Posted on 02/05/2013 7:50:30 PM PST by Colofornian
...Follow me on Stand up comic, Dave Ackerman, goes to Brigham Young University to find out what BYU students know about Black History Month.
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
And what follows from various BYU students?
Yes, unintended racist slurs; plain cultural ignorance; but, hey, it's almost the all white-BYU student body (What'd you expect?)
Some of these responses are as hysterical as they are culturally painful to watch...
IBAOBBB
In before accusations of bigotry by bigots
And yet the GOP thought it a good idea to run a Mormon against Obama.
But to be fair, I suspect many blacks don’t know about George Washington Carver, Booker T Washington and Charles Drew.
Most of em wouldn’t recognize an Uncle Tom, even if they elected him twice.
Only if they were rap 'singers'.
I now know that black men invented every important invention in the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th century.
Hoo boy.....
Slavery???
“At this point, what difference does it make??”
One of them is the peanut butter guy...
What the heck happened to the Gators tonight?
I was stationed at Dover AFB, in 1975, when the desk jerks on high decided that the rest of us had to learn how to “relate to humans”.
In the 60’s, during the riots, I and my family were traveling through the major cities of the Midwest, enroute to the family home, by train. We had to lie on the floor of the railcar, as well as keep the lights out, and have National Guardsmen on top of the cars, due to being shot at by the rioters. (I do thank those buzzards, for it gave my baptism under fire, prior to my going to SouthEast Asia!)
I was not, am not, and will never part of that particular culture. Separatist revisions of American History should be outlawed.
I’m white. During black history month I like to mention Vivian Thomas, a black, high school graduate, janitor who invented open heart surgery. He saved my brothers life.
I have no idea...Arkansas, really?
Looks like that Number 2 ranking went to their head, that will cure it.
Hopefully we can work our way to a tourney one seed.
One of the best Marines I ever knew was one Corporal Butler who came from Watts and nearly all of his family was in jail or on probation while he served in the Corps. He defied the stereotypes. He was my brother. We were one color when it counted — Green. You will never hear about him in the history books, nor will you see him on TV, but he was an outstanding American and a true patriot.
One of the BYU campuses has a course where they include the study of Frederick Douglass...so, hey...at least a few BYU students -- had they been interviewed...would have included him.
You'd think others could have named somebody like George Washington Carver...or at least Jackie Robinson...
FYI: Lesser known but mentionables could include contributors like...
...Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, who performed the first successful open heart surgery back in 1893!
...Or James West, who netted 200 patents...one leading to about 90% of microphones in use today being based upon an invention of his...
...many others...
Black History month should celebrate the whites who stood up to segregation like my father who when he was a bus driver in the south would not enforce Jim Crow on his bus and when he managed the bus station in Houston in the 50s, chained up the “colored” waiting room which was tiny and told the Post House that he would chain them up too if they didn’t serve everyone no matter the color. He was a brave man and I’m proud to be his daughter.
That is one aspect of history that, I am afraid, we shall revisit sometime shortly.
Keep your powder dry...
PBS did that this year with its three-week series on the abolitionists. It focused well beyond Douglass...William Lloyd Garrison; Angelina Grimke; Theodore Weld; Harriet Beecher Stowe; John Brown...mentioned others..
I don’t understand the purpose of this video. Is it to show that ONLY BYU students wouldn’t know anything about Black History Month, including BLACK BYU STUDENTS? Is it to show that Mormons are racist because they don’t know about black culture?
How many well educated upper middle class blacks know anything about ‘Black Culture’? Do you really think that the sons and daughters of doctors and lawyers and business owners who happen to be black are in tune with the BLACK Culture? They aren’t.
This ‘comedian’ is a tool and nothing more. Most of these kids showed more tolerance for this tool than I ever would. Also, what was the point of getting into black face.
What month is White History Month?
We used to joke about color a lot and the stereotypes associated. It never meant anything. We were all lean, green, fighting machines and such.
I don’t like the concept of this month or that month for a subset of Americans. I think it is very divisive. We must try to look at everyone as individuals and judge them by their character and deeds. We sometimes fail in this, but we must always try.
(Well, I think they figure that the white cultural imperialists got EVERY month for so many consecutive years that they put 'em on a Sabbatical :) for a while...but, hey, every extinct species seems to secure eventual focused attention...so, be patient...they'll get around to it once the museums start up somethin')
It’s just like “The Man” to make Black History Month, the shortest month of the year.
“Black History month should celebrate the whites who stood up to segregation like my father...”
This is a good point. My dad went to Ft Benning, Georgia for training with a bunch of fellow new recruits from Chicago; they went to town during a furlough. One of them gave up their seat for a older black lady. She was told to go to the back of the bus. My dad and his friends had to “explain” to the driver and the locals on the bus just how impolite that was. Apparently, the MP’s saw nothing and there was no evidence of anything and the whole thing got covered up between the city and Army.
