How safe is Classon bet. Prospect St. Marks? (edited)

MHA wrote: I agree, he has the right to date whomever he wants to , but I also have a right to express a critique of his reasoning behind it. WHat you don't understand is that CTK's ignorance about his own people is akin to a Jew's ignorance of the 'sufferations' (to quote my Rasta brethren) their own people; that does not exist!

.....

For the sake of detente, deconstructing CTK's inter-racial relationship runs the risk of fueling old antagonisms, and I don't think that is fair to him -- to do that publicly, if at all.

While I have readily acknowledged my need to know more about my own history I think the assumption that I don't know the dating plight of the black woman, or the history of the confusion & "Europeanizing" of black beauty in America is ridiculous. I'm not even going to begin to try to validate my knowledge of that- just know that I know. Your assumptions about my disconnects from 'the black experience' based on my difference in opinions from yours makes me laugh. Had I been equally uneducated about my own history, but in agreement with your baseless opinions, you'd have taken no issue.

What's more ridiculous though is that you feel you can deconstruct my relationship with a woman you know nothing about (besides the color of her skin) based on some limited and charged interactions with me on a message board. I'm intrigued- with the little you know about me please break down my relationship. Is it based in self-hatred? Me being fooled by the institutional reinforcement of Eurocentric beauty standards? What is it?

You speak as though you know so much, when in reality some of your viewpoints reflect how little you know.

MHA - If you let CTK keep his views and join you as a black nationalist, I'll put in an application next.

Your nation will grow.

Ishtar, I have no doubt you are "hot" as per my definition above.

Please assist me with my application by sending me a photo of yourself and two of your girlfriends. k thx.

I wish to point out that I have met CTK.

....and believe I am qualified to state he is black.

Really black.

Even blacker than most black people.

....We didn't have the opportunity to talk about whether he goes around saying "I'm black and I'm proud", but I suspect he does not go around stating "I'm black and I'm ashamed".

From what I've been told, he also has a pretty solid job and education. From what I've read, he seems like a thinker.

CTK,
If MHA does not accept us into his nation, I say we form our own. Let's let Ishtar in too ...she seems like she'll be an excellent citizen.

CTK-

I look forward to MHA's next post, wherein our applications will be reviewed.
But sadly, I believe our chances are slim.

However, perhaps we can file an application jointly. Let's review our combined strengths:

1. Even if what you wore to happy hour was a costume, you do an admirable job of passing for a "quite black", black guy.

2. I regularly read The Final Call (albeit for entertainment reasons).

3. Together, we may have dated 3 black women (we'll lie about it being within the last five years). Ishtar will likely help us out with needed photos and fake testimonials.

4. The last time I was in S. Hyde Park, Chicago, my wife and I made a point to walk by Minister Louis Farrakhan's house and check in via Four Square.

5. I know some Jewish people who I really dislike. (I don't dislike them because they are Jewish, but I suspect there might be more than a few people on the committee who will assume that is the case.)

However, I must admit, I do have some reservations about joining this so-called "nation":

A. I have concerns about our collective welfare and safety. I am very uncomfortable about joining a nation that's economy seems to depend largely on selling pies that have been prepared without the supervision of the Department of Health. I mean, where were those things cooked? What are we going to live off if people decide that they no longer like our pies?

B. Mrs. Whynot's family has been very understanding of me so far, but this may be the final straw for them.

C. I lack a bow tie.

whynot_31 wrote: CTK-

IB. Mrs. Whynot's family has been very understanding of me so far, but this may be the final straw for them.

C. I lack a bow tie.

Dearest husband-

Mrs. Whynot's family is not who you need to worry about. You need to worry about what Mrs. Whynot will do when she finds out that you have dated not one but three people in the last five years - five years in which she believed you were her husband.

If you did have a bow tie, I would have to tie it.

On a more general note, I want to also let everyone know that the previously discussed meeting of all the Jews has been moved from Tuesday evenings to Wednesday lunches. But, so far in 6000+ years of oral and written history the only thing we have managed to agree on is that we pretty much disagree on everything. This fact intensifies in small group settings - such as families, specifically mine - where one person has been known to have opposing views in a single argument. Thus I will refrain from speaking for all of us, or even all of my family.

