West Indian Day parties

whynot_31 wrote: xlizellx,

If you were speaking to someone and they told you that they found the terms you were using to describe them (or their event) as offensive, would you change the terms to theirs?

i.e. If you were only speaking to MHA, would you use his terms ("West African" or "Caribbean") to convey respect to him?

Note: You could use other terms to describe the event to other people, as long as the listener did not find the terms offensive. If they did find your terms offensive, you would simply need to be willing try find a term the listener would be comfortable with.

Of course.

Ishtar wrote: By saying one is black or of West African decent is not a denial of customs, traditions, and lineage that is European in origin. Anyone who has studied and truly understands what it means to be black in the west understands that.

This is why it is important to let people identify themselves in anyway they choose, and then respect that choice.

....speaking on behalf of myself, I have no need for any individual to refer to themselves in a way that acknowledges the influence of Europeans, or any other culture that made up their historical background.

Taken to the extreme, they could deny all of their influences and/or claim influences that didn't even seem to make sense to me. I might think them a bid odd, but I'd respect their right to claim and assert their own identity.

In what has been the most succinct answer in hours, Xlizellx has stated "of course".

It seems she, like myself, would refer to people in the terms in which they feel best describe themselves. ....no matter where they are from.

Ishtar, I assume you refer to yourself as African.

Do you believe that other black people have an obligation to refer to themselves primarily as African, and their home recent homelands (for example Trinidad) only in a secondary sense?

P.S. I think the whole idea of assigning so much meaning to a few words (such as "I'm Trinidadian") is fraught with danger. But, people seem to do it.

<<<< Brooklynite.

whynot_31 wrote: [quote=Ishtar] By saying one is black or of West African decent is not a denial of customs, traditions, and lineage that is European in origin. Anyone who has studied and truly understands what it means to be black in the west understands that.

This is why it is important to let people identify themselves in anyway they choose, and then respect that choice.

....speaking on behalf of myself, I have no need for any individual to refer to themselves in a way that acknowledges the influence of Europeans, or any other culture that made up their historical background.

Taken to the extreme, they could deny all of their influences and/or claim influences that didn't even seem to make sense to me. I might think them a bid odd, but I'd respect their right to claim and assert their own identity.

In what has been the most succinct answer in hours, Xlizellx has stated "of course".

It seems she, like myself, would refer to people in the terms in which they feel best describe themselves. ....no matter where they are from.

Ishtar, I assume you refer to yourself as African.

Do you believe that other black people have an obligation to refer to themselves primarily as African, and their home recent homelands (for example Trinidad) only in a secondary sense?

P.S. I think the whole idea of assigning so much meaning to a few words (such as "I'm Trinidadian") is fraught with danger. But, people seem to do it.

<<<< Brooklynite.


Just you typing this shows you don't understand. With that, I'm done.

We apologize for the interruption, and are now pleased to return to our scheduled programming

bobbybrummel wrote: this would be like leaving new orleans to avoid mardi gras. sacrilegious.

2010 roadmarch and soca monarch winner:

My initial posting was NOT a lobby for a name change. I said something akin to, 'For the record this is/was a West African Day Parade.' I believe Carnivore said that my usage of the capitalizations of the W,A D and P, connoted a lobbying for a name change. I was expressing the point that has not yet been refuted by anyone, namely, that the majority of the people doing the parading are Black people, African descendant people, whose, languages,, religion, music and food -- despite other obvious influences, has not changed inalterably since the encounter with Europeans four hundred years ago.

If you go to the Gullah Islands and listen to traditional Gullah music, the quick 'boom-boom' syncopation of the elder's sticks as they hit the dirt floor, you will hear the same 'boom-boom' so common in Dancehall Reggae, and now Reggaeton. If you examine the ingenious construction of the beautiful melodic musical instruments made out of the detritus of the oil industry in Trinidad -- i.e. the steel pan -- you will hear the beautiful rhythms, of West African griots, and the chora (sp?) singers of Nigeria. Keep in mind, that the steel pan, is akin to the thumb piano, as well as the xylophone, instruments that have their roots in Africa.

And when you look at the way the women move their waists -- whew! Now where do you think that comes from? According to whynot, they French taught them that...Go figure...Sacre bleu!

Those people rocking the Caribbean flags, are predominantly the descendants of Africans brought to the 'New World'; by the way, the coiners of the term 'New World' also coined 'West Indian', and while whitefolks like Whynot_31 are comfortable arguing for stasis, I am all about change. Those were west African descendant people on the parkway...

I say, one last time, those were BLACK people dancing on the parkway y'all; the descendants of sweaty West Africans brought to the Caribbean in the bowels of shit-filled ships for the purpose of exploitation. They were divided and separated for the purpose of profit, and lo, their children generations later unite and have made it to America Proper, and are dancing on the streets every Labor Day in celebration of the Ancestors who couldn't.


The point I made attempt to make is that REGARDLESS of what you want to call the day, these are West African descendant people walking down the parkway. Despite whynot's blabbering about what these people want to call themselves, keep in mind, the terms West Indian, and Caribbean are used interchangeably by people from that region. I grew up being taught to use Caribbean, as West Indian connoted the hand of empire, whereas the term Caribbean connoted independence.

