Black Culture- The question and answer thread


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As I stated in the South Carolina shooting thread, it appears that some individuals have been operating from a very narrow view of what black culture/life is about.

I consider myself to have a very full and intimate knowledge of what white culture is because I went to a majority white college for 7 years (Towson University-http://www.towson.edu/diversity/profile.asp)I dated a Jewish girl for 3 years, going on vacation with her and her family, and I've worked mostly in the county. Also Baltimore is majority black but it is hardly segregated. I attend a discussion group, last Sunday of every month, that is 100% white 50+ age group members, another on second Wednesdays, same demographic and I have a standing walking/talking friendship with a slightly older than I white friend. When I was doing life drawing sessions (for multiple years) my peers were white, the leader was and the models were.

But, it seems that some folks are arm chair philosophizing about a black culture that they have no connection to and only hear of from the miles-away perspective of television troupes and media. Some of what you hear about is true, some of it isn't. The main thing is to never look at a small section of a group at stereotype the entire race. For example, if you consider rap music to be the essence of black life then you really have no idea. For example, there are 37 million blacks living in America according to Wikipedia- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnicity. Jay-Z, the king himself, the undisputed leader of hip-hop, a world wide name, husband to Beyonce, averages only 2-3 million records sold. His biggest album, where he sold 10 million albums, was his break out record back in 98 and he hasn't come close since. http://www.statisticbrain.com/jay-z-album-sale-statistics/

Rhianna has doubled his sales in half the time.

You could say Rhianna has doubled sales because other demographics are buying her album and I'm not denying that but according to this PHd thesis (and well known fact) http://www.academia.edu/428185/THE_CULTURE_INDUSTRY_HIP_HOP_MUSIC_AND_THE_WHITE_PERSPECTIVE_HOW_ONE-DIMENSIONAL_REPRESENTATION_OF_HIP_HOP_MUSIC_HAS_INFLUENCED_WHITE_RACIAL_ATTITUDES

Whites actually consume 80% of rap sales. So the same goes for Jay-Z's popularity. In fact, of the multiple black dominated radio stations that we pick up in Baltimore, only 1 focuses on rap music (92.Q) all the rest are R+B, Jazz, or older black music like Sam Cooke.

Anyways, I'm presenting a forum for total access. You can ask any question. You can ask to see the neighborhood in which I live and I'll provide a video tour. You can ask to go inside a black person's home. You can ask when did I (as a black male) lose my virginity. ANYTHING you want as long as you are sincere. Want to know what I think are the downsides of the black culture? The upsides? The business opportunities? The legal system in a majority black city?

Bear in mind that this is MY experience, on the ground, in one city. I cannot speak for all black people but hopefully I can at least expose you to more than what you may already know.

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How accurate is The Wire?

The Wire? Did I miss something in his post?

A...

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I've put my suggestion for a Go-pro bike trip in the other thread. I am interested in the urban landscape and anomalies of residential segregation, so any journeys that show up differences in city precincts by way of infrastructure, schools, road and park maintenance, shopping, community centres, amenities and so on would be fascinating. I think you may have bitten off a huge job if everyone has a suggestion, but I'll be more than happy with any zeroing in on real fabrics of life as it is lived ...



Residential segregation may be reducing slightly from its greatest heights, but the divisions are still stark in my mind. Readers may or may not be familiar with the project Racial Dot Map of the USA. It is the entire USA in an image where one dot is one person. Here's a portion of the map at largest scale, followed by a tight-in look at Baltimore.


bigdotmap.png


dotmap_Baltimore.png



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I once knew a young white man so totally into "black culture" and so accepted by blacks of his age he could walk through their neighborhood alone and un-molested. One of his black friends he went through school with had NBA even Michael Jordan basketball skills. He could beat up anyone who messed with him. Over a $400 drug debt he killed four men in a public way while they were under surveilance by law enforcement in North Carolina (or VA), and now lives for life in prison. This isn't "black culture." This is drug culture.

--Brant

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I've put my suggestion for a Go-pro bike trip in the other thread. I am interested in the urban landscape and anomalies of residential segregation, so any journeys that show up differences in city precincts by way of infrastructure, schools, road and park maintenance, shopping, community centres, amenities and so on would be fascinating. I think you may have bitten off a huge job if everyone has a suggestion, but I'll be more than happy with any zeroing in on real fabrics of life as it is lived ...

If you haven't read it yet, you should read The Power Broker by Robert Caro which is the political primer on NY City and NY State politics, post WWII.

http://www.robertcaro.com/the-books/the-power-broker/

A...

