- ‹ previous
- 3459 of 8902
- next ›
Where Is the Black Outcry Against China?
As much opprobrium as is being heaped on Obama's pastor Rev. Wright these days, what about the black folks who aren't speaking up? If anyone with an African forebear is black, and blacks are assumed to feel some sort of kinship with each other, how can any blacks take part in the Beijing Olympics this summer?
Of course, my argument is that 'black' is meaningless unless its disparate communities can be shown to overlap politically or culturally and, most of all, demonstrate some sort of allegiance to each other. I wish all 'blacks' did, but we don't. So what's the point in demanding that the label be applied to all of us when it comes to protests, but not on the ground when a discrete group of non-native born blacks are getting their asses kicked for the crime of being black?
We didn't fight for the Haitian boat people, qua blacks. We didn't fight for Rwanda, nor against the Darfur genocide. Steven Spielberg pulled out as artistic director of the Beijing Olympics (and adopted a black child), but multi-millionaire black athletes are taking the fifth on China's crimes lest their marketability drop even a tad. China is Sudan's largest investor, a country which is at war with its 'black' population. It even enslaves them. If 'black' has any meaning, where is the black outcry against China's investment in genocide against Sudan's blacks?
Black Olympic athletes did exactly that in 1968 when they had everything to lose. But today? From Orin Starn:
This summer marks the 40th anniversary of the famous black power protest at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.
Two American sprinters, John Carlos and Tommie Smith, raised black-gloved fists on the medal stand during the Star Spangled Banner. They wanted to spotlight poverty and racism just months after the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. and riots in Newark and Detroit.
Can we expect any such protests at the Beijing Olympics this summer?
No. The era of the activist athlete is over. We've entered the age of the corporate sports champion, the superstar as a global brand who shies from politics to keep full market share.
Consider the contrast between 1968 and a more recent medal ceremony controversy. At the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, Reebok was the official U.S. Olympic team sponsor, but Michael Jordan and other American basketball stars had big Nike endorsement deals. The players decided to drape American flags over the offending Reebok logo on their team sweats during the gold medal ceremony. Here the dispute no longer concerned the great social questions of the day. It was about the arithmetic of marketing and the endorsement dollar.
It's easy to be against whites. But are you for blacks? Even when it costs you something?
What is this guy talking about!!!??? This is plain ignorance. There have been blacks fighting for Rwanda and Darfur. This author seems to think if you are not a celebrity donig something then nothing is getting done. With his power of the pen why does this author not get out there and find the regular black people out there doing something, to help get the word out instead of trying to down black people by the lack of celebrity movement. This is a very disappointing report from a person of color.
There should be more outrage about Darfur and Eastern Chad
and Iraq for that matter from all races.
Check out www.GoogleDarfur.com
There is free video to watch about this situation in Darfur and Chad
amen brother,,,
the most lethal weapon in the world is a n$#@# w/ wads of money
I am not quite sure about the point of this article.
The fact that the devastation in the Sudan and Darfur have been allowed to continue has not a thing to do with Black athletes or sports at all for that matter. And this article is nothing but race-baiting.
Give it a rest!
I totally get this article! I think that we all need to boycott the Olympics. The Chinese all want us to think that things are rosy over there, but as we have seen recently, nothing could be farther from the truth. Why are more people not throwing a fit about this? Have we all become so addicted to cheap garbage, that we won't do what was right? It is ironic that we are willing to allow the Chinese to get away with whatever they want to be able to buy there cheap sh*t, then the stuff that we buy poisons us!!!
The point of the article is to focus on intra-black hypocrisy. The author is saying that if blacks are going to moan about being oppressed as a group then they should support their fellows all over the world, or is it only American blacks that American blacks support? Truly, this isn't just a black issue, all races--all people--are this hypocritical.
Yes...boycott the Olympics and FREE TIBET!!
What do you say of the country that is providing the flight to China for these Olympic Games? Their hands are just as bloody as China.
This is a war for dwindling resources being fought by surrogates. Southern Darfur like southern Sudan is rich in oil. Nations like the US, Britain, and China are all dirty but at least China is offering no strings attached dollar credits to gain access to Africa's vast raw material wealth. Something the US controlled IMF and World Bank would never do.
Is he serious? I guess so since he posted it! If blacks don't boycott the olympics does that mean they are Pro-Chinese gov. or anti-american?
