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FM
Former Member

Interracial marriage and single black women: African-American dating issues come home for the holidays

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An interracial couple

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Tiya Miles is a MacArthur Fellowship “genius” grant recipient and lauded professor at the University of Michigan. Most would assume her intellect and accomplishments would place her above the petty concerns of average folk. Yet, like many black women, she is not immune to the twitch of anger evinced at the site of a black man with a white woman.

Writing for The Huffington Post, Miles penned a moving essay about this phenomenon: Black Women, Interracial Dating, and Marriage: What’s Love Got to Do With It?

Hers is a tale of seeing first hand the black men in her family routinely select white women as mates. This rattles her even though she is married to a Native American.

Bracing for more interracial couplings

Miles brings the statistics about interracial marriage and black men to life by relating this trend to a typical, yet important, dating ritual: taking a serious partner home for the holidays.

Bracing herself for Thanksgiving, she anticipates more black male loved ones choosing to “date out.”

“With Thanksgiving just around the corner, I cannot help but dwell on who might be coming to dinner,” Miles writes. “Last holiday season gave me plenty of food for thought on this all too familiar and often uncomfortable racially-tinged question. One of my male relatives brought home a date for Thanksgiving who could have been Barbie’s twin sister.”

She assures readers: she has nothing against these women. In many ways, it’s not about them. Instead the background history that has rendered black women undesirable as partners needs to be brought to light.

Why are black women the least desirable?

“Romantic attraction is subject to the larger social forces of racial prestige and stigma that swirl all around us, and in this environment, black women are losing out,” she states. This prestige and stigma includes the history of black men being penalized for socializing with white women, making them that much more desirable. On top of that, the traditional perception of black women as coarse and promiscuous is one Miles believes has not changed.

Are people impacted by this socialization without realizing it? Miles says yes.

“These racial and gender preferences and the reasons behind them may not be conscious to people in the dating world, who, by and large, would probably decry bias against black women,” the professor of history asserts. “Nevertheless, these preferences have real effects. While more black men date and marry white women than ever before, more black women cannot even get a first ‘chat’ on Internet dating sites.”

In truth, according to the most recent census, 25 percent of the marriages of black men in 2010 were interracial. At the same time, black women are the least likely of all women to get married.

Readers discuss interracial love

People have blamed the glamorization of white women and degradation of black women for these trends, while some in the comments for Miles’ article blame black women for being standoffish.

“In my personal experience, I find many black women doing the ignoring, rather than being ignored,” stated the commentor kiwiprosecutor, a self-described white man.

Others question whether Miles is correct in her judgement, because who one chooses for marriage should ultimately be a matter of the soul.

“I struggle to agree with anything said in this article, even though it appears the author has backed up her position with statistics,” was the take of Xylemic. “To me, choosing a long term partner comes down to values more than anything else.”

One black woman spoke up as a voice of empowerment amid these bitter discussions.

“It’s a new day for black women,” affirmed moonchild71. “We are free to date who we choose regardless of color or race. Interracial relationships exist legally in this country due to the love of a white man for a black woman, so much so that he took it all the way to the Supreme Court. Black woman need to value themselves more, open their eyes and recognize their power as desirable women.”

This commentor refers to the landmark Loving v. Virginia case, which did in fact make interracial marriage possible in the United States. But that was in 1967. Today, black women are still the least likely to date interracially, let alone marry.

Solutions to the “single black woman” problem

As depressing as these realities might be, it was not Miles’ intent to rehash the same issue of the “single black woman” problem that has been discussed in the news repeatedly.

She wants to get to the bottom of a problem that renders her fellow black women without anyone to take home for the holidays.

“The driving force is,” Miles writes, “…my awareness of all of the (straight) African American women — beautiful, smart, good women, some of them my own family and friends — who might not have a honey to bring home this Thanksgiving holiday because they cannot find a date, even as rising numbers of eligible African American men will be wooing white women.”

Is the solution to date and marry interracially as Miles has done? Or for black women to seek mates overseas as others in the comments have suggested? As a single black woman myself, these questions remain important, even if they have been dissected a thousand times.

It’s only natural that the holidays, a time for reflection and family, would bring them up for consideration for the 1,001st round of consideration.

Replies sorted oldest to newest

Look at these racist negroes, obviously suffering from diminished masculinity, decrying douglarization in Merica.

 

They want black people to marry black people. Bloody insecure racists!

FM
Originally Posted by redux:

people lose their way when they analyze these social/biological phenomena using terms such as "love" and "soul"

 

Agreed. Although I do "love" my scotch and smokes from the bottom of my "soul"

FM

I don't want to get into this argument but from my experience, it depends on finances.  One time a white girl took me out for my birthday and paid $100 for a plate.  Another time a black girl took me out for my birthday, and when the bill came, she ask me if I contributing. I just paid the damm thing. 

The jury still out on Indian girls. A girl from India took me out and foot the entire bill....Guyanese...some do, some don't.

FM
Originally Posted by TI:

I don't want to get into this argument but from my experience, it depends on finances.  One time a white girl took me out for my birthday and paid $100 for a plate.  Another time a black girl took me out for my birthday, and when the bill came, she ask me if I contributing. I just paid the damm thing. 

The jury still out on Indian girls. A girl from India took me out and foot the entire bill....Guyanese...some do, some don't.

 

Actually, the only girls who have ever fought me for a check was black girls. Nicest thing ever

 

You hanging around de wrang black ppl bro. Stop hanging around with caribj's crowd

FM

Before carib beer says anything, yes Shaitaan has contributed to the growing douglarization of the Indo populace (I just wanted to use that PPP word)

 

There is nothing wrong with interracial relationships. Most of the women I've dated have been black. From mulatto type to really dark.

 

I was just saying that being a small population, we need to try and encourage endogamy.

FM
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:

Look at these racist negroes, obviously suffering from diminished masculinity, decrying douglarization in Merica.

 

They want black people to marry black people. Bloody insecure racists!

Yes they are just as insecure as you are but here is the difference.

 

Indians are 40% of the population in Guyana.  Blacks are 13% in the USA.

 

Indians DOMINATE politics and economics in Guyana.  Blacks are a very marginalized, weak and stigmatized group in the USA.  In addition blacks went through the process of slavery where they were brainwashed to think that they were inferior, so selection of a non black spouse often reflected self hate, with a bias towards light skin and straight hair, and this is what some blacks (women in particular) are reacting against. 

 

Indo Guyanese culture is intact and isn't going any where.  Indians also have skin color issues which have nothing to do with colonialism so I suggest that you advocate that dark skinned Indians should NOT marry or lust after light skinned Indians.  Then that will equate the dilemma among black Americans that you indicate.  Because clearly the cultural differences between black and white Americans are very scant.

 

So you look quite odd to be wailing about genetic extinction in Guyana. 

FM
Last edited by Former Member
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:

 

I was just saying that being a small population, we need to try and encourage endogamy.

There are 30% more Indians than there are blacks in Guyana so why your screams that Indians are a small group.