When he came back from the war, my dad was one of the last REAL liberals who walked the walk. He taught and was later a principal in an increasingly dangerous “changing” neighborhood. He got his jaw broken breaking up a fight. He pleaded to rioters not to burn the school down in 1968. The stress of that environment probably took 10 years off of his life and a few off of other family members. My mom could never be certain when or even if he would be coming home. He sure didn’t get paid what it was worth.
These are some of the reasons that it really PISSES me off when I see what hard-won “equality” degenerated into. A lot of people (black AND white) took risks, got scorned, got beat up, got shot at and so on because they didn’t like people being called the “N” word. Now, the only people that can call people the “N” word are people whose parents and grandparents used to be called the “N” word.
[Sorry, but black history isn't relegated to some cultural corner or ghetto...re: implications from your comment about "black culture." Frederick Douglass, for example, operated mostly within white speaking environments during his thousands of miles of travel in the 19th century. George Washington Carver's hundreds of applications for farm products -- of great import to the Southern economy (peanut, soybean, pecan, sweet potato industries) was far from only impacting "black culture."
I could go on & on...]
Seems to me like you're trying to make some race-based dichotomy upon history..."white culture" seemingly omnipresent..."black culture" tucked away in some almost-invisible corner...as if it 'twas all intersection-free.
Sad...your post in and of itself shows why you're seemingly defending these BYU students.
I don’t agree with the idea of ‘Black History Month’ as it stands, because it does become a hate-whitey month in some areas. The common response is “Every other month is white history month!”, but this is inaccurate. Kids at school studying history learn about people from all over the world. White people are not singled out, linking their achievements to their skin color. I wouldn’t mind so much if every group got a week of celebration, including the different sub-groups of ‘black’. Does Black History Month make Jamaican immigrants feel good? They don’t have the same history. Of course, this would be impossible. We can’t have special weeks for everyone.
Races are disparate, and each race has great achievements to be admired and discussed, but this country is dealing with a white-guilt obsession. Slavery was bad. We understand that, and we shed blood in this country to get rid of it. We don’t need to try and repay the debt with these special ‘months’ or special race-specific scholarship funds.
All of this garbage just fills the pockets of race-pimps like Sharpton and Jackson, and perpetuates a state of victimhood.
My father was also a bus driver when I was growing up in the 40’s and 50’s. He drove for a small independent bus lines called Coastal Coaches, Inc. It was owned by a man named W. P. Fite who lived in Galveston.
We lived in Beaumont. My dad’s run was from Beaumont to Galveston and back 6 days a week. There was also an afternoon run from Beaumont to Galveston, driven by a man named Curtis.
It was not a union company. My dad got a plaque every 5 years without being involved in a wreck, or getting a moving violation. When he retired, his record was unbroken.
In order for each of the drivers to have one day a week off, they would drive both runs on one day, so the other driver could have that day off. My dad pulled the double run on Tuesdays, and Curtis pulled both on Wednesdays.
Even that long ago, he was adamantly against joining a union. I don’t know why. I know his pay was $55./wk—so we didn’t live very high on the hog—LOL! I have 2 brothers, so we were a family of 5. Greyhound tried to hire him on several occasions which would have meant more money and better perks—he never had a paid vacation day—we never went on a vacation. We never felt poor—my mom was a great cook and could do a lot with very little.
We didn’t have a car, so he was allowed to bring his bus home. One night a black child had gone to sleep on his bus and didn’t get off at his stop. When dad got home, he walked through the bus throwing out the trash, etc. as he always did, and discovered the child sleeping.
He woke him up and got a phone number to call the parents and tell them he would bring him back the next day, and that dad would take care of him until he was safely home.
We didn’t have a spare bed in the house, so Mom was making him a pallet on the floor, and the kid said he wanted to sleep in the bus where he was comfortable. Dad finally agreed, but he slept out there with him. I think the kid was about 8 or 9 yrs old.
Can you imagine this situation today!
Sorry I got long winded, but this is one of many memories I have of my dad, and for some reason, I was thinking about him today. He died in the early 60’s of a heart attack. I’m sorry that my children don’t have a lot of memories of him.
Mari
Don’t apologize. You’re dad sounds like he was a genuine American and a true Christian. May he rest in peace.
Comment of the year!
When Black History Month is about Justice Clarence Thomas, J.C. Watts, Dr. Alan Keyes, The Honorable Janice Rogers Brown and Dr. Thomas Sowell, I will feel like celebrating it.
Even the liberal Morgan Freeman said “We should call it Minority and Immigrant heritage Month”
It isn’t just conservatives that have problems with it
Governor George Romney marched for Civil Rights. Mitt’s dad.
Martin Luther King Jr. Said that George Romney would make a
fine president.
Charlton Heston also marched for Civil Rights.
President Eisenhower was the first president to force integration.
Most people black or white don’t know these facts. Except for the folks
on FR.
Coming up:
Interviewing Howard University students on what they know about constitutionality, the founding fathers, the Western canon in literature, music, and Law, western European history and the Greco Roman empire.
