@mechajutaro said:

@CelluloidFan said:

I wanted to write about the idea of 're end of the innocence' as a black person, using a scene in Spike Lee's Crooklyn.

This is a concept I've heard of before, inc. in a song by Don Henley, I think. I'll be brief.

As a child growing up in post- race riots Detroit, rest assured, all I knew was: I am black.

In time, other black people made me see that I was different or, to some, a certain complexion, as a former cohort pointed out.

I saw this experience reflected as a sort of screen memory in Crooklyn, in the scene wherein a little black girl tells a little Puerto Rican girl that she's "just a Puerto Rican," IIRC, putting her down.

Yes, my experience was - at least to some - within the race, but the message was similar.

Get it? They showed me that I was different. I learned it from other black folks.

That was "the end of the innocence" for me, in terms of being a black person.

Identity politics has had a strange effect on lots of us non-whites who've lived in The US post-1967. Whereas in the days before '67, it was Bull Connor and his imitators who were reminding us that we were "inherently different" by virtue of having a little more melanin in our flesh than did our more pasty colored neighbors,

Whom are you referring to here

Community Guidelines on TMDB

Trolling, abuse, flaming and/or harassment are uncalled for and will not be tolerated. Have discussions based on well-formulated arguments.

@mechajutaro said:

@CelluloidFan said:

Community Guidelines on TMDB

Trolling, abuse, flaming and/or harassment are uncalled for and will not be tolerated. Have discussions based on well-formulated arguments.

One really has to stretch the definition of trolling, flaming, and/or harassment to assert that's what I've been doing on this thread

Ha. Suppose that I am one of those who is into what you're referring to as "identity politics?"

Not to worry, mech: I realize that I haven't always been a good boy on the boards as of late. I just wanted to remind you of the above.

@mechajutaro said:

@dogfromsuburbsandtrainer said:

a great way to start the new year, users in kindergarten

Feel free to join in on the conversation, 'Burbs. TMDB is open to everyone

It seems that every sixth or seventh post you make here finds you referring contemptuously to human beings who just happen to have been born a certain skin shade lighter than yours as "pasty" or "pasty colored." And then you have the nerve to try to invite those who are reading to post on the message boards? I don't think it works that way, Sam I am... I think people want to be seen, maybe even judged with eyes unclouded by hate!

@mechajutaro said:

@CelluloidFan said:

@mechajutaro said:

@CelluloidFan said:

I wanted to write about the idea of 're end of the innocence' as a black person, using a scene in Spike Lee's Crooklyn.

This is a concept I've heard of before, inc. in a song by Don Henley, I think. I'll be brief.

As a child growing up in post- race riots Detroit, rest assured, all I knew was: I am black.

In time, other black people made me see that I was different or, to some, a certain complexion, as a former cohort pointed out.

I saw this experience reflected as a sort of screen memory in Crooklyn, in the scene wherein a little black girl tells a little Puerto Rican girl that she's "just a Puerto Rican," IIRC, putting her down.

Yes, my experience was - at least to some - within the race, but the message was similar.

Get it? They showed me that I was different. I learned it from other black folks.

That was "the end of the innocence" for me, in terms of being a black person.

Identity politics has had a strange effect on lots of us non-whites who've lived in The US post-1967. Whereas in the days before '67, it was Bull Connor and his imitators who were reminding us that we were "inherently different" by virtue of having a little more melanin in our flesh than did our more pasty colored neighbors,

Whom are you referring to here

Those of us who are non-white in The US, who've been ensnared by identity politics. It's nothing short of tragic, that so many of us are being told "Rest assured; you're black or brown. above all. This is more important than what you say and do." In decades past, we were being told this mostly by racist whites. From the late 60s forward, it's been our fellow NON-WHITES who've been drilling this thoroughly disempowering message into our minds

You misunderstand me. What you're talking about up above never applied to me. Indeed, my black identity is something you cannot take away from me. But this has never been the most prominent detail of my identity, more important than what I do.

So sorry that my wording in my OP confused you.

@mechajutaro said:

I've also referred to those who are my complexion as "bronze colored". Any indelicacy I'm guilty of has been equal opportunity.

No, I don't think so. I'd like to remind you of the TMDB guideline I posted up above.

and

You can quote me on what I'm about to say... in the event that you're directing some of your cuteness at the group I suspect you are... you should never, ever belittle the skin color of African Americans -- as it is in part for that very factor that we, as a collective, have war waged upon us in this country.....