 

This is reflecting some deep rooted insecurity on your part.

FM
Originally Posted by caribny:
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:

 

I was just saying that being a small population, we need to try and encourage endogamy.

There are 30% more Indians than there are blacks in Guyana so why your screams that Indians are a small group.

 

This is reflecting some deep rooted insecurity on your part.

 

Dude, as a percentage of the West Indian population, we are a drop in the bucket. Do you seriously consider our 200k or so coolies to be some massive amount? You're being so intellectually dishonest using this slight percentum advantage.

 

Furthermore as a percentage of the American population, Guyanese coolies don't even exist.

 

I also look at my small existence on a small dot in a large universe as Carl Sagan advised me to do out of a sense of modesty and humility. That's not really a mark of my innate sense of inferiority. It's just a matter of perspective is all.

FM
Last edited by Former Member
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
Originally Posted by caribny:
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:

 

I was just saying that being a small population, we need to try and encourage endogamy.

There are 30% more Indians than there are blacks in Guyana so why your screams that Indians are a small group.

 

This is reflecting some deep rooted insecurity on your part.

 

Dude, as a percentage of the West Indian population, we are a drop in the bucket. Do you seriously consider our 200k or so coolies to be some massive amount? You're being so intellectually dishonest using this slight percentum advantage.

 

Furthermore as a percentage of the American population, Guyanese coolies don't even exist.

 

I also look at my small existence on a small dot in a large universe as Carl Sagan advised me to do out of a sense of modesty and humility. That's not really a mark of my innate sense of inferiority. It's just a matter of perspective is all.

 

 .So why aren't black people in Guyana so paranoid about this topic than are Indians.  There are 1,000,000 Indo Caribbean people in the Caribbean itself.  That does NOT look like a small population, and in fact within the English speaking Caribbean only Jamaica exceeds that number (Trinidad minus Indians is way under 1 million).

 

I cannot shed tears for you about the imminent demise of the Indo Caribbean identity or culture, that is unless Indo Caribbean people THEMSELVES make that decision.

 

If I were you I wouldn't stress yourself about Indo Guyanese identity in the USA. The kids will have no choice but to marry others, and the longer they remain the more Americanized they will get.  Like all people of immigrant origin, they will move beyond the ethnic enclaves of their parents, and encounter many other people.  They might even fall in love with them, and to suggest that they start looking for the needle in the hay stack to find another Indo Guyanese is not being real.  People are obligated to marry the individual who they love (or can at least live with), and not their race.

 

Trying to stop that is like trying to empty the ocean with a tea cup.

 

 

What about Tobagonians.  60K of them in a nation with 1.3 million people.  OK so no Tobagonian should marry a Trini in oder to preserve the Tobagonian culture and identity, which is quite distinct from Trinidad's by the way.  In fact how many people even know that the Tobagonian accent isn't the same as a Trinidadian one?

 

Seriously though. Inbreeding is a problem and this is why people should not engage in clannishness.  It renders them quite vulnerable to passing on defective genes.

 

 

There is an island in the middle of the Atlantic, Tristan da Cunha, where every one is descended from 7 men.  It has the worst incidence of asthma on the planet because several of these men were asthmatic, or married women who were.  That gene became more and more concentrated as they intermarried more and more.

.

FM
Last edited by Former Member
Originally Posted by caribny:
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
Originally Posted by caribny:
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:

 

I was just saying that being a small population, we need to try and encourage endogamy.

There are 30% more Indians than there are blacks in Guyana so why your screams that Indians are a small group.

 

This is reflecting some deep rooted insecurity on your part.

 

Dude, as a percentage of the West Indian population, we are a drop in the bucket. Do you seriously consider our 200k or so coolies to be some massive amount? You're being so intellectually dishonest using this slight percentum advantage.

 

Furthermore as a percentage of the American population, Guyanese coolies don't even exist.

 

I also look at my small existence on a small dot in a large universe as Carl Sagan advised me to do out of a sense of modesty and humility. That's not really a mark of my innate sense of inferiority. It's just a matter of perspective is all.

 

 .So why aren't black people in Guyana so paranoid about this topic than are Indians.  There are 1,000,000 Indo Caribbean people in the Caribbean itself.  That does NOT look like a small population, and in fact within the English speaking Caribbean only Jamaica exceeds that number (Trinidad minus Indians is way under 1 million).

 

I cannot shed tears for you about the imminent demise of the Indo Caribbean identity or culture, that is unless Indo Caribbean people THEMSELVES make that decision.

 

If I were you I wouldn't stress yourself about Indo Guyanese identity in the USA. The kids will have no choice but to marry others, and the longer they remain the more Americanized they will get.  Like all people of immigrant origin, they will move beyond the ethnic enclaves of their parents, and encounter many other people.  They might even fall in love with them, and to suggest that they start looking for the needle in the hay stack to find another Indo Guyanese is not being real.  People are obligated to marry the individual who they love (or can at least live with), and not their race.

 

Trying to stop that is like trying to empty the ocean with a tea cup.

 

 

What about Tobagonians.  60K of them in a nation with 1.3 million people.  OK so no Tobagonian should marry a Trini in oder to preserve the Tobagonian culture and identity, which is quite distinct from Trinidad's by the way.  In fact how many people even know that the Tobagonian accent isn't the same as a Trinidadian one?

 

Seriously though. Inbreeding is a problem and this is why people should not engage in clannishness.  It renders them quite vulnerable to passing on defective genes.

 

 

There is an island in the middle of the Atlantic, Tristan da Cunha, where every one is descended from 7 men.  It has the worst incidence of asthma on the planet because several of these men were asthmatic, or married women who were.  That gene became more and more concentrated as they intermarried more and more.

.

 

Black people in the Caribbean and America have very large and comfortable numbers. They're not going extinct anytime soon.

 

I love how you can reach into a pile of inapposite analogies and pick out sheer nonsense. Coolie people are in no way comparable to Tobagonians. Tobagonians are black people who just landed on the island of Tobago. They are very much alike Trini blacks who are very much like West Indian blacks. Culture, food, religion, manners etc. I'm sure they might have some slight regional variations.

 

Coolies are a people with a history spanning thousands of years, used to living under similar laws and a shared sovereign for thousands of years, worshipping the same gods made in our coolie image, eating foods peculiar to us, with manners peculiar to us. We are a people a nation in the most profound meaning of the term. We are not an artificial construct a few decades old like almost every single Caricom "nation." We are not the product of the British trying to liquidate unprofitable imperial holdings. We are a People forged in the crucible of history. These co-called Caricom nations are simply a bunch of Anglicized blacks with flags and some territory. They have very little that makes them a nation in the classical sense. The Jamaicans are not the Greeks. The Trinis have like a silly garbage can that they beat as a drum. Wow! What a great "national" accomplishment. In the annals of nation-states, history will record Gaugamela, Marathon, Trafalgar, Waterloo, and the great accomplishment of some people on the island of Trinidad figuring our how to bang on an empty oil drum.