It is therefore possible that my family will forgive you for joining the nation. They have almost forgiven my cousin, after all, for becoming a vegan - even if this makes him the only glott kosher member of the family.

And as many of you know, or have inferred, I rarely post. Whynot on occasion makes me read seemingly endless topics. About 1/3 of the way into this one, I began humming the song from Avenue Q "Everyone is a little bit racist." It's worth the download if you haven't got it in your collection. Especially if you intend to read MHA and Whynot posts.

Cool The Kid wrote:
You say MHA is cool with black guys dating white women, but he doesn't.

CTK, in the quote that you pulled out in the post above this one, MHA says:

I agree, he has the right to date whomever he wants to, but I also have a right to express a critique of his reasoning behind it.

It's right there! You quoted it! He has no problem with it. He also says he has critically justifiable reasons to question it, but that doesn't invalidate the first statement.

Krowonhill,

Welcome.

I agree with everything you have written about the potential for Nationalism to be a constructive, rational response to the literally hundreds of years of oppression that have been put upon Blacks in the United States and "new world".

I also agree that everyone is racist, and that I'm among "everyone". (Ave Q gets it right).

However, you may have some catching up to do before you wish to defend MHA. He seems to believe in a form of Nationalism that is very similar (if not identical) to that espoused by the Nation of Islam. (or he may just be posting stuff to annoy folks -both black and white- for the heck of it. One never knows).

There are long, intense threads in your reading future.....

http://brooklynian.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=57078
http://brooklynian.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=57505
http://brooklynian.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=56836&start=0
http://brooklynian.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=55712&start=0

....thanks for being willing to read all this stuff. I saves us from having to hash thru it again.

The worldview of Whynot and an endorsement of the positive potential of Black Nationalism?

Starting at the time listed, the link below provides something close:

Tue May 25, 2010 11:15 am EST
http://brooklynian.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=57078&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=270

We talk about the "knapsack of white privilege" in a few of the threads. I'm in total agreement with the privileges listed, and completely agree "it would completely suck" to be on the other side of the deal.

http://www.case.edu/president/aaction/UnpackingTheKnapsack.pdf

Based on what we've read and the limits of this medium (such as a lack of intonation), we've all reached our own conclusions, and they all seem to differ.

....we all hear what he's saying in an intonation we assign, as well as meanings we assign based on own histories.

....but all of us seem to agree that MHA cares deeply about the folks in the neighborhood, and (like many of us) he is desperately searching for a constructive ways to empower them.

....he espouses nation building, while some of us espouse humanism (perhaps known also as "assimilation" or "the illusion of inclusion").

When I look around at our society's attempts (via its schools, social service system, etc) to assimilate all residents of of NYC, I give it failing grade. ...and then conclude we are practicing exclusion, whether it is by design or incompetence really does not matter. Separation and Nation building makes sense to me under the circumstances; Whether it will work is a different issue entirely.

Although MHA and I hold different positions, his intelligence is unquestioned by me. I think that's what keeps myself (and others) posting: Here we have an obviously intelligent, educated individual who has been exposed to all of the "information" (said with sarcasm and suspicion) that "we" have, yet clearly reaches different conclusions about how to respond to the world we all share.

For example some pursue "society's" collective attempts to help folks "not in the mainstream" as constructive and well run.

Others perceive them as well meaning, but ineptly executed and poorly funded.

Others perceive them as being implemented only under the guise of "helping", but actually marginalizing/oppressing in both design and outcome.

...What worries me is that I last met a guy "like MHA" in grad school. The guy became so frustrated and angry at no one understanding him that he was fired. Even though he was passionate about the subject, he (as a separtist) would seemingly let not let folks of any race or background help him make his speeches/teaching palatable to the masses. MHA seems to interpret my attempts to have him avoid this potential fate as "talking down to him".

Yup, Whynot has baggage.

As discussed briefly above, this message board medium clearly has its pluses and minuses. ...many of us have met each other as result of the our weighing of the two. He remains absent, because he clearly feels the pluses outweigh the minuses.

http://brooklynian.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=58046[/i]

krownhill,
Thank you fo your very post. I think you did a great job of bringing clarity to my arguments, and it is my hope that those who disagree with my right to have an opinion that is in contradistinction to theirs will take the time to understand what you have written, and to also see the contradiction of humanism.