IF I were to lobby for a name change, I would prefer that it be called the Caribbean Day Parade, but that was NOT the point of my argument. My point was implicitly, DESPITE what the parade is called, West Indian Labor Day Parade, it's really a West AFRICAN Day Parade, becuase these are Black people, the descendants of Africans on the parade, and not the descendant of West Indians; Ain't no Indians in the West!!!!

I am trying to remain civil folks. I must admit, I have a growing contempt for whynot's blather, and his actions. I am wholly ignoring his texts. For the time being, I am going to write as if he isn't even present. I am taking a page out of the handbook so many have told me they have for me: "When I come to your postings I just scroll down."

WhyNot, I think you've put your (figurative) finger on something very important, and very true:

most readers of these boards are not especially interested in participating in a stunningly boring dialectic perpetrated by a single didact's insistence on "educating" the rest of us.

Anyone who argues at length with such a person is giving him what he seeks, and thus is "feeding the troll". Wouldn't it be preferable to allow the didact to preach to an empty room?

MHA wrote: My point was implicitly, DESPITE what the parade is called, West Indian Labor Day Parade, it's really a West AFRICAN Day Parade, becuase these are Black people, the descendants of Africans on the parade, and not the descendant of West Indians; Ain't no Indians in the West!!!!

This is simply not true. There are plenty of people of Indian descent in the Caribbean. They are not indigenous to the area, and neither are those of recent African descent, but they have contributed significantly to the culture, especially the food. I don't understand why you continue to dismiss them. The organizers of the parade obviously don't.

MHA-
While you are in the mood to accept criticism and open up your mind to who has endured crap. Don't forget the Irish!

http://www.africaresource.com/rasta/sesostris-the-great-the-egyptian-hercules/the-irish-slave-trade-forgotten-white-slaves/

By the mid 1600s, the Irish were the main slaves sold to Antigua and Montserrat. At that time, 70% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves.

Ireland quickly became the biggest source of human livestock for English merchants. The majority of the early slaves to the New World were actually white.

Hey Carnivore, I agree with you here. No argument from me...

MHA wrote: Regardless of the Irish slaves and indentured people brought to the Caribbean, I saw no evidence of that on Eastern Parkway. I assume that for forty years, they have decided not to participate. The African descendant peoples, have.

You must have missed me. At last weeks parade, I was the white guy eating the jerk chicken.

...but my ancestors have also mixed with yours for generations.

And not only is it loaded, but it doesn't reveal how inequitable the bonds between the Irish and the Africans often were.

I doubt very highly there were a large number of Black men who inseminated Irish women. More than likely, the relationship was inequitable becaue Irish men chose which Black women they wanted, and the women had no choice in the matter. What Irish women there were, were also forcibly taken to the Caribbean for the purpose of limiting the amount of race mixing occurred in the Caribbean between the Irish and the African. The British empire often sent Irish women to the Caribbean as punishment for imaginary crimes so that they would be mates for Irish men already there.

No, I do not.

So, you want to have a little fun to describe the vicissitudes of one's history, huh? You wouldn't dare describe Auschwitz as a resort for misunderstood Jews, or make any otherwise ill-timed commentary about Jewish people. But Blackfolks are supposed to chuckle at your comments?

Instead of making a new post, On Tue Sep 14, 2010 4:52 pm, MHA added to his post above

So, you want to have a little fun to describe the vicissitudes of one's history, huh? You wouldn't dare describe Auschwitz as a resort for misunderstood Jews, or make any otherwise ill-timed commentary about Jewish people. But Blackfolks are supposed to chuckle at your comments?

MHA wrote: languages,, religion, music and food -- despite other obvious influences, has not changed inalterably since the encounter with Europeans four hundred years ago.

If you go to the Gullah Islands ... you will hear the same 'boom-boom' so common in Dancehall Reggae, and now Reggaeton. If you examine the ingenious construction of the beautiful melodic musical instruments made out of the detritus of the oil industry in Trinidad -- i.e. the steel pan -- you will hear the beautiful rhythms, of West African griots, and the chora (sp?) singers of Nigeria. Keep in mind, that the steel pan, is akin to the thumb piano, as well as the xylophone, instruments that have their roots in Africa.

I've only skimmed the second two pages of this discussion, but wasn't this the point you were arguing against? I don't think anyone denies there's an African influence, but I think if you plunked a steel drum band or reggaeton group down in the streets of Lagos, passers by wouldn't say, "That's our music!"

West Indian cultures (and West Indian African culture) are quite distinct from West African, South Asian, East Asian, European, North Amercan, and Latin American cultures (and precolumbian Caribbean cultures), though they certainly draw from each of those. If the peoples of the West Indies identify as West Indies, who are Brooklynites to tell them otherwise. Right?

Also, what does it mean to you to have been changed "inalterably"? To me it just means change into something that can then not be altered. Now one is going to doubt the change is continually happening (altering) --- the JW and Blaze hit testifies to that. Did you mean "not changed appreciably"? or "greatly"?