 

About Tobago. What makes the Tobagonians a people? What is their native Tobagonian language? Their native food? Their habits? Their customs? Laws? Their Tobagonian gods? etc. etc.

 

The Indian People are one of history's classical civilizations who have existed as a people since they started writing history and you would compare us in antiquity to Tobagonians? Are you serious?

 

Lastly, doan try to throw random shyte at the wall and hope something sticks. I never once advocated endogamy to the point of incest and inbreeding. Our population though relatively small is not so small that inbreeding is a serious concern. Again, your discovery of one extreme inbreeding island somewhere has nothing to do even as an analogy to do with this discussion. You're grasping at bagassie here.

FM
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
. . . Coolies are a people with a history spanning thousands of years, used to living under similar laws and a shared sovereign for thousands of years, worshipping the same gods made in our coolie image, eating foods peculiar to us, with manners peculiar to us. We are a people a nation in the most profound meaning of the term. We are not an artificial construct a few decades old like almost every single Caricom "nation." We are not the product of the British trying to liquidate unprofitable imperial holdings. We are a People forged in the crucible of history. These co-called Caricom nations are simply a bunch of Anglicized blacks with flags and some territory. They have very little that makes them a nation in the classical sense. The Jamaicans are not the Greeks. The Trinis have like a silly garbage can that they beat as a drum. Wow! What a great "national" accomplishment. In the annals of nation-states, history will record Gaugamela, Marathon, Trafalgar, Waterloo, and the great accomplishment of some people on the island of Trinidad figuring our how to bang on an empty oil drum.

 

About Tobago. What makes the Tobagonians a people? What is their native Tobagonian language? Their native food? Their habits? Their customs? Laws? Their Tobagonian gods? etc. etc.

 

The Indian People are one of history's classical civilizations who have existed as a people since they started writing history and you would compare us in antiquity to Tobagonians? Are you serious?

the invidious ethnic chauvinism on display here almost melted my eyeballs

 

i get the impression that, for u, the "coolie" descendants living in and among that "bunch of Anglicized blacks with flags and some territory" in places like Guyana and Trinidad are really some kind of settler population lining up for OCI papers, waiting for the day they can swap for Indian passport

 

"we" the Indian "nation" within many nations . . . longing for Bharat Mata and the ingathering

 

even my tormented eyeballs see the cliff . . . enjoy

FM
Last edited by Former Member
Originally Posted by redux:
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
. . . Coolies are a people with a history spanning thousands of years, used to living under similar laws and a shared sovereign for thousands of years, worshipping the same gods made in our coolie image, eating foods peculiar to us, with manners peculiar to us. We are a people a nation in the most profound meaning of the term. We are not an artificial construct a few decades old like almost every single Caricom "nation." We are not the product of the British trying to liquidate unprofitable imperial holdings. We are a People forged in the crucible of history. These co-called Caricom nations are simply a bunch of Anglicized blacks with flags and some territory. They have very little that makes them a nation in the classical sense. The Jamaicans are not the Greeks. The Trinis have like a silly garbage can that they beat as a drum. Wow! What a great "national" accomplishment. In the annals of nation-states, history will record Gaugamela, Marathon, Trafalgar, Waterloo, and the great accomplishment of some people on the island of Trinidad figuring our how to bang on an empty oil drum.

 

About Tobago. What makes the Tobagonians a people? What is their native Tobagonian language? Their native food? Their habits? Their customs? Laws? Their Tobagonian gods? etc. etc.

 

The Indian People are one of history's classical civilizations who have existed as a people since they started writing history and you would compare us in antiquity to Tobagonians? Are you serious?

the invidious ethnic chauvinism on display here almost melted my eyeballs

 

i get the impression that, for u, the "coolie" descendants living in and among that "bunch of Anglicized blacks with flags and some territory" in places like Guyana and Trinidad are really some kind of settler population lining up for OCI papers, waiting for the day they can swap for Indian passport

 

"we" the Indian "nation" within many nations . . . longing for Bharat Mata and the ingathering

 

even my tormented eyeballs see the cliff . . . enjoy

 

My Dear Sir,

 

I think you erred in ripping my statement out from its context. If you read it carefully, particularly the opening you will see that I was trying (painfully) to draw Carib's attention to the absolute inapposite nature of the comparisons between Indians and a place like Tobago and it's inhabitants.

 

I do not for one second think this makes Indians better or superior or whatever. I was trying to make the point that Indian people are just not comparable to Tobagonians or any other island Caricom state (who have a different claim to nationhood). We had a pre-existing "national" identity. This identity was/is divorced from the Indian State as a government.

 

Particularly in Guyana, we are indeed a national group. We didn't just come into being in 1966 or 1838. Our beginnings go back to antiquity.

 

This is not chauvinistic. It is facts. Perhaps harshly stated but nevertheless factual. It was harshly stated because carib kept running around the place turning up ridiculous analogies.

 

Lastly, you would be wrong to assume I propose the idea we're some kinda settler population waiting for our Indian passport. India has no relevance to us beyond historical. In saying all of this, I'm merely stating the case of the Indian identity.

FM
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
Originally Posted by TI:

I don't want to get into this argument but from my experience, it depends on finances.  One time a white girl took me out for my birthday and paid $100 for a plate.  Another time a black girl took me out for my birthday, and when the bill came, she ask me if I contributing. I just paid the damm thing. 

The jury still out on Indian girls. A girl from India took me out and foot the entire bill....Guyanese...some do, some don't.

 

Actually, the only girls who have ever fought me for a check was black girls. Nicest thing ever

 

You hanging around de wrang black ppl bro. Stop hanging around with caribj's crowd

I would like to see the girls who like Shaitaan.  Any girl that likes a man who comes with horns and a tail must be really desperate.

FM
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
Originally Posted by redux:
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
. . . Coolies are a people with a history spanning thousands of years, used to living under similar laws and a shared sovereign for thousands of years, worshipping the same gods made in our coolie image, eating foods peculiar to us, with manners peculiar to us. We are a people a nation in the most profound meaning of the term. We are not an artificial construct a few decades old like almost every single Caricom "nation." We are not the product of the British trying to liquidate unprofitable imperial holdings. We are a People forged in the crucible of history. These co-called Caricom nations are simply a bunch of Anglicized blacks with flags and some territory. They have very little that makes them a nation in the classical sense. The Jamaicans are not the Greeks. The Trinis have like a silly garbage can that they beat as a drum. Wow! What a great "national" accomplishment. In the annals of nation-states, history will record Gaugamela, Marathon, Trafalgar, Waterloo, and the great accomplishment of some people on the island of Trinidad figuring our how to bang on an empty oil drum.

 

About Tobago. What makes the Tobagonians a people? What is their native Tobagonian language? Their native food? Their habits? Their customs? Laws? Their Tobagonian gods? etc. etc.