Post Script: The City Shaper http://www.robertcaro.com/cityshaper.html

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How accurate is The Wire?

The Wire? Did I miss something in his post?

A...

Hey, I said ask anything

Sorry Robin, you have me at a disadvantage because I've never seen a single episode of the Wire. My wife tried to watch it last year when it became available for free on Amazon Prime(we were going to make it the next dinner show) but said the acting was bad so we skipped it. I never had HBO sooo...

But on the other hand, when I first moved into my area 11+ years ago, I cam home one day to see the crew wrapping up filming an episode on my block but I didnt get to see any of it. I did get to see when they filmed the movie Step Up on the next block though.

If your question is about drug culture then I can say that I have witnessed, once, a drug chopping room. A space with a bunch of guys cutting and separating crack/coke (I have no idea) into the vials for their customers. I believe, and I say believe because he died when I was maybe 10, that my Uncle was addicted. I also have a cousin who is in recovery. Also one friend I went to high school with is in pretty bad shape, or at least he was last time I say him. Looks like he went from weed to heroin or something. Other than that, I don't personally know anyone who is on drugs. I've known quite a few people who sold them, most of them have since stopped.

Lexington Market is known as possibly the heroin capital of the US. There you will see at least one person per day doing the crackhead lean (I'll try to get it on tape) but quite honestly that person could be either black or white.

Most daytime/obvious drug deals take place in neighborhoods that have the run down look- multiple boarded up houses, trash on the streets. But it could very well be that deals take place in other neighborhoods but covertly, I have no idea because I was never a part of that world.

I've never witnessed anyone actually injecting drugs though when I was growing up, I did see from time to time vials and needles in alleyways (not so much now and I dont know why that it) I've also never known someone break into anyone's house looking for stuff to sell to get drugs. Scratch that, when my grandmother died some years ago, I was staying in the house and came home one time to find the place broken into with a few things missing. I dont know if that was a drug thing though.

If your question about the Wire is more focused on the murder rate. I can talk about that in another post.

Also if there are more direct questions about the drugs I can answer to the best of my knowledge, such as the names of areas that are known to have high drug selling rates. I can try to look up how many drug rehab places are in Baltimore as well (I know of two off the top of my head)

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I've put my suggestion for a Go-pro bike trip in the other thread. I am interested in the urban landscape and anomalies of residential segregation, so any journeys that show up differences in city precincts by way of infrastructure, schools, road and park maintenance, shopping, community centres, amenities and so on would be fascinating. I think you may have bitten off a huge job if everyone has a suggestion, but I'll be more than happy with any zeroing in on real fabrics of life as it is lived ...

I've got some places in mind to go through. As soon as I borrow my brothers camera I'll be on my way. Possibly even this weekend.

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Questions:

1. Do you enjoy Tyler Perry's character "Madea"? Why is it so popular, and apparently among mostly black audiences? To me it's like a bad ripoff of Martin Lawrence's ripoff of Eddie Murphy.

2. Do you have any personal observations on interracial dating, and how accepting people are of it? It seems to me that people are generally more accepting of a white male dating a black female than they are of a black male dating a white female. What do you think?

3. As an artist, do you find that people respond differently to paintings which feature members of their own race versus members of other races? In your experience, are white people less likely to buy art which contains only images of black characters, and are black people less likely to buy art which contains only images of white people? Do you have any specific personal experiences with this issue regarding your own art, or, if not, have you at least picked up on any such vibes from certain people?

4. What are your favorite race jokes about white people, if any?

J

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Good questions.

I have seen and been told that much of black society is not happy at all when their sons or daughters are "dating" outside of their race.

Some felt that it will invite the hatred of white folks.

Some felt that it weakens the race.

Just like other groups defined by color the opinions are spread across the spectrum.

One common and shared objection is that it will make their children's lives more challenging.

A...

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We should also agree to take a look at "black culture" in America historically...

photo01.gif In 1898, the National Afro-American Council met in Washington, D.C., to consider the status of the race.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aap/aapexhp.html

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Hi Derek,

You've sort of set yourself up by offering to answer questions about black culture, but here goes:

1. Why do 95% of black people vote Democratic?

2. Why is the murder rate among the black population so high?

I haven't known a lot of black people in my life. There are a few at my place of work. Some computer programmers. One guy was in management but moved to another company. I got to talking to him a little one day and asked him if he had ever read Thomas Sowell, but he said he'd never heard of him.

