Hello CMSux,
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Originally Posted by CorpMediaSux
And the moment in American history when the "new elite" were not white men is...when again?
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Oh, I see you won't be happy until all evil white men are removed from any kind of power. This attitude, this mental segregation, only encourages the identity politics that continues to divide America. I am a member of the human race. Until more people regardless of race accept this as their true identity we will have problems with race relationships in America.
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For an example of merit within those circles, how about Andrew Carnegie. What about now ... Bill Gates, even Rush -- neither of them graduated from the "right school." Yea, but that's just a bunch of white guys! Okay, Frederick W. Douglass, Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, Jesse Owens, Jackie, Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Martin Luther King, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Alvin Ailey, Marian Anderson, Benjamin Banneker, Guion Stewart Bluford, Jr., Ralph J. Bunche, Charles Drew, Dr. Mae C. Jemison, Percy Julian, Lewis Howard Latimer, Jan Ernst Matzeliger, Elijah McCoy, Garrett A. Morgan, and hundreds of others. Each made their mark through merit in spite of the obstacles they faced.
Um, I'm sorry. Did you just put Frederick Douglass, a man born into bondage, in the same catagory as Rush Limbaugh as people who "made it on merit despite the obstacles." Please bring that back.
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You had made the claim that only those who belonged to the "right family," went to the "right schools," joined the golf club with the "right people" became successful and made it into the "power elite." I was giving a list of people who did not come from or go to or belong to the "right" family/school/club and yet still achieved success in their chosen field. You may disagree with Rush, but you cannot claim that he has not succeeded in his chosen field.
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And while I'm pleased you know some African American history I don't know what this list of extraordinary people is meant to prove.
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It proves that people of merit achieve success, in spite of the odds against them.
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To me, the proof of America being a meritocracy is not that spectacularly gifted and talented African Americans were able to force whites to acknowledge (in limited ways) their abilites to acheive. The evidence of America NOT being a meritocracy is that they had to be overwhelmingly, spectacularly gifted and talented in order to acheive what they did.
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If America was, as you claim, not a meritocracy in nature and that only those with the right connections (family/school/club) could succeed, then no one who did not have those connections would ever succeed. It would not matter how gifted or talented an individual was, they would not have been given an opportunity to show off, cultivate, or express those gifts and talents.
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It's not a coincidence that many of your examples are athletes or entertainers. You can't really deny such visibly public gifts and talents and therefore white society really had not choice BUT to accept Jackie Robinson and Marian Anderson. And even then, we all know that Jackie was chosen to integrate baseball because he wouldn't respond to the virulent racism he was subjected to day, after day, after day. It's a common theme in American history.
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It
was a common theme.
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If you're black and successful, you have to suffer racism silently, quietly and with dignity.
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NOT ANY MORE! Most Americans today do not suffer racists gladly, any more than any other fool. That attitude is offensive to most Americans, regardless of race. Yes, there are still racists and there is still racism, but it is marginalized and condemned and illegal.
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Actually showing anger or responding is somehow unacceptable, no matter how violent or brutal the attack on you actually is. As we know, Jackie was physically abused by opposing players and received constant death threats from baseball "fans." In fact even articulating a principle of black self defense gets you labelled a "militant" who wants to "disrupt the social order." Yes a social order built upon the premise that white on black violence is acceptable and black on white violence is unnacceptable.
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Yes, Jackie experienced the worst of abuse, but he understood the times and that the better way to fight racists was to achieve success on the field. The social order of today does not accept or condone white on black violence as acceptable. Unfortunately today, for the African-American community the problem is black on black violence.
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You seem to have this hilarious sense that 400 years of cultural history and ingrained ideas about white supremacy were somehow immediately overturned between 1964-1965. Could a set of laws undermine capitalism? Do away with representative government? Destroy Christianity? Make you a vegetarian? Then why on earth do you imagine that white supremacy, something people fought and struggled and KILLED to maintain, would be wiped away?
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And you seem to think, like Rev. Wright, that nothing has changed since 1964-1965. It appears that you refuse to accept any of the great achievements of the Civil Rights movement. It appears that as far as you, and Rev. Wright, are concerned that America is still that country of white supremacists oppressing the African-Americans.
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Let's also think about Marian Anderson. A spectacular mezzo soprano who didn't make her debut as Ulrica in Ballo in Maschera until well past her vocal prime. Perhaps Leontyne Price would have been a better example.
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Perhaps Price would have been a better example. The point is that those of talent who were willing to face the obstacles life threw at them achieved success.
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At the beginning America was much more of a meritocracy than Britain with its strict class structure.
Well, yes, if you decide you only want to talk about class inequality then you can sort of make that claim (more on that later). Is there more to your decision to discuss structural inequality only in terms of class structure other than it makes it easier for you to claim that America is a meritocracy.
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You forgot a question mark for your question. Please stop trying to imply some hidden (possibly unconscious) agenda underlying my choice of words. There is no there there.
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But you and I know that early American society was not just divided along class lines, it was divided along race and gender lines and while you conveniently frame that as an "identity issue" we know that, in early America it was much more than that. Racial and gendered hierarchy was, very clearly, built into early American legal codes.
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I am sorry I did not make myself clear enough. I am well aware of the structure of early American society and how it was divided along class (economics), ethnicity (and to a degree race) and gender lines. We are talking about, largely, the 1600s and 1700s.
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Here's just one example of what you would describe as early American "meritocracy." In the case of African Americans, the british colonies and early American states reversed centuries of western european tradition and stripped African Americans of the rights of male inheritance. Because African American men were much more likely to be free than women (because women were often unwilling to leave their children behind and escape, also because there were a variety of trades African men could learn and eventually use to purchase their freedom) slave status was passed from mother to child, rather than father to child. A spectacularly ingenious bit of law that meant that the very few African American men who were able to acheive freedom were only able to pass on property or land to their offspring if they first bought their wife AND the kids from bondage. Was that an economic hurdle faced by any white yeoman farmer before 1865? Compare the children of white indentured servants for example. While not from wealthy families, they were born with the assumption of freedom and often had access to either an apprenticeship or had the freedom to strike out and start a small family farm. What "meritous" act did those individuals do to deserve their freedom the children of black slaves did not? If you can answer that I'll concede that early America was a meritocracy.
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As I said, to quote myself: "Also, with nearly all things American,
our founding fathers began with an ideal above the reality and with each generation we have moved closer to fulfilling that ideal. At the beginning America was much more of a meritocracy than Britain with its strict class structure. When I say its cyclical what I mean is that a power elite does come into establishment, in the beginning it was the agrarian land holders."
"...all men are created equal." It took a while for all men (all humanity) to be accepted as equal. But the ideal was built into the system, hidden within the system. And it nagged and gnawed until it was realized. Each generation got a little closer to the mark of that ideal. You seem to think that since America was not, 400 years ago, this perfected place where and when all peoples of the world regardless of class, ethnicity, race, or gender lived happy idilic lives it proves that America was not a meritocracy. What it proves is that America, 400 years ago, was an agrarian culture with all its flaws of slavery and inequality, just like every where else at that time in the world. Within that circle of land holders (yes, they happened to be white, just as during the time of the Roman Republic the citizens of the Roman Republic happened to be Roman) America was still a meritocracy. As time and our culture developed and progressed that circle expanded to include more and more until today when an African-American will very likely become the next president of the United States. You apparently do not want to acknowledge the profound cultural development that has taken place since then and since the 1960s.
end part 1
tashi deleks,
M