 

The Indian People are one of history's classical civilizations who have existed as a people since they started writing history and you would compare us in antiquity to Tobagonians? Are you serious?

the invidious ethnic chauvinism on display here almost melted my eyeballs

 

i get the impression that, for u, the "coolie" descendants living in and among that "bunch of Anglicized blacks with flags and some territory" in places like Guyana and Trinidad are really some kind of settler population lining up for OCI papers, waiting for the day they can swap for Indian passport

 

"we" the Indian "nation" within many nations . . . longing for Bharat Mata and the ingathering

 

even my tormented eyeballs see the cliff . . . enjoy

 

My Dear Sir,

 

I think you erred in ripping my statement out from its context. If you read it carefully, particularly the opening you will see that I was trying (painfully) to draw Carib's attention to the absolute inapposite nature of the comparisons between Indians and a place like Tobago and it's inhabitants.

 

I do not for one second think this makes Indians better or superior or whatever. I was trying to make the point that Indian people are just not comparable to Tobagonians or any other island Caricom state (who have a different claim to nationhood). We had a pre-existing "national" identity. This identity was/is divorced from the Indian State as a government.

 

Particularly in Guyana, we are indeed a national group. We didn't just come into being in 1966 or 1838. Our beginnings go back to antiquity.

 

This is not chauvinistic. It is facts. Perhaps harshly stated but nevertheless factual. It was harshly stated because carib kept running around the place turning up ridiculous analogies.

 

Lastly, you would be wrong to assume I propose the idea we're some kinda settler population waiting for our Indian passport. India has no relevance to us beyond historical. In saying all of this, I'm merely stating the case of the Indian identity.

sir, blaming caribny for the stuff that comes out of your mouth is getting kind of old

 

i did not misquote u, and am well aware of the "Tobago" context - which is not my focus

 

there is deep, distubing ideological shyte underpinning your concept of "nation" as it relates to Indo-Caribbeans . . . the implications are profound

 

read my statement carefully . . . i did not say you "propose" anything; i pointed to logical conclusions one can arrive at referencing the statements you are making which, frankly, i am being very charitable in assuming you have not thought through properly

FM
Last edited by Former Member
Originally Posted by redux:
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
Originally Posted by redux:
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
. . . Coolies are a people with a history spanning thousands of years, used to living under similar laws and a shared sovereign for thousands of years, worshipping the same gods made in our coolie image, eating foods peculiar to us, with manners peculiar to us. We are a people a nation in the most profound meaning of the term. We are not an artificial construct a few decades old like almost every single Caricom "nation." We are not the product of the British trying to liquidate unprofitable imperial holdings. We are a People forged in the crucible of history. These co-called Caricom nations are simply a bunch of Anglicized blacks with flags and some territory. They have very little that makes them a nation in the classical sense. The Jamaicans are not the Greeks. The Trinis have like a silly garbage can that they beat as a drum. Wow! What a great "national" accomplishment. In the annals of nation-states, history will record Gaugamela, Marathon, Trafalgar, Waterloo, and the great accomplishment of some people on the island of Trinidad figuring our how to bang on an empty oil drum.

 

About Tobago. What makes the Tobagonians a people? What is their native Tobagonian language? Their native food? Their habits? Their customs? Laws? Their Tobagonian gods? etc. etc.

 

The Indian People are one of history's classical civilizations who have existed as a people since they started writing history and you would compare us in antiquity to Tobagonians? Are you serious?

the invidious ethnic chauvinism on display here almost melted my eyeballs

 

i get the impression that, for u, the "coolie" descendants living in and among that "bunch of Anglicized blacks with flags and some territory" in places like Guyana and Trinidad are really some kind of settler population lining up for OCI papers, waiting for the day they can swap for Indian passport

 

"we" the Indian "nation" within many nations . . . longing for Bharat Mata and the ingathering

 

even my tormented eyeballs see the cliff . . . enjoy

 

My Dear Sir,

 

I think you erred in ripping my statement out from its context. If you read it carefully, particularly the opening you will see that I was trying (painfully) to draw Carib's attention to the absolute inapposite nature of the comparisons between Indians and a place like Tobago and it's inhabitants.

 

I do not for one second think this makes Indians better or superior or whatever. I was trying to make the point that Indian people are just not comparable to Tobagonians or any other island Caricom state (who have a different claim to nationhood). We had a pre-existing "national" identity. This identity was/is divorced from the Indian State as a government.

 

Particularly in Guyana, we are indeed a national group. We didn't just come into being in 1966 or 1838. Our beginnings go back to antiquity.

 

This is not chauvinistic. It is facts. Perhaps harshly stated but nevertheless factual. It was harshly stated because carib kept running around the place turning up ridiculous analogies.

 

Lastly, you would be wrong to assume I propose the idea we're some kinda settler population waiting for our Indian passport. India has no relevance to us beyond historical. In saying all of this, I'm merely stating the case of the Indian identity.

sir, blaming caribny for the stuff that comes out of your mouth is getting kind of old

 

i did not misquote u, and am well aware of the "Tobago" context - which is not my focus

 

there is deep, distubing ideological shyte underpinning your concept of "nation" as it relates to Indo-Caribbeans . . . the implications are profound

 

read my statement carefully . . . i did not say you "propose" anything; i pointed to logical conclusions one can arrive at referencing the statements you are making which, frankly, i am being very charitable in assuming you have not thought through properly

 

I'm not "blaming" anyone for a single word I utter. I stand behind what I wrote until someone proves to me through reasoned argument that I am wrong. I welcome the debate.

 

The fact that you find this kind of banal run of the mill analysis "ideological" tells me just how marginalized Indians are in the intellectual discourse. The mere application of accepted theories and notions of nationhood to Indo-Caribbeans makes you so uncomfortable. This is how far we are from reality where even to attempt to put our history into a context is somehow "chauvinistic" because it may make other people feel uncomfortable for whatever reason. Social science is not meant for people's comfort. It's meant to help us understand stuff. That's what this is about. To put facts into a framework so we can understand it.

 

FM
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
Originally Posted by redux:
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
Originally Posted by redux:
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
. . . Coolies are a people with a history spanning thousands of years, used to living under similar laws and a shared sovereign for thousands of years, worshipping the same gods made in our coolie image, eating foods peculiar to us, with manners peculiar to us. We are a people a nation in the most profound meaning of the term. We are not an artificial construct a few decades old like almost every single Caricom "nation." We are not the product of the British trying to liquidate unprofitable imperial holdings. We are a People forged in the crucible of history. These co-called Caricom nations are simply a bunch of Anglicized blacks with flags and some territory. They have very little that makes them a nation in the classical sense. The Jamaicans are not the Greeks. The Trinis have like a silly garbage can that they beat as a drum. Wow! What a great "national" accomplishment. In the annals of nation-states, history will record Gaugamela, Marathon, Trafalgar, Waterloo, and the great accomplishment of some people on the island of Trinidad figuring our how to bang on an empty oil drum.

 

About Tobago. What makes the Tobagonians a people? What is their native Tobagonian language? Their native food? Their habits? Their customs? Laws? Their Tobagonian gods? etc. etc.