Why dont all athletes boycott the Olymics?
Some people just don't have a clue, or maybe they do but if one person picks up the hidden message and agrees with it I guess they have done their job.
First off , the author is a woman ...
Second , she's right , not race baiting ...
all the so called black elite , ie entertainers , athletes and even politically connected are all turning a blind eye to the situation . I understand you gotta eat , but how much can you digest ???
Pardon me , the poster of this thread is a woman , and she's as right as the author ...
The point of the article is simply this:
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963
You are a racist Debbi to talk this way about China. You are jealous of Chinese women because all American men like us the best because we are thin and so pretty.
Hi Lucy,
Completely agree - I just can't get enough of them - what is your phone number?
The protest should be about continued injustice here in the U.S. Let's clean-up the house we live in before taking on global issues. The process could begin with our "celebrities" and role models cleaning up their acts.
They're AMERICAN.
which means, "screw everybody, I'm in this for ME"
Americans have been *convinced* that self-interest is the ONLY interest... that its a ZERO-SUM GAME. That the *international revolution for Human Rights was won outright by the US ... so screw everybody else!*
screw everybody, get out of my way!!
There is no WE in corruption
http://thiscanadian.typepad.com/this_canadian/2008/03/there-is-no-we.htm...
The problem with 'amateur sports' is that they require CORPORATE FUNDING.
Nuff said??
as for Rwanda, Darfur... blah blah blah... why if Americans gave a damn, something would have HAPPENED to alleviate the misery.
The hype about China is waaaaaay overdue. But then, China is playing off the US's debt so they can buy back the US assets for pennies on the dollar. Meanwhile, the US is running the occupations to drive resources WEST into the EU instead of EAST into China.
China is *using* the EU's manufactured reliance on fossil fuels rather than sustainable, green energy... to drive the US into receivership.
oops. thanks for playing!
*duh* you've been had.
~~~
Spread Love...
BlueBerry Pick'n
can be found @
ThisCanadian com
~~~
"We, two, form a Multitude" ~ Ovid.
~~~
"Silent Freedom is Freedom Silenced"
This article proves ohttp://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/03/7802_jeremiah_wright.html#comments
MotherJones Blog: Where Is the Black Outcry Against China?ne point. American STATE POWER CAPITALISM is as controlling, consuming and dehumanizing as the Chinese State Power Communism.
And that is why you don't see an outcry from the people of color - we are all being oppressed by state systems.
Wow Lucy Lu! Just Wow.
I like my crazy in my bread, and not in the comments section.
hello,
Racism is not just in the big business sports arena. Racism is promoted in churches but hey, churches are a BIG Business. All people need to step up and say something no matter who the racism is directed towards. The oppress, oppress so let's all stop the oppression. Speak-up!
Lucy, funny you said racist because chinese are in general very racist, looking at people from other races like if they were inferior. But I agree with you on chinese women; they are really thin, so thin it's like fine China, you go "oh my god am I gonna break her if I touch her?". Just kiddin' - I agree that thin looks better than overweight, let alone obese - but what about being just average that's even better.
In response to the first comment, Debra Dickerson is a woman, not a man.
And, Debra Dickerson, it is precisely these types of subconscious oppressive assumptions that we (as humans) make about social groups that is one thing uniting Black people. (I say one thing because I, contrary to your argument, believe there are others, but I will address just this one factor here). A Black South African immigrant to the U.S., for example, could activate the same kinds of negative stereotypes about Black people that a Black person born and raised in the U.S. would. This phenomenon can happen regardless of how they personally identify culturally and racially. See a vast literature within Social Psychology on implicit priming and stereotyping for proof. (i.e. Dr. Jennifer Eberhardt's recent work on Black people and activation of the Ape stereotype.) The activation of these stereotypes can impact the way these individuals are perceived, evaluated, and treated by others (and even themselves). This phenomenon unites us all, whether we want it to or not. It is something that we as Black people need to address and care about collectively. Whether we are willing to acknowledge it collectively or not, though, it still unites us all. Pretending that Blackness is not a meaningful overarching category/social group will only serve to allow this problem to persist--for the status quo to remain intact.
Well I'm kind of surprised at the direction this article went.
I had thought that 'Blacks' would be appealed to to act in solidarity as oppressed people, with the sweatshop workers of China.
Take a stand make a statement on that. Good move if you do. But where this article went I have no idea.