Darrell

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Questions:

1. Do you enjoy Tyler Perry's character "Madea"? Why is it so popular, and apparently among mostly black audiences? To me it's like a bad ripoff of Martin Lawrence's ripoff of Eddie Murphy.

2. Do you have any personal observations on interracial dating, and how accepting people are of it? It seems to me that people are generally more accepting of a white male dating a black female than they are of a black male dating a white female. What do you think?

3. As an artist, do you find that people respond differently to paintings which feature members of their own race versus members of other races? In your experience, are white people less likely to buy art which contains only images of black characters, and are black people less likely to buy art which contains only images of white people? Do you have any specific personal experiences with this issue regarding your own art, or, if not, have you at least picked up on any such vibes from certain people?

4. What are your favorite race jokes about white people, if any?

J

Because there are some questions that either can't answer (such as the Wire question) or ones that I may be indifferent to, I've decided to also get my wife in on these questions. I'll give my answer and then hers will be in bold.

1. I agree that it does remind me of every comedian doing a man-in-a-woman-fat-suit routine (this includes Ms Doubtfire) The Madea character did get its start as a stage play and if you know theater, big bold characters steal the show. I believe that where it gets its popularity is in her flagrant use of saying what you wish you could say if you were in such a situation. So say you worked in retail and a customer did something like opened a sealed package on the sales floor and left the merchandise on the floor. When confronted the customer says "Oh, I found it that way" Your internal reaction (turned up to ten) is how Madea would react, like " B..tch! I just say you open that package, you think I'm stupid?!

Let me state though firmly that there are quite a few prominent blacks (Spike Lee for instance) who think that Madea is demeaning and bad for black people.

1. Lol. I like your analogy about it being a bad rip off. Madea is a common trope used in Black media. She is the "Matriarch". Also, men dressing as women for entertainment is a common theme across several comedy spectrum that dates back even before Robin Williams = Mrs. Doubtfire, John Travolta in HairSpray ( Click here for more references) I haven't watch many of Madea shows or movies, but from what I have seen of them they put common social ills in a comedic and spiritual context. In that among movies staring Black people it is unique. Movies with an all black cast are rare, Movies that give a glimpse of the "black family" experience are even rarer. This is not to say they do not happen just when you list all the movies an any given year the number of movies featuring an all Black cast will be substantially smaller. Then throw in the combination of it not only being a Black cast, portraying "the black experience", spirituality, comedy and it being directed by a Black director and you have a cock-tail of "must see" TV. If there were more options out there I doubt it would have as much of a following as it does. Most Black intellectuals, especially Black men do not like Madea movies because they find them demasculating and (for lack of better word) coonish.

2. My personal feelings on Interacial dating are "do you boo". In other words, whatever floats your boat. I dated a Jewish girl for 3 years. A good friend of mine dated a white chick from Iowa. Some people do get pissed off https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj6hrTItC9A

But honestly I don't get it. I understand that their argument is a never-trust-the-white-man attitude but I don't get that either.

I personally have never met anyone my age or younger that would care about dating outside their race. One thing though, the white girl has to have a black girls body. If the white girl has a big butt then most blacks guys will pursue her, no problem and their homeboys will give them respect for getting with them. Secondly, in lower income areas, there are low income whites living along low income blacks and trust me, they act and talk the same. Some white people are Blacker than black people depending on where they grew up and when you grow up together you are going to inter-date.

Maybe its a different thing for a black person to reach corporate America and meet a white person there and date. Maybe that where all the hate comes from because it appears to some that the black who did that feels like their race is no longer good enough. Sometimes they do feel that way, other times they just like the other persons personality.

In conclusion I do here most hate (online) from females who see black men date out side their race. Black men, when they see a black woman with a white man are more prone to say "He don't know how to handle that" (speaking of the white guy about the black girls body)

2. My perception is that generally we accept those things that we cannot change. In general everything that is accepted or tolerate does not equate to liking it or approving of it. From conversations that I have had Black women are particularly annoyed. 1 because they feel like there is a shortage of Black men and someone outside of the race/social group are adding to the depletion when they date them. 2. Black women seem to have less of a range in the race of males they attracts so when that supply is depleted they have little alternative. 3. For Black people rooted in their culture and history it seems a betrayal to date a white mate because the history of oppression. I could actually write a chapter on how deep the feeling goes but those 3 points will have to do for now. :)

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Questions:

1. Do you enjoy Tyler Perry's character "Madea"? Why is it so popular, and apparently among mostly black audiences? To me it's like a bad ripoff of Martin Lawrence's ripoff of Eddie Murphy.