 

The Indian People are one of history's classical civilizations who have existed as a people since they started writing history and you would compare us in antiquity to Tobagonians? Are you serious?

the invidious ethnic chauvinism on display here almost melted my eyeballs

 

i get the impression that, for u, the "coolie" descendants living in and among that "bunch of Anglicized blacks with flags and some territory" in places like Guyana and Trinidad are really some kind of settler population lining up for OCI papers, waiting for the day they can swap for Indian passport

 

"we" the Indian "nation" within many nations . . . longing for Bharat Mata and the ingathering

 

even my tormented eyeballs see the cliff . . . enjoy

 

My Dear Sir,

 

I think you erred in ripping my statement out from its context. If you read it carefully, particularly the opening you will see that I was trying (painfully) to draw Carib's attention to the absolute inapposite nature of the comparisons between Indians and a place like Tobago and it's inhabitants.

 

I do not for one second think this makes Indians better or superior or whatever. I was trying to make the point that Indian people are just not comparable to Tobagonians or any other island Caricom state (who have a different claim to nationhood). We had a pre-existing "national" identity. This identity was/is divorced from the Indian State as a government.

 

Particularly in Guyana, we are indeed a national group. We didn't just come into being in 1966 or 1838. Our beginnings go back to antiquity.

 

This is not chauvinistic. It is facts. Perhaps harshly stated but nevertheless factual. It was harshly stated because carib kept running around the place turning up ridiculous analogies.

 

Lastly, you would be wrong to assume I propose the idea we're some kinda settler population waiting for our Indian passport. India has no relevance to us beyond historical. In saying all of this, I'm merely stating the case of the Indian identity.

sir, blaming caribny for the stuff that comes out of your mouth is getting kind of old

 

i did not misquote u, and am well aware of the "Tobago" context - which is not my focus

 

there is deep, distubing ideological shyte underpinning your concept of "nation" as it relates to Indo-Caribbeans . . . the implications are profound

 

read my statement carefully . . . i did not say you "propose" anything; i pointed to logical conclusions one can arrive at referencing the statements you are making which, frankly, i am being very charitable in assuming you have not thought through properly

 

I'm not "blaming" anyone for a single word I utter. I stand behind what I wrote until someone proves to me through reasoned argument that I am wrong. I welcome the debate.

 

The fact that you find this kind of banal run of the mill analysis "ideological" tells me just how marginalized Indians are in the intellectual discourse. The mere application of accepted theories and notions of nationhood to Indo-Caribbeans makes you so uncomfortable. This is how far we are from reality where even to attempt to put our history into a context is somehow "chauvinistic" because it may make other people feel uncomfortable for whatever reason. Social science is not meant for people's comfort. It's meant to help us understand stuff. That's what this is about. To put facts into a framework so we can understand it.

 

setting aside (for the moment) your "marginalized Indian" victim special pleading and amateur psychology about who is "uncomfortable" or not, i'm curious as to what role u think the 5 millennia old "Indian nation" should play in those Caricom countries you disparage as a bunch of "Anglicized blacks with flags and some territory"

 

what are the implications of Indian rule over these "blacks" in 'non-nations' such as Trinidad and Guyana since they are not 'of them'?

FM
Originally Posted by redux:
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
Originally Posted by redux:
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
Originally Posted by redux:
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
. . . Coolies are a people with a history spanning thousands of years, used to living under similar laws and a shared sovereign for thousands of years, worshipping the same gods made in our coolie image, eating foods peculiar to us, with manners peculiar to us. We are a people a nation in the most profound meaning of the term. We are not an artificial construct a few decades old like almost every single Caricom "nation." We are not the product of the British trying to liquidate unprofitable imperial holdings. We are a People forged in the crucible of history. These co-called Caricom nations are simply a bunch of Anglicized blacks with flags and some territory. They have very little that makes them a nation in the classical sense. The Jamaicans are not the Greeks. The Trinis have like a silly garbage can that they beat as a drum. Wow! What a great "national" accomplishment. In the annals of nation-states, history will record Gaugamela, Marathon, Trafalgar, Waterloo, and the great accomplishment of some people on the island of Trinidad figuring our how to bang on an empty oil drum.

 

About Tobago. What makes the Tobagonians a people? What is their native Tobagonian language? Their native food? Their habits? Their customs? Laws? Their Tobagonian gods? etc. etc.

 

The Indian People are one of history's classical civilizations who have existed as a people since they started writing history and you would compare us in antiquity to Tobagonians? Are you serious?

the invidious ethnic chauvinism on display here almost melted my eyeballs

 

i get the impression that, for u, the "coolie" descendants living in and among that "bunch of Anglicized blacks with flags and some territory" in places like Guyana and Trinidad are really some kind of settler population lining up for OCI papers, waiting for the day they can swap for Indian passport

 

"we" the Indian "nation" within many nations . . . longing for Bharat Mata and the ingathering

 

even my tormented eyeballs see the cliff . . . enjoy

 

My Dear Sir,

 

I think you erred in ripping my statement out from its context. If you read it carefully, particularly the opening you will see that I was trying (painfully) to draw Carib's attention to the absolute inapposite nature of the comparisons between Indians and a place like Tobago and it's inhabitants.

 

I do not for one second think this makes Indians better or superior or whatever. I was trying to make the point that Indian people are just not comparable to Tobagonians or any other island Caricom state (who have a different claim to nationhood). We had a pre-existing "national" identity. This identity was/is divorced from the Indian State as a government.

 

Particularly in Guyana, we are indeed a national group. We didn't just come into being in 1966 or 1838. Our beginnings go back to antiquity.

 

This is not chauvinistic. It is facts. Perhaps harshly stated but nevertheless factual. It was harshly stated because carib kept running around the place turning up ridiculous analogies.

 

Lastly, you would be wrong to assume I propose the idea we're some kinda settler population waiting for our Indian passport. India has no relevance to us beyond historical. In saying all of this, I'm merely stating the case of the Indian identity.

sir, blaming caribny for the stuff that comes out of your mouth is getting kind of old

 

i did not misquote u, and am well aware of the "Tobago" context - which is not my focus

 

there is deep, distubing ideological shyte underpinning your concept of "nation" as it relates to Indo-Caribbeans . . . the implications are profound

 

read my statement carefully . . . i did not say you "propose" anything; i pointed to logical conclusions one can arrive at referencing the statements you are making which, frankly, i am being very charitable in assuming you have not thought through properly

 

I'm not "blaming" anyone for a single word I utter. I stand behind what I wrote until someone proves to me through reasoned argument that I am wrong. I welcome the debate.

 

The fact that you find this kind of banal run of the mill analysis "ideological" tells me just how marginalized Indians are in the intellectual discourse. The mere application of accepted theories and notions of nationhood to Indo-Caribbeans makes you so uncomfortable. This is how far we are from reality where even to attempt to put our history into a context is somehow "chauvinistic" because it may make other people feel uncomfortable for whatever reason. Social science is not meant for people's comfort. It's meant to help us understand stuff. That's what this is about. To put facts into a framework so we can understand it.