Yeah! Where are these athletes? They raised their fists in defiance of US racism and inhumanity, they were stripped of their medals and...they've done nothing since then. They're not standing up against continued racism and human rights violations not only at home, the goood ole US of A, but in the brand of trash terrorism the USA exports and imposes on others around the world. And you...you want to know why they're not standing up and bitching about China? Get off it! Stand up against America's beatific record of human rights abuses first. Get it right at home before you go spouting off about others' problems. But, hey, China bashing's in and the status quo must be maintained, no? Rev. Wright was right: God DAMN Amaerica!
If it's against anything "White" then thats OK. Thats when hear from the "Blacks". But, when it's "Non-White on Black" the activist can't make a whole lot of political hay out of it, so they keep the big mouths shut
A slight aside: Major Hillary supporter Taylor Marsh posted a right wing anti-Obama video which among other things compared Obama to Olympians John Carlos and Tommy Smith as a negative. Of course it also painted him as a Muslim with evil intent who doesn't wear a flag pin! What is it with Clinton supporters and their alliance with the Right Wing? The road to Hell is.......
This article rather lost me to some extent but I do understand the core message of standing for human rights.
I will say that I agree in concept, but that Blacks in America have their own problems of tremendous magnitude right here at home.
Once we speak out and handle our own business as a people, a troubled American community, then we can begin to extend a hand elsewhere.
Some guesture of protest and solitarity (like Smith/Carlos) at the Olympics by our athletes would be appropriate in my view. To ask them to boycott I believe would be dreadfully unfair to the athletes themselves. After all they are not politicians.
I'm just curious as to how this writer knows what Black America is doing and what upsets them. What makes this writer assume she has her finger of the pulse of Black America. That is so insulting of her. My question to her is quite simple. Have you asked them?
Reminds me of what happens to old hippies once they get a "respectable" job: they instantly turn into Republicans.
Same with these Ghetto fighters who end up at the top of the competitive Capitalist heap.
Don't ask these over-indulged children to give a rodent's behind about anybody but themselves.
THAT is the Amerikan way!
Debra raises some noteworthy issues. If you were to read the Washinton Post Parade Magazine Sunday Feb.17,2008,it ask the question of -"Who is the world's worst dictators."There are 10 mentioned.It begins with Kim Jong-Il North Korea,OmarAl Bashir Sudan, ThanShwe Burma,KingAbdulla Saudi Arabia,HuJintao China,Robert Mugabe Zimbabwe, SayyidAliKhamenei Iran, Pervez Musharraf Pakistan,Islam Karimov Uzbekistan,and lastly-Isayas Afewerki Eritria.What is most henious about these despots is the systematic descent into such states of moral apathy that the US Government and Businesses have millions of dollars in making money, blinded by you guessed it- Profit. We have lost our moral fiber and consciouns,about ten years after WW2. What is to happen to this Nation and taking place now with the increase of natural disaster, economic collaspe,is only a foretaste of what is to come, in just this short few hundred years of Indipendence. It is with great sorrow and humility that I write this. What democracy and freedom are we attempting to bring about in other parts of the world when we have just about destroyed lives for monetary gains? Old Testament Israel was destroyed in the wrath of Divine Judgment, which serves us as a very poignant reminder that we are just about there too.
Thanks, silverlucie, for a mention of Tibet: was waiting for one, from the beginning of text.
I can "get the point," but one could consider the American version of social disparity by replacing the category, "American blacks," with some other designated group, as well - say, with "impoverished American mothers," or, "suicide-prone adolescent Native American males," and there's always history & stance yet to reform and redress. As for wars here and there, here and there - regimes here and there, here and there - yes: let's at least acknowledge the VAST hypocrisies that money-power perpetuates in our own nowhere-near-united society, keeping in mind that perpetration of divisiveness is the primary ploy used by money/power, as wed to politics. Meanwhile, I don't have a problem standing (or, sitting) for ALL my sisters and brothers in the causes that call for social justice (and I don't flinch using "brothers and sisters" because of my personal ethnicity, hey: I'm related by birth). Last thought: while celebrities aren't bound to be "better people" than you or me, leadership by example, stewardship by choice, wherever it may be found, is a freaking positive thing. Wish more of us felt more responsible, if we do have, indeed, the simple ability to exercise simple choice in regard to our own, individual, personal behavior.