The problem with humanism is that it prejudges anything that is not humanism and devalues it, so a nationalist stance is immediately devalued, and discouraged as a worldview simply because one holds it. The irony is that in the attempt to say 'we are all the same', humanism makes attempts to erase those who don't want to mix in the same pot with those who get off on such mixing (i.e. Humanists). So the end result of humanism is almost the same as the end result of white supremacy -- or any other racialist, essentialist argument that calls for the cleansing out of other particularities. The Pan Africanist argument is that we simply want our own. We want our own so that we can affirm our self worth, and not have to depend upon whitefolks, or chinese folks, or any other folk to do it for us.

Here is an example of an argument misled by a humanist's perspective. It is CTK's:
"Underlying point here being, at the end of the day it's really nobody's place to question why one chooses who they choose to date. MHA only does so to validate his preconceptions of people who don't fit the bill of what he considers [B]lack. I respect and to a degree admire his [B]lack nationalist stance, but don't understand his lack of understanding of those who don't agree with him or fit within his preconceived world view."

What troubles me about CTK's stance is that in a pluralist society, EVERYONE has a right to question what other people do. There are no opinons, or decisions that one makes that are beyond questioning. Just as legitimate as CTK's decision to have a partner who is not Black, so is my decison to ask him how and why he made such a decision. It is CTK's right to not answer that question -- but I do have the right to ask. To adhere to CTK's statement is to discourage discourse. And that is what humanist do. They discourage discourse that conflicts with it's stance. As a Pan-Africanist, there is an ethos that one ought to adhere to, that defines you as such, and in the same way that Jews have an ethos that defines them, tenets of what constitutes them as Jews (whether they are secular or not), it is the belief of Pan-Africanists and Black Nationalists that such an ethos is also found in the tenets of being Black -- upper case 'B'. and what any Black Nationalist will say is that it IS suspect to define oneself as Black yet decide to choose a partner who ISN'T. In the same sense that Jews question other Jews who choose not to have Jewish partners, I too raised the question about CTK's choice, and I find it contradictory that when a Black person asks that question he is pretty much called a racist, but when a Jewish person does this, they are not. So yes, CTK's comment about notions of blackness are tied into my holding him suspect. But this isn't a MHA standard. This is a standard within the tenets of a Pan-Africanist ethos. Black Nationalists say, 'you love YOUR people first'. And you love them first because of the decimation they endured and still endure, and you do so as a tribute to your ancestors that got you here, and, depending upon your spiritual tradition, wish to live again. Now, it's weird that I don't have the right to hold this perspective, in the minds of CTK, Whynot_31 and others. Just holding it brands me as racist. That intrigues me.

I have to say, I've read all of what was said above and I am frustrated that my earnest efforts to communicate with others is either ignored, or devalued. For instance, on other posts, I've made my criticism of the Nation of Islam known, yet still, Whynot_31 repeatedly equates my ideological stance to that of the Nation of Islam. It is difficult for me to see this but as an attempt to essentially call me anti-semitic, and by extension, a racist. It's wearying continuing this conversation -- because it has been held before on other threads, and like those other threads we are no longer talking abut the subject matter at hand.

Krowonhill, your concise, comprehensive restatements of my perspective is reassuring, and also an indication that there is no longer a need for me to respond to criticisms -- of 'MHA perspective'.

We are no longer talking about Classon Avenue, we are just talking about what has already been talked about -- and that's cool, but IF we are going to have a dispassionate conversation about this, then let's have some rules:

1) Let's not devalue the perspective of others with whom we disagree with
whimsy
2) Let's ensure that arguments raised by each other are answered. It's my
feeling that I ask questions that go wholly unanswered, whereas I answer all
allegations that come my way. If we are TRULY going to talk about this, then
let's have someone ensure that allegations/arguments made are answered.

As some sort of show of sincerity, the only thing these guys want to do is go to a bar and drink beer. I have said -- repeatedly -- that's not my thing, and that's not what I want to do with anyone here; such is still the case.

I know it sounds like a cop out, but think you are asking too much of this medium. I can sustain serous heartfelt conversations in person ....but not here.