 

setting aside (for the moment) your "marginalized Indian" victim special pleading and amateur psychology about who is "uncomfortable" or not, i'm curious as to what role u think the 5 millennia old "Indian nation" should play in those Caricom countries you disparage as a bunch of "Anglicized blacks with flags and some territory"

 

what are the implications of Indian rule over these "blacks" in 'non-nations' such as Trinidad and Guyana since they are not 'of them'?

 

1. Indians and the Indian identity have been marginalized in the intellectual discourse among West Indians. The West Indian intellectual tradition (if it can be called that) is principally informed by the black historical experience and their longstanding fondness for anti-colonial and lefty rhetoric. Where's the Indian David Hinds? The token Indian representation consists of some white mout lefty coolies too frikken to be called "Indian" and eager to prove their bona fides as "not racial" lefties unlike dem other racist conservative coolies. Indian academics are often at pains to self-censor lest they upset their black lefty interlocutors and get the race card thrown at them. This has the effect of chilling Indian speech. Just look at this conversation. Any black writing the same thing would not be subject to the same rigorous examination by you.

 

2. I make no claims of knowing your inner self. I was just saying that you seemed uncomfortable or found my opinion distasteful or pick another word you're comfortable with. Part of me is just surprised at how this went from a basic nation-state 101 opinion to the preamble for West Indian genocide.

 

3. There are no "consequences" per se outside of the recognition of the fact that Indians have a pre-existing national identity independent of their citizenship in their respective island polities in the Caribbean and that identity will inform the further construction of "citizenship" and its continued evolution.

 

4. The "implication" here may be that multinational states like Guyana and Trinidad need to devise systems of governance which reflect reality instead of pretending that we're all some homogenous "one" because we all seem to like curry and plaintain. Guyana has been pretending since the 1950s that we're "one people" when our elections, behavior, and low level racial civil wars have proven otherwise. Let us approach the Guyana and the Guyanese Peoples that exist as they are not this imaginary nonsense that exists only on paper.

FM

VS Naipaul ...Indo Trinidadian Nobel Prize recipient in Literature

 
At a literary gathering in Trinidad in 1980, Naipaul referring to the Trinidadian reading public:
 “I can’t see a Monkey reading my work… you can use a capital M, that’s an affectionate word for the generality.
These people live purely physical lives, which I find contemptible… It makes them only interesting to chaps in universities who want to do compassionate studies about brutes.”
 
 
..........
hehehe, bananas anyone?
FM
Originally Posted by TI:

VS Naipaul ...Indo Trinidadian Nobel Prize recipient in Literature

 
At a literary gathering in Trinidad in 1980, Naipaul referring to the Trinidadian reading public:
 “I can’t see a Monkey reading my work… you can use a capital M, that’s an affectionate word for the generality.
These people live purely physical lives, which I find contemptible… It makes them only interesting to chaps in universities who want to do compassionate studies about brutes.”
 
 
..........
hehehe, bananas anyone?

 

Sir Vidia is absolutely right. A bunch of monkeys who seem to revel in their talent for national public fornication.

 

Carib Beer would of course invent a lengthy defense of how monkey culture is equally valid to people culture and how bananas are just part of the staple diet like beef wellington to the Englishman

FM
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
1. Indians and the Indian identity have been marginalized in the intellectual discourse among West Indians. The West Indian intellectual tradition (if it can be called that) is principally informed by the black historical experience and their longstanding fondness for anti-colonial and lefty rhetoric. Where's the Indian David Hinds? The token Indian representation consists of some white mout lefty coolies too frikken to be called "Indian" and eager to prove their bona fides as "not racial" lefties unlike dem other racist conservative coolies. Indian academics are often at pains to self-censor lest they upset their black lefty interlocutors and get the race card thrown at them. This has the effect of chilling Indian speech. Just look at this conversation. Any black writing the same thing would not be subject to the same rigorous examination by you.

your rant is tired and belongs in the mid-20th Century

 

u break no new ground here with tendentious special pleading and whining distraction about frightened "coolies" and chilled "Indian speech"

 

lefty dis and lefty dat . . . waderaas this have to do with "conservative" and "liberal" interlocutors?

 

"Where is the Indian David Hinds" . . . huh?

 

dude, u need to get out more; give Ravi Dev a call and request a reading list (no shame in that: Christopher Hitchens once famously approached Edward Said to recommend same)

 

and, yes . . . there is a West Indian intellectual tradition, informed by all it's transplanted peoples, including that reptilian race primitive V.S. Naipaul

 

i am short of time and will deal with 2, 3, and 4 later

FM
Last edited by Former Member
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
.

. These co-called Caricom nations are simply a bunch of Anglicized blacks with flags and some territory..

OK so now that you have shown your RACIST face and have shown yourself to be a a bigot who has NO respect for blacks.

 

Glad that you finally revealed your true agenda.  Hitler will be proud of you.

 

Note though.  You said that Asian Indians see Caribbean Hindus as a kind of a negro.  You have been quite derisive about "coolie" people in many posts, using stereotypes that would make black and white racists proud of you.

 

What a confused gentleman you are.

 

Want to know why Caribbean blacks don't involve people like you in their affairs?  When people like you disrespect them, they will disrespect you in return.

 

Good Afternoon.  Now go and join the Indo KKK group with yuji and the others.  Keep in mind that, according to you, the folks in India see you as "another type of negro".

FM
Last edited by Former Member
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
.

Lastly, you would be wrong to assume I propose the idea we're some kinda settler population waiting for our Indian passport. India has no relevance to us beyond historical. In saying all of this, I'm merely stating the case of the Indian identity.

Shaitaan let me make it easy for you.  If living in a region with all of these blacks with no culture, who only bang on garbage, offends you and India is the center of the universe, pack your bags and GO!

 

You cannot live in a society and refuse to be part of it. Either you participate in it or you LEAVE!  If your nation is not Guyana, but instead is India, then why stick around.

 

You know the folks who claim that Guyana is the House that Africans built would lift your racist rant and post it with commentary about the fact that this indicates that Indians do not see themselves as part of the Guyanese nation, and have nothing but contempt for the people who constitute the majority within the non Hispanic Caribbean.

 

Tobagonians have as much right to define themselves as a people as do Indo Guyanese, regardless as to the fact that you reduce them to a people with no culture.  They may have loads to say about Indo Guyanese as well, because you know full well that Indo Guyanese aren't too popular in the Caribbean, with even Indo Trinidadians not being too keen to be linked to you all.

FM
Originally Posted by caribny:
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
.

. These co-called Caricom nations are simply a bunch of Anglicized blacks with flags and some territory..

OK so now that you have shown your RACIST face and have shown yourself to be a a bigot who has NO respect for blacks.

 

Glad that you finally revealed your true agenda.  Hitler will be proud of you.

 

Note though.  You said that Asian Indians see Caribbean Hindus as a kind of a negro.  You have been quite derisive about "coolie" people in many posts, using stereotypes that would make black and white racists proud of you.

 

What a confused gentleman you are.

 

Want to know why Caribbean blacks don't involve people like you in their affairs?  When people like you disrespect them, they will disrespect you in return.