2. Do you have any personal observations on interracial dating, and how accepting people are of it? It seems to me that people are generally more accepting of a white male dating a black female than they are of a black male dating a white female. What do you think?

3. As an artist, do you find that people respond differently to paintings which feature members of their own race versus members of other races? In your experience, are white people less likely to buy art which contains only images of black characters, and are black people less likely to buy art which contains only images of white people? Do you have any specific personal experiences with this issue regarding your own art, or, if not, have you at least picked up on any such vibes from certain people?

4. What are your favorite race jokes about white people, if any?

J

Decided to break it up before all our text somehow gets lost

3. I think that white people ,in my experience, are more willing to buy an image of a black person (in fact my painting "Fine Arts" was bought by a white person) when the painting is a realistic depiction of a regular person. The numbers even out for the black buyer if the realistic depiction is of an icon, like Jesus. If the art is more abstract but still has obvious African themes, white people have no problem with buying it, based of course on their background mentality, and there are no European themes for abstract paintings so blacks buy them the same, but they are more attracted to African themes.

I don't do abstracted art but I have watched over booths for other African American artists at outdoor festivals such as this guy- http://theartofponcho.com/

4. I'm going to have to get back to you for the jokes. I'll find something on youtube.

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Hi Derek,

You've sort of set yourself up by offering to answer questions about black culture, but here goes:

1. Why do 95% of black people vote Democratic?

2. Why is the murder rate among the black population so high?

I haven't known a lot of black people in my life. There are a few at my place of work. Some computer programmers. One guy was in management but moved to another company. I got to talking to him a little one day and asked him if he had ever read Thomas Sowell, but he said he'd never heard of him.

Darrell

1. Is that number accurate? Where did you source it? But (without me looking it up) if it is true I would say its rooted more in the perceived racist attitude of the republican party. You could of course say that Lincoln was a Republican and it was the Southern Democrats who really pressed Jim Crow but in the modern age the felling is that the republicans care nothing about anyone who is not an entrepreneur/business man. If someone is having a tough time living from paycheck to pay check and the political leader says "Let them eat cake" then there is going to be a disconnect. To simply assume that blacks would be all "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" when there is an ingrained history to whites purposely preventing them from pulling themselves up from preventing them from voting, to turning down loans (that they qualified for), to passing over them for promotions. Many blacks feel that the playing field needs to be purposely leveled the same way that it was purposefully unbalanced.

Remove the idea that the line of folks voting for democrats are full of welfare queens, because A. only 30% of blacks are on welfare http://madamenoire.com/515370/stereotype-debunked-whites-receive-food-stamps-blacks/

and if your 95% number is true than there are lots not accounted for, and B. most of those welfare queens, or teenage mothers don't vote. The people who are in your mind are not holding strategy meetings late into the night on how they plan to vote out those who don't give them all they want.

In the last governor's race, I personally voted Libertarian and in the previous presidential campaign, I voted for Obama. Mitt is the biggest flip flop say-what-they-want-to-hear in my voting history. But even if it wasn't him, I would have still voted Obama. Besides the I-have-no-idea-how-we-will-pay-for-it ObamaCare, I personally feel that he has done a good job. And I'm talking about my opinion on the reality of his governance, not the perception (he's going to take away all our guns, he is blocking all oil drilling, etc)

My wife in bold

95%? That statistic seems unfounded. But I will say this there have been 2 major shifts in party alignment. Because Lincoln is credited with freeing the African American's from slavery and he was Republican the first registered Black people all aligned with the Republican party. The next major shift came with FDR's New Deal, his presidency marked the first time that Party became so closely linked to "working class Americans" . African Americans were made promises and were given a few symbolic gestures as to appease and persuade them to vote democratic, JFK and several presidents to follow used a similar model. But the 2nd and biggest shift came with FDR when for the first time in America party affiliation and race became so closely linked.

2. I would guess that the murder rate for blacks (four times higher than national average) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-sugarmann/murder-rate-for-black-ame_b_4702228.html

is so high because for those who are in the drug game, respect is big thing. People have been getting shot and stabbed over respect for years (Alexander Hamilton) but those in the current drug game whether it is African American drug lords or cartels in Mexico have taken it to a extreme level. Possibly because of easy access to guns, possibly because of the drug gangs don't have the same rules as the Italian mob, maybe because the blacks feel more desperate. I personally have never fired a hand gun and I don't know anyone who has killed anyone but there is no covering up that I have known multiple people to have been shot after messing around in the game. My cousin was killed after a dispute. I just went to a funeral the week after the riots for a friend from some years back.