Naa just kidding. More about what Whites don’t know about Rosa Parks and Harriet Tubman, coming up!
I now know that black men invented every important invention in the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th century.
And blacks built the pyramids; and they discovered (and traded with) Mexico about 4 or 500 years before that Dead White Guy, Columbus, sailed.
BTW, did you know that Cleopatra was black? And that Jesus was, too?
I “learned” all that in a supposedly straight history/Western-Civ class back around 1968, “taught” by a black prof. Once I figured out he was serious, I dropped it.
This crap has been festering a long time in the hollowed (no longer hallowed) halls of academia.
You forgot Walter Williams.
Many, black and white don't know that Uncle Tom was one of the good guys.
If you haven’t already done so (and I’m pretty sure you already have), you should watch “Something The Lord Made”. What a great portrayal of Dr. Thomas and Dr. Blalock’s lives!
Regards,
These are some of the reasons that it really PISSES me off when I see what hard-won “equality” degenerated into. A lot of people (black AND white) took risks, got scorned, got beat up, got shot at and so on because they didn’t like people being called the “N” word. Now, the only people that can call people the “N” word are people whose parents and grandparents used to be called the “N” word.
___________________________________
I was on vacation, speaking to an engineer, who happened to be black. He was wearing a “Black Dive Master” tshirt. I asked him why he felt there had to be a *black* dive master association. He mumbled something about people not listening to blacks within regular organizations. Being 30 years his senior, I reminded him that the battle was fought by many, many whites, back in the day, and told him he was obviating all those hard-won gains by participating in separatism. He looked sheepish, but didn’t budge.
As a child, our neighborhood had a history of racial and religious covenants. We were Jewish. When the Polish man across the street tried to organize the block against a black university professor and his family, my Dad told him that two minorities should think twice before ganging up on a third. Dad used to say that we were all just people and needed to be evaluated as individuals. He’s gone now, but he would not have been happy with how things have deteriorated.
very weird vid
I have and Thomas held only an honorary Dr of Laws degree. He did all his work as a high school graduate; entirely self taught on the subject of medicine. It’s the most inspiring story of black history I know.
He woke him up and got a phone number to call the parents and tell them he would bring him back the next day, and that dad would take care of him until he was safely home.
We didn’t have a spare bed in the house, so Mom was making him a pallet on the floor, and the kid said he wanted to sleep in the bus where he was comfortable. Dad finally agreed, but he slept out there with him. I think the kid was about 8 or 9 yrs old.
*******************************************
Great memory of your dad and his absence of bias back in those days. I grew up in Dallas in the ‘40-50’s and observed my grandparents being very kind to the black customers at their corner grocery. I would often carry the sack of groceries from the store to the black ladies’ homes a few blocks away, during the Summer when I spent weeks there. There was no “general” divide between whites and blacks back then. .....The divide began with JFK and LBJ, pushed by the GOP, to enact the so-called Cival Rights Act, which began the great racial divisions we endure today. jmo
Yes, and the Arabs and the Chinese invented every else.
Thanks for sharing a heartfelt story about your Dad. It’s true, that’s the way things were back in those days. You could find kind people all over, and it wasn’t out of the ordinary. People weren’t as self-absorbed as we seem to be these days. Self-reliance was commonplace.
Oh yes—there was a divide! Looking back, I think even back then, it was the politicians that had a lot to do with it, though. I believe that among the people, especially in the neighborhoods where people were just barely making it from pay check to pay check, the divide between the races was much smaller. But, I also think people were much more genteel back then.
Of course we were segregated—in our schools, churches, movie houses—even the malt shops—restaurants, and grocery stores. It didn’t seem bad, at the time, it seemed “normal”.
I don’t know how it was in the more prosperous neighborhoods, I can only speak from what I experienced—but in our neighborhood, it was almost liked we helped each other. We had black families scattered around on the edges of our neighborhood. We didn’t “socialize” so much with them as we mainly would just nod in passing. I don’t remember actually playing with or hanging around black kids—but there was no animosity toward each other.
But this was Beaumont-—a few miles away, was Vidor! In Vidor at the time lived mainly Rednecks. The clan was very active there—and may still be for all I know (just kidding if anyone here is from Vidor—LOL), but I remember as teen agers when we started getting around a bit when someone had an old car of some kind—we never ventured into Vidor.
My point is, I think when everyone is struggling to put food on the table, and shoes on their feet, you don’t have much time nor inclination to fight each other. Of course all the racial hatred was going on all around us—we just didn’t get involved. You lived life as you found it—you pretty much stayed close to your home, or places you were familiar with—the drive in, the “white” movie houses, your friends’ houses, etc. Of course, the era I’m speaking of is the 40’s and early 50’s. Lordy only knows why this is all coming back to my pea brain right now, just because a freeper mentioned that her father was a bus driver—LOL! I now know that I must be truly old. I’m reminding myself of my grandparents who sat around and talked about “the old days” most of the time.
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