 

Good Afternoon.  Now go and join the Indo KKK group with yuji and the others.  Keep in mind that, according to you, the folks in India see you as "another type of negro".

 

Someday I too would like to own a Platinum Race Card. Anytime and anywhere I feel that a well reasoned argument is unavailable or I simply do not wish to proffer one, I could just whip that baby out and bam, claim victory.

 

And just to hammer home the no spending limit platinum nature of said Race Card, throw in Hitler there for good measure

 

I like to think I see the world as it is and not take it too seriously. I don't feel the need to constantly take "offense" and scream "racism" like some petulant child or broken record.

 

I don't think you can go one post without calling the poster a racist. It's almost impossible.

 

As for the Indo KKK group. Again, this is what happens when Caribbean lefties hear something fashionable their American lefty cousins say and try to appropriate it. I hate to disappoint you, the Indo KKK does not exist. Kneeru is not the Grand Wizard we all think him to be.

 

I'm sorry your feelings were hurt by an inelegant but true thing that I uttered. I don't know what to tell you. Muslims also seem to love Muhammad to the point that they kill when their feelings get hurt but I'm sure they'll learn to join the adult table someday too.

FM
Last edited by Former Member
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
.

1. Indians and the Indian identity have been marginalized in the intellectual discourse among West Indians. The West Indian intellectual tradition (if it can be called that) is principally informed by the black historical experience and their longstanding fondness for anti-colonial and lefty rhetoric. Where's the Indian David Hinds? The token Indian representation consists of some white mout lefty coolies too frikken to be called "Indian" and eager to prove their bona fides as "not racial" lefties unlike dem other racist conservative coolies. Indian academics are often at pains to self-censor lest they upset their black lefty interlocutors and get the race card thrown at them. This has the effect of chilling Indian speech. Just look at this conversation. Any black writing the same thing would not be subject to the same rigorous examination by you.

 

2. I make no claims of knowing your inner self. I was just saying that you seemed uncomfortable or found my opinion distasteful or pick another word you're comfortable with. Part of me is just surprised at how this went from a basic nation-state 101 opinion to the preamble for West Indian genocide.

 

3. There are no "consequences" per se outside of the recognition of the fact that Indians have a pre-existing national identity independent of their citizenship in their respective island polities in the Caribbean and that identity will inform the further construction of "citizenship" and its continued evolution.

 

4. The "implication" here may be that multinational states like Guyana and Trinidad need to devise systems of governance which reflect reality instead of pretending that we're all some homogenous "one" because we all seem to like curry and plaintain. Guyana has been pretending since the 1950s that we're "one people" when our elections, behavior, and low level racial civil wars have proven otherwise. Let us approach the Guyana and the Guyanese Peoples that exist as they are not this imaginary nonsense that exists only on paper.

 

 

Shaitaan do you think that by disparaging Caribbean blacks is the way to get them to respect the fact that the 1,000,000 Indo Caribbean people have as much right to claim their space within a CARIBBEAN context.

 

You do not do so by disparaging the notion of what the Caribbean space is all about.  You do not do this by placing yourself as a nomadic group who arrived just by coincidence, but who in reality belong to a separate nation located thousands of miles away.

 

You do this by claiming that Indo Caribbean people are a CARIBBEAN people in the same way that Afro Caribbean people are.  That this group has made tremendous contributions into shaping what the Caribbean is today (with no Indians there would be no soca or roti or curry goat and many of our speech patterns would be different).  You will stress that the Caribbean is a MULTICULTURAL space with many different identities, value systems, religions, and art forms.  You will stress that it is a region where people have the right and the ability to operate within the context of a cultural continuum as it suits their purpose.  And you will also stress that you have the same right to an ETHNIC (not national) identity as do the descendants of enslaved African people who had to battle against stigmatization under colonial and post colonial rule.

 

 

And understand something.  You are of the CARIBBEAN, not ASIA.  You fully well know that most Asian Indians do not quite know what to make of you, so how can you claim to be part of their nation?  Will they respect you for what you are, or force to become what they think that a real Indian is.

 

And Tobagonians have every right to define their identity as you do. The fact that you deny them that is no different from those who will claim that there is only one way to express being a Caribbean person!

 

 

 

And by the way linking yourself to the South Asian diaspora you shot yourself in the foot. This is the SECOND largest group of people in the planet after the Chinese Diaspora.

FM
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
... Guyana has been pretending since the 1950s that we're "one people" when our elections, behavior, and low level racial civil wars have proven otherwise. Let us approach the Guyana and the Guyanese Peoples that exist as they are not this imaginary nonsense that exists only on paper.

There is no one way to be an Indo Guyanese either, so what do you suggest. An indepth analysis of the many different permutations of being Indian, African, etc and then set up a separate nation state for them all?

 

And where will that leave you, some one who is a Catholic and who isn't even 100% Indian, and who admits to be culturally partially creolized?  You do know that many Indians will claim that you aren't "Indian enough".  The ones who you derisively call "gold teeth".

FM
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
.

As for the Indo KKK group. .

I call a spade where I see it.  You reduce Caribbean blacks to an inconsequential people with no culture or identity and so how does that make you different from a Ravi Dev?

 

And where does that leave some one like you who isn't a Hindu and who mightn't have a lot in common with some Bhojpuri speaking peasant from the Corentyne whose mouth has several gold teeth?  You know the ones who you love to laugh at, and will probably in turn tell you that you aren't a proper Indian.

FM
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
.

I'm sorry your feelings were hurt by an inelegant ..

My feelings weren't hurt.  All that happened was that you revealed yourself to be in the same class with yuji, rev, Nehru and the other racist clowns on GNI.

 

I thank you for this.

 

Were you not a racist you would have made your point differently.  You do know that Indian fundamentalists don't particularly care for Indian Catholics which I am told that you are.

FM
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
.would of course invent a lengthy defense of how monkey culture is equally valid to people culture and how bananas are just part of the staple diet like beef wellington to the Englishman

Wow and his descent into bigotry continues. Now Caribbean culture is monkey culture.  All because I suggested to him that Tobagonians have a culture and an identity and have as much right to seek to preserve it as he does.

 

 

Hmmmm.  OK so here is the deal.  You have some British ancestry and are  Christian.  You might even be more creolized than you are Indo Caribbean in cultural orientation.  So you feel that you must prove to yourself by becoming super Indian.

 

David Hinds risked his life and limb in the Burnham era to fight against the dictatorship of that regime and for the rights for Indians to be treated as equals.  He now sees Africans being treated under the Jagdeo/Ramotar regime the way that he saw Indians being treated under the Burnham regime, so speaks out.

 

Like all true racists, who are hostile to blacks, you deny us the right to speak out, even as you retain your right to protest.  So you can David Hinds a racist.  This a man who cold easily have played the game during the Burnham regime and escaped the beatings and torture to which he was subjugated to.