My apologies for equating your views with NOI.

.

MHA-
I know beer isn't the issue, but, as you are aware, Bristen's makes a good burger and doesn't have a beer lic.

"I'll have The Dean please."

Jack-
it's all about alt-tab.

Jack Krohn wrote: Do you guys have jobs? How do you find time to post such long-winded replies to one another?

Dude, the average American watches 8 hours of tv a day. We find better things to do with our time.

MHA wrote: krownhill,
Thank you fo your very post. I think you did a great job of bringing clarity to my arguments, and it is my hope that those who disagree with my right to have an opinion that is in contradistinction to theirs will take the time to understand what you have written, and to also see the contradiction of humanism -- as profligated by whitefolks.

The problem with humanism is that it prejudges anything that is not humanism and devalues it, so a nationalist stance is immediately devalued, and discouraged as a worldview simply because one holds it. The irony is that in the attempt to say 'we are all the same', humanism makes attempts to erase those who don't want to mix in the same pot with those who get off on such mixing (i.e. Humanists). So the end result of humanism is almost the same as the end result of white supremacy -- or any other racialist, essentialist argument that calls for the cleansing out of other particularities. The Pan Africanist argument is that we simply want our own. We want our own so that we can affirm our self worth, and not have to depend upon whitefolks, or chinese folks, or any other folk to do it for us.

Here is an example of an argument misled by a humanist's perspective. It is CTK's:
"Underlying point here being, at the end of the day it's really nobody's place to question why one chooses who they choose to date. MHA only does so to validate his preconceptions of people who don't fit the bill of what he considers [B]lack. I respect and to a degree admire his [B]lack nationalist stance, but don't understand his lack of understanding of those who don't agree with him or fit within his preconceived world view."

What troubles me about CTK's stance is that in a pluralist society, EVERYONE has a right to question what other people do. There are no opinons, or decisions that one makes that are beyond questioning. Just as legitimate as CTK's decision to have a partner who is not Black, so is my decison to ask him how and why he made such a decision. It is CTK's right to not answer that question -- but I do have the right to ask. To adhere to CTK's statement is to discourage discourse. And that is what humanist do. They discourage discourse that conflicts with it's stance. As a Pan-Africanist, there is an ethos that one ought to adhere to, that defines you as such, and in the same way that Jews have an ethos that defines them, tenets of what constitutes them as Jews (whether they are secular or not), it is the belief of Pan-Africanists and Black Nationalists that such an ethos is also found in the tenets of being Black -- upper case 'B'. and what any Black Nationalist will say is that it IS suspect to define oneself as Black yet decide to choose a partner who ISN'T. In the same sense that Jews question other Jews who choose not to have Jewish partners, I too raised the question about CTK's choice, and I find it contradictory that when a Black person asks that question he is pretty much called a racist, but when a Jewish person does this, they are not. So yes, CTK's comment about notions of blackness are tied into my holding him suspect. But this isn't a MHA standard. This is a standard within the tenets of a Pan-Africanist ethos. Black Nationalists say, 'you love YOUR people first'. And you love them first because of the decimation they endured and still endure, and you do so as a tribute to your ancestors that got you here, and, depending upon your spiritual tradition, wish to live again. Now, it's weird that I don't have the right to hold this perspective, in the minds of CTK, Whynot_31 and others. Just holding it brands me as racist. That intrigues me.

My beef is not in the discourse of interracial dating, just the fact that you hold black men who date outside the race 'suspect'. Not all black people will (nor should we have to) subscribe to the Pan Africanist POV, especially if it's based on exclusionary practices like holding those who don't follow your rules or subscribe to your beliefs as 'suspect'.

Why can't it be possible for a black man to date whomever he wants without being seen as a traitor or suspicious in the black community? I don't understand what I've done wrong. As I said before I think you are using that to legitimize unrelated grievances. When I was with my Ghanian girl my stance was no different....

Racism is a word with many definitions.

....there are a lot degrees to it. The members of Klan have PhDs in it, most people merely finish kindergarten. I'll lend you my Ave Q CD, you may need the context for my use of the term.

There's also burgers at Bristen's to help in the conversation

So we are agreed? Classon Avenue is both safe and unsafe?