The lack of a father is possibly not the reason because I would suspect that in that sort of household (where the father is in the game) then they would raise the son to "Don't take no sh_t" Its some kind of respect thing. You don't want to appear weak... I guess.

Current homicides in Baltimore 144. I only knew one of those guys. Last year I didn't know any victims

Sorry, I've never been in the game so I don't know what the rules are or why someone would feel that way. I know what it feels like for someone to try to make you look stupid in front of others. I've also had direct disrespect issued toward me such as being outside talking to my girlfriend and having a car of guys pull over and try to talk to her right in my face. Some guys are super direct in doing just whatever the hell they want to do and then other guys on't want to put up with that, possibly because they are of the I-do-what-I-want type as well. If the guns are withing reach, then they settle it, Hatfield and

MCoys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatfield%E2%80%93McCoy_feud

But I don't know anyone just angry like that.

2. There are several ways I could answer this question. For the sake of time I'll sum it by saying poverty, poor education and hopelessness have always been lined to crime. In any society you will always find those who are the poorest and who have the worst education will have the highest one to one crime rates. Now if we were including massacres, wars, colonization, mass enslavement or even serial killers, which I don't think you were then you would see that white people have killed more people than any other race of people on the planet.

Thomas Sowell- not everyone is up on all the intellectual movements. Hey not everyone is an intellectual at all. The vast majority of my white associates (20-30+) look to me for answers on everything from the conversion of centimeters to inches, to was the moon landings a hoax, to who this or that scientist is and what did they say.

My wife has a deeper background on African American history (Harlem renaissance, Black Zionism, etc) and I have to get corrected if I mention an author who did not write the book I purport them to.

Sometimes people aren't even interested in certain topics, like I don't care how prominent the black thinker is when discussing reparations, I'm just not interested to follow the discussion much

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4. What are your favorite race jokes about white people, if any?

J

Some of these are funny, but fact is that I really didn't have any in mind and had to search for these.... I still can't think of any on my own....

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If this does not belong here, tell me Derek and I will delete it and move it to another thread.

These data, in addition to being crucial for today's debates over criminal-justice disparities, allow us to do some quick math to check Unz's thesis. According to the Census, in 2012-13 there were 195 million non-Hispanic whites, 37 million non-Hispanic blacks, and 53 million Hispanics (of any race). And multiplying out the numbers in the top row above, we find that 2.8 million annual victimizations were perpetrated by whites, 1.5 million by blacks, and 960,000 by Hispanics.

Which allows us to (very roughly) estimate rates of committing violent crime, using victim surveys and thus avoiding some of the problems with arrest and conviction rates:

Whites 14 per 1,000
Blacks 40 per 1,000
Hispanics 18 per 1,000

So, Hispanics have a higher rate than whites — almost 30 percent higher. But Hispanics also tend to be younger. In the 2012-13 Census data, 41 percent of Hispanics are age 16-40, compared with 30 percent of whites and 36 percent of blacks. So, relative to whites, Hispanics are about 30 percent more likely to commit violent crimes, but also about 30 percent more likely to be in the age range where violent crimes are most common. If there's a gap, age might explain it, as Unz suggested.

Here are the numbers:

charleston-shooting-obama-race-crime-sta

The despicable part of the article is that the State has changed how they "count the beans" and then hid their lie in semi-full view.

So here we have the eternal cry of the enslaved..."Who was watching the Watchman?" And that my friends is the secret to fascism.

A...

http://www.realclearpolicy.com/blog/2015/07/01/justice_departments_hidden_race_data.html

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40 out of 1000 makes a "culture"?

Now Mr. Brant, you can take that 40 and I can turn it into a representation of up to 5X to about 200+ with taking the end point criminal as a representation of that culture.

For example, females, children, families and his crew.

A...

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40 out of 1000 makes a "culture"?

Now Mr. Brant, you can take that 40 and I can turn it into a representation of up to 5X to about 200+ with taking the end point criminal as a representation of that culture.

For example, females, children, families and his crew.

A...

NOW I'M BEING AUTO-PATRONIZED!

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If this does not belong here, tell me Derek and I will delete it and move it to another thread.

Yes, I would prefer for us not to post and discuss straight charts and numbers. I'd prefer that if someone posted a chart then it could be weaved into their personal story, or into a question.

But what does the charts mean to you?

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