From: Michael Wiik (mwiik@messagenet.com)
Date: Thu Aug 09 2001 - 09:42:43 MDT
"Michael M. Butler" <butler@comp-lib.org> wrote:
> I have been told (but have not independently confirmed), that at one
> point, one high-profile African-American said that there was no more
> terrible feeling for him than to be walking down the street at night,
> hearing footsteps, and being _relieved_ when he saw that the other person
> was white.
Such things have routinely been commented on by black columnists in the
Washington Post. Here's my theory:
For this purpose we can divide blacks into two groups, 'raceless' and
'fictive kinship'. These are terms from a Washington Post magazine
article. To put it way too simply (for contrast), 'raceless' blacks want
to fit in to american culture, study hard, and generally do well as a
result of this, especially among young people. (I note many many more
mixed groups of kids today than when (for example) I was in high school,
and regard this as a very good thing). By contrast, 'fictive kinship'
blacks see most if not all whites as the enemy, promote black culture,
and regard 'raceless' blacks as Uncle Toms.
So I can suppose that 'fictive kinship' blacks see themselves as living
in an occupied state. In this scenario, 'raceless' blacks are
collaborators with the oppressive government, and can be thusly
considered legitimate targets. I would suggest that 'fictive kinship'
blacks are therefore targets for police discrimination, though what the
media reports is typically when this profiling results in a 'raceless'
black being stopped or detained.
So if you're a well-dressed black person, who might be identified as
'raceless', your possible attackers could be a) muggers, b) white
racists looking to beat you senseless, or c) 'fictive kinship' blacks
that regard you as a collaborator. Of a, b, and c I gather the smallest
group is b. If muggers are mixed evenly by race, then there are still
more black people to fear than white people.
-Mike
-- ====================================================================== Michael Wiik Principal Messagenet Communications Research Washington DC Area Internet and WWW Consultants http://messagenet.com mwiik@messagenet.com ======================================================================
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