I don't need links. Whenever I start wondering why conditions in certain places in the U.S. are SO adverse, I reflect upon the words of Frances Cress Welsing in her book, The Isis Papers, on what she thought racism is. May she rest in peace. She was a sort of melanin worshipper, which I am not in favor of. However, she seemed to give a f about her people, and she had her own interesting way of looking at the issues. Take a look at the book sometime....

@mechajutaro said:

O/T: Did you ever get around to watching those movies I linked over on the Fear Street thread?

Uh, nope. They don't seem like my cup of tea, honestly...

@mechajutaro said:

I don't need links.

This brings us back around to a point we've kinda sorta touched on prior, albeit in different threads, 'Loid. "I don't need to provide links to the evidence which proves what I'm saying to be true beyond a reasonable doubt. I believe what I'm asserting is true, therefore no evidence is required" is tantamount to saying "Aliens are abducting human beings and experimenting on them, even creating alien human hybrids in many cases. I've got no empirical evidence to back any of this up, but I believe it/heard it on Art Bell's show back in the day, therefore it must be true". Forgive my indelicacy once again, but chicanery such as this sets the very notion of logic back to the stone age

AGAIN, I won't do your homework for you. I provided you with a reference; you ridiculed its author. Look at all of the black folks who were killed by police in B.S. incidents in the past 5 years or so...

@dogfromsuburbsandtrainer said:

@CelluloidFan said:

Look at all of the black folks who were killed by police in B.S. incidents in the past 5 years or so...

yet nobody remembers or talks about latasha harlins. ive seen it all right from afghan to this very day. you have no idea about the things i know and the experience i hold in life, mobil motor oil

I remember her name. Unfortunately, there are so many black people done in by the police that after awhile, the details become repetitive and vague for me.

You mean you don’t agree with the Cress Theory of Color Confrontation and Racism? I found it interesting during my days of higher learning. An acquaintance said it is “non-falsifiable,” however.

@mechajutaro said:

@CelluloidFan said:

You mean you don’t agree with the Cress theory of Color Confrontation and Racism? I found it interesting during my days of higher learning. An acquaintance said it is “non-falsifiable,” however.

I'm not sold on the efficacy of chanting "White Supremacy is bad!!!", without ever asking our political leaders and intelligentsia "What do we do to help those who are in need to help themselves?", then not letting them off the hook until they provide us with concrete, tangible treatments for these social ills. Cress's theories have been exposed as pseudoscience several times over, and don't come anywhere near telling us what we can do to feed the hungry and get people out of barely minimum wage work and into the middle and upper classes

OK.

BTW, if you vomit up the words “concrete” & “tangible” in a reply to me one more time, I’m putting you on ignore.

The Cress Theory is, for me, an interesting idea that seems to hold weight for some folks. A roommate of mine once told me that Welsing's lab or place of work was destroyed by some people once; maybe this is proof of the Theory's significance for some. Of course, at the end of the day, it is just a theory. I definitely do not agree with everything Welsing states in her book... I don't agree with everything anyone says, to date.

To kind of circle back around to the opening idea of this thread, I just wanted to write about discovering the Cress Theory during the nineties, when there was a real boom in Afrocentric teaching in the U.S. I remember hearing about the horror of an Afrocentric black teacher telling the light-complexioned black students in his class that they should be prepared to defend their "heritage" to him and the rest of the class....

That did it.

@mechajutaro said:

The Cress Theory is, for me, an interesting idea that seems to hold weight for some folks. A roommate of mine once told me that Welsing had her lab or place of work destroyed by some people once; maybe this is proof of the Theory's significance for some. Of course, at the end of the day, it is just a theory. I definitely do not agree with everything Welsing states in her book... I don't agree with everything anyone says, to date.

I don't suppose the perpetrators(those who wrecked Cress's lab, that is)were apprehended, and if so, were their motives documented? That's quite a leap to infer that just because her lab was destroyed, this somehow proves her theory

I didn't say that it did.

I remember hearing about the horror of an Afrocentric black teacher telling the light-complexioned black students in his class that they should be prepared to defend their "heritage" to him and the rest of the class....

That's a shame that those light skinned students didn't have the intellectual wherewithal to prevent this from being the horror you describe, 'Loid. Namely, they could have replied with words to the effect of "I've made my peace with my light skinned heritage, with the help of my ancestral memories. The most lucid of which is my white great grandfather bending your great grandmother over a pool table, and ensuring that I'd be here to have this chat with you today"

Look, you're hateful and combative. You only pick on me on this board, no one gets my back about it, and it's exhausting. This doesn't even have that much to do with cinema. If you don't stop antagonizing me, I will put your ass back on ignore. Is that clear?