we can appreciate our differences, those we can control and those we cannot, without allowing them to lead to excluding people from a good life.

There's also the part where does apologetics for racist, genocidal European empires, and just generally makes up a bunch of shit about history and tries to pass it off as fact.

[Sean Hayden]

It's not a quote mine because I used his example exactly as he did without misrepresenting anything in order to show the connotation you had literally never seen, is in fact common.

You're wrong because house negro is toxic however it is used, but especially because it is used to insult blacks for being the wrong kind of black.

[Sean Hayden]

My problem with Sowell is the usual: I don't see society from the perspective of a callous gardener. I believe in the creative power of humanity to arrange society such that we can appreciate our differences, those we can control and those we cannot, without allowing them to lead to excluding people from a good life.

There's also the part where does apologetics for racist, genocidal European empires, and just generally makes up a bunch of shit about history and tries to pass it off as fact.

I doubt that.

[Sean Hayden]

House negro is a racial slur.

It questions one's racial "authenticity" if they refuse to embrace a pseudo-intellectual worldview which is based on grievance and resentment.

Solidarity with all those who reject your toxic identity politics which is a threat to social cohesion.

Dr Rakib Ehsan

It's a twitter thread. Important to my point which you insist I used a quote mine to support are the many people who understand the term in exactly the way you've literally never heard it used e.g.

The idea that when one black person calls another a “house negro” they mean it as a political critique is insane. It’s alway meant as a personal insult ( at least in America).

-Brandon

https://twitter.com/rakibehsan/status/1 ... 8862531585

[Seabass]

It's not a quote mine because I used his example exactly as he did without misrepresenting anything in order to show the connotation you had literally never seen, is in fact common.

Quoting out of context (sometimes referred to as contextomy or quote mining) is an informal fallacy in which a passage is removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended meaning.[1] Contextomies may be either intentional or accidental if someone misunderstands the meaning and omits something essential to clarifying it, thinking it to be non-essential. As a fallacy, quoting out of context differs from false attribution, in that the out of context quote is still attributed to the correct source.

Arguments based on this fallacy typically take two forms:

As a straw man argument, it involves quoting an opponent out of context in order to misrepresent their position (typically to make it seem more simplistic or extreme) in order to make it easier to refute. It is common in politics.
As an appeal to authority, it involves quoting an authority on the subject out of context, in order to misrepresent that authority as supporting some position.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quoting_out_of_context

Quote mining (also contextomy) is the fallacious tactic of taking quotes out of context in order to make them seemingly agree with the quote miner's viewpoint or to make the comments of an opponent seem more extreme or to make it seem that the opponent holds positions they don't in order to make their positions easier to refute or demonize. It's a way of lying. This tactic is widely used among Young Earth Creationists (YEC) in an attempt to discredit evolution and by TERFs to discredit scientific research on being transgender.

Quote mining is an informal fallacy and a fallacy of ambiguity, in that it removes context that is necessary to understand the mined quote.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Quote_mining

You snipped out and presented the 1% of the article that supports your position, and disregarded and omitted the 99% of the article that supports my position. And on top of that you did not provide a link to the full article for context. It's a quote mine.

You're wrong because house negro is toxic however it is used, but especially because it is used to insult blacks for being the wrong kind of black.

Your opinion on the toxicity of the term has absolutely no bearing on whether or not I used the term correctly. I used the term correctly even according to the author of the article that you totally didn't quote mine.

My problem with Sowell isn't that he is "the wrong kind of black". My problem with him is that he supports and defends and helps perpetuate the white supremacist power structure. Racists in this country love black people like Thomas Sowell and Candace "Hitler wasn't that bad" Owens because they are useful idiots for white supremacy.

[Seabass]

My problem with Sowell is the usual: I don't see society from the perspective of a callous gardener. I believe in the creative power of humanity to arrange society such that we can appreciate our differences, those we can control and those we cannot, without allowing them to lead to excluding people from a good life.

There's also the part where does apologetics for racist, genocidal European empires, and just generally makes up a bunch of shit about history and tries to pass it off as fact.

I doubt that.

According to the woman in the videos you posted, he does exactly that.

[Sean Hayden]

I used the quoted bit to support the common use which you claimed to have never heard of, which it did support, not to deny the term had any other use. It would be a quote mine if I had done the later.