P.S. But, I do so admire Ms. Dickerson, because she's pretty darn consistent in kicking up our collective dirt & pushing the dirty buttons - the only way to solve anything is to get it out in the Big Wide Open, for debate and for brain-storming. Thanks, D.D.
I think the author asks a great question and, personally, to take it one step further, we should just boycott Beijing entirely. It doesn't matter if you're black, white or whatever you are....we're all human and we should all stand for human rights.
To the person (or maybe people?) who is wondering what the Olympics have to do with Sudan or Darfur, that's a pretty convenient, rose-colored view to take, but it's BS. The Olympics are about human beings coming together in the spirit of competition and international community. How can we celebrate the "international community" in a country that is participating in genocide? If we want to keep what's left of our diginity, the truth is we can't.
BOYCOTT BEIJING!!!!!
Either way, I won't watch.
Lucy, Lucy, Lucy...pathetic.
Your ignorance knows no bounds. Why did you bother posting that? Is it difficult being so thin, so pretty and so dumb?
Shocked. I actually think Lucy is correct, other than the celebrity point. I don't think any one citizen bares a heavier burden to look out for the rest of the world. We ALL should care about our communities and the world we live in. The old adage, "Charity begins at home then spreads abroad" is one we all should take note of. BTW, I wonder of the writer has considered that Black America, both celeb and non just might be working on taking care of their own homes first; especially now with the economic gloom that is hanging over our collective heads.
When blacks can point their finger at Whitey for all their woes thats fine. Anything else forget it, they have no backbone. It's ingrained in them to hate the white man, an excuse for their
lack of progress. Boycot Beijing? How does that help their cause?
oh mother jones, how [deleted]ish can you be; this is not the first time I noticed. Don't you take into account the geopolitical circumstances ?
China is a communist country. It has to be annihilated by all means according to the international bourgeoisie. The Daila lama is a real crook paid by the american establishment = the capitalists
Liked Bozona's comments. Why are all the athletes not protesting or better yet, why are all the countries allegedly involved in justice for humanity not boycotting the whole athletic event in Bejing? China is mowing down thousands of homes to prepare for this big money event, leaving their own people homeless by the thousands, and there you have it. Again. Money. For an aside, what happens to the millions collected ($10,000 a shot) as fees from rich mountain climbers reportedly thick as ticks on the slopes of Everest in Tibet? And why would anyone assume the US was moral before WWII and anymore prone to fight for justice for all then. We have flawed justice in our own country, and it isn't only against the blacks although they have had more than their share.. Why do we deal with China at all - because they have the money, from child and slave labor, making shoddy products they unload on the greedy US at low prices. Money, money, the great leveler and blindfold to atrocities of any kind. The athletes are looking out for their own career and sorry I can't see the point in separating, in fact I'm sick of separating the black from the white. There's a lot more to protest with China than their prejudice. And our stupid president has us so in debt to them that we will never in our lifetime get free. Survival of the fitttest should read survival of the most unscrupulous or vicious. And finally, no, the event isn't about community spirit and competitive spirit blah, blah. It's about entertainment for money. And lastly, what is important in any capacity about a group of people running and jumping
or whatever they do at these things. It's not hard for me to boycott the whole thing because I think sports are sort of silly anyway.
"Where Is the Black Outcry Against China?" There isn't any because Black men like Asian women. We all know that. We are thin and not fat like too man Black women. The Black men tell me that Black women have attitude. We Asian women know what a man likes.
Oh, our bad! We forgot to hire representitives for all of us black folks to tell everybody that we are trying to help Africa. Our fault. We'll try to change that ASAP.
Seriously, just because everyone isnt rioting in the streets over this doesn't mean people arent outraged over China. Firstly, you have to factor in that half the people in the US dont even know all of this. Don't assume black folks aren't trying to help. Maybe not the ones you know, but thats a bad justification over millions of people in the US.
Debra, you have made a very good point. I am a black woman and this is the first time I have ever heard of this. It is more profitable to distract me with me what new fashion dress to buy before informing me about my people. Best believe, your email will be passed around for action. I am not offended, I am informed.
That's fine Samantha, but just keep buying your clothes and preferably, all your household goods, with the made in China label.
I can forgive you not to understand China, but you should know more about the Olympic spirits.
Bobby, you are just jealous of us. Bobby, you racist too.