It's 2010 and we're still talking about plantation owners?
No, we're talking about the residual effects of plantation ownership, dear BP (may you have peace!), particularly as to why most black people don't [know how to] swim. Now, I do understand that the subject is distasteful to, well, pretty much all... but denying the effects won't eliminate the truth. And some of us really are about the truth, whether it "hurts" s someone else's conscience or not... and whether it's 2 days after the fact, 2 years, 20 years, 200 years... or 2,000. The truth doesn't change... regardless of what people write (hear that, WTBTS?)... or want to think/believe/remember...
Yet once again certain people on this board twist it to be Whitey's fault that others don't know how to swim.
Sigh! See what I mean? Why is it okay for one poster to make unfounded, disparaging, overbroad, and speculating remarks about the youth of a race, and admit the remarks to BE racist... and receive absolutely NO comment from you about that, dear OhioCB... yet, when a question is raised to whether not knowing how to swim is cultural is responded to, in TRUTH, you consider it a "twist"? There was no twist: the previous treatment of blacks as a PEOPLE really is why there is an aversion to water/swimming.
Now, I agree that the "why" is no longer justified. But I did not offer the truth as an excuse; rather, it was an explanation because someone stated that "perhaps" it was cultural. It is cultural... and CULTURE (or "custom") can be explained. It has origin. And so I explained the origin of this particular phenomena.
But I absolutely agree that "we" should move on and up. Not all of "us" agree/can do so, however. But I pretty much can and do what most white folks do (except ski and sky/bunjii jump).
Not to you, dear mkr. Chile, you really are an idjit, which I am sure you won't deny. My best friend is white and she was somewhat of a racist when I met her... although she was/is married to a black man. Actually, he was a bit, too (he's part white and because of family pressure had pretty much only identified with that side and spent years putting down the black side. Strangely, it was the black side that welcomed them and NOT the white (which shuns them to this day!) when the WTBTS gave them the boot, so they took another look at themselves... and their way of thinking. They thought they only had problems with "bad" blacks, but the reality was they had problems with "dark(er)" blacks... i.e., those that LOOK black, vs. those family members who could "pass" as something else... as many do). They didn't know they were racist, though, because they didn't understand what being racist truly meant. So, they would say certain things that they really shouldn't have... and get a little testy when I called them on it. They have come FULL circle now and have learned to take people as they are, regardless of color or hue: bad comes in all shades... as do saggy-pants wearing youth. I loved them then... because I knew their INTENTIONS were honest... and I love them even more now, because I know they truly are honest.
As for the origin of sag, I still disagree but until I can find a source to support my position (and since it's 4:30am, I won't look just now), I will concede to yours. For now... because, as I said, I disagree: I remember when saggy pants started and it was well before hip-hip (which has also been to blame), and before the convicts began letting their sag for lack of belts. I had family and friends in prison during the 60s-70s... as well as quite a few from my neighborhood who came and went from it... and I remember when sagging started there as a fad vs. a necessity (for lack of a belt). And it came into the prisons from the streets, dear one... when the young gang-bangers from the streets (particularly East L.A.) started coming in during the early 80s... grew there... and returned to the streets in the hip-hop culture.
But, as I said, frat boys were wearing no-belted saggy pants before that. As well as trashing neighborhoods during frat parties (which they still do now, but no one had/has a problem with that because the universities/parents pay for the damage. But that does not negate that young men with nothing better to do can be quite destructive, regardless of their color/race).
So, since this was about a couple of poor families losing their dear children in an awful tragedy, why don't we return to that, for now, and let those who wish to honor them and their loss? And when I find better proof of my position, I will post it in another thread, if that's still necessary. How's that?
Again, I bid you peace.
A slave of Christ,
SA