 

The reason why Indo Caribbean people are often left out of West Indian intellectual discourse is because you EXCLUDE yourselves.  Much of this conversation is built around developing and retaining the various Caribbean identities.  So if you deny that there is a valid set of Caribbean identities then how can you scream when you aren't included in those who believe that there is?  How does that help you build bridges so that you can be included in this discourse?

 

If you wish to be respected by people and included in their conversation, you have to give them respect.  But you deride them using the same stereotypes as did those who formerly colonized them. So why the shock if they wonder about whether you want to be included in this Caribbean space.

 

And there is a Caribbean space, whether you recognize its validity or not.  You can be part of it, bringing focus to the fact that there are MANY Caribbean identities, and not just one. Or you can pout and whine that you are excluded from that space much as India also excludes you from theirs.

FM
Originally Posted by caribny:
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
.

I'm sorry your feelings were hurt by an inelegant ..

My feelings weren't hurt.  All that happened was that you revealed yourself to be in the same class with yuji, rev, Nehru and the other racist clowns on GNI.

 

I thank you for this.

 

Were you not a racist you would have made your point differently.  You do know that Indian fundamentalists don't particularly care for Indian Catholics which I am told that you are.

 

If you read carefully you may find a constant theme of my postings is that I equally murder everyone's sacred cows. I'm not politically correct. I think that's one of the worse habits of the current era.

 

Why must we all get together in huge circle jerk sessions so that no one feels insulted or has their feelings hurt?

 

I'm happy in my current group consisting only of me. I brook no love for the gold teeth brigade nor do I care for the rabid lefty nonsense of blacks like you who think you have some special super powers to stretch the English language to accomodate your fluid and opportunistic definition of racism. Racism is not defined as "stuff Caribny disagrees with."

 

I remain as always indifferent as to what ideologues of any stripe think, be they Hindu or Black.

FM
Originally Posted by caribny:
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
.would of course invent a lengthy defense of how monkey culture is equally valid to people culture and how bananas are just part of the staple diet like beef wellington to the Englishman

Wow and his descent into bigotry continues. Now Caribbean culture is monkey culture.  All because I suggested to him that Tobagonians have a culture and an identity and have as much right to seek to preserve it as he does.

 

 

Hmmmm.  OK so here is the deal.  You have some British ancestry and are  Christian.  You might even be more creolized than you are Indo Caribbean in cultural orientation.  So you feel that you must prove to yourself by becoming super Indian.

 

David Hinds risked his life and limb in the Burnham era to fight against the dictatorship of that regime and for the rights for Indians to be treated as equals.  He now sees Africans being treated under the Jagdeo/Ramotar regime the way that he saw Indians being treated under the Burnham regime, so speaks out.

 

Like all true racists, who are hostile to blacks, you deny us the right to speak out, even as you retain your right to protest.  So you can David Hinds a racist.  This a man who cold easily have played the game during the Burnham regime and escaped the beatings and torture to which he was subjugated to.

 

The reason why Indo Caribbean people are often left out of West Indian intellectual discourse is because you EXCLUDE yourselves.  Much of this conversation is built around developing and retaining the various Caribbean identities.  So if you deny that there is a valid set of Caribbean identities then how can you scream when you aren't included in those who believe that there is?  How does that help you build bridges so that you can be included in this discourse?

 

If you wish to be respected by people and included in their conversation, you have to give them respect.  But you deride them using the same stereotypes as did those who formerly colonized them. So why the shock if they wonder about whether you want to be included in this Caribbean space.

 

And there is a Caribbean space, whether you recognize its validity or not.  You can be part of it, bringing focus to the fact that there are MANY Caribbean identities, and not just one. Or you can pout and whine that you are excluded from that space much as India also excludes you from theirs.

 

HOLY BRAHMANICAL COW!

 

You actually drew a straight line from a joke about actual monkeys to Caribbean Blacks. You are one paranoid negro bai.

 

It was only some time after I posted that remark in jest that something said "you know if Carib Beer really wants to go nuts, he might just say you're insinuating blacks are monkeys." I didn't wanna believe you're so paranoid and NUTS so I left it there. And here we are. Shaitain calls black people monkeys. Jesus!

 

Just so you know I really was talking about real monkeys. There was no hidden meaning.

 

I am very creolized. As is my family. I feel zero desire to be a "super Indian." Hell, I feel little desire to be any type of Indian or whatever. I am what I am. You're really grasping by trying to do some amateur psychoanalysis via GNI. Ad hominen attacks are usually not the tool of choice for intelligent discourse. I'm sure you have other more powerful weapons to call upon.

 

I made a passing reference to David Hinds. Apart from your untrue assumptions, I happen to read and agree with much of what he writes and says. And I admire him greatly. I don't recall ever calling Hinds a racist? Again, you and your assumptions.

 

The rest is just emotional hyperbolic nonsense I'm too lazy to answer.

FM
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
Racism is not defined as "stuff Caribny disagrees with."

 

 

Apparently it is what Shaitaan disagrees with.

 

Continue to portray black caribbean people as a cultureless people who only a flag, beat on garbage, and who dont have anything worthwhile. 

FM
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
.

 

HOLY BRAHMANICAL COW!

 

You actually drew a straight line from a joke about actual monkeys to Caribbean Blacks. You are one paranoid negro bai.

 

.

Would you connect yourself to a monkey culture, even though in your ancestral land monkeys are worshipped?

FM
Originally Posted by caribny:
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
Racism is not defined as "stuff Caribny disagrees with."

 

 

Apparently it is what Shaitaan disagrees with.

 

Continue to portray black caribbean people as a cultureless people who only a flag, beat on garbage, and who dont have anything worthwhile. 

 

LOL...you know bai, you remind me of a sainted chap I once knew. It was Day 1 of Army training and I was battle buddies with dis obnoxious negro from Jamaica. Whole regiment and I get the one caribbean negro that hated coolies. Within weeks we became the closest of friends, closer than even my own brother. We did indeed have a similar culture, humor, and tastes.

 

I don't know why you reminded me of this chap but I suspect if you and I wade through the caricatures and the politics, I think we'd find we had a lot in common.

FM
Originally Posted by caribny:
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
.

 

HOLY BRAHMANICAL COW!

 

You actually drew a straight line from a joke about actual monkeys to Caribbean Blacks. You are one paranoid negro bai.

 

.

Would you connect yourself to a monkey culture, even though in your ancestral land monkeys are worshipped?

 

It was a joke about monkeys you nut. It had nothing to do with blacks. It was not some veiled metaphor. It's just the way I talk.

FM
Originally Posted by Shaitaan:
 

I am very creolized. .

So you are not a true Indian and are even on GNI derided as such by those who see themselves as being less "culturally contaminated".  Surely those from India would also hold this view, and will not let you into their family.  That is of course when Punjabi, Bengalis and others arent fighting amongst each other.

 

So why your rant about the great "Indian civilization" to denigrate the fact that Tobagonians see themselves as having a culture and an identity which is separate from Trinidad?

 

You are a creature of the caribbean culture which you deride.  You wouldnt be you if you didnt grow up within a Caribbean cultural context.

 

YOU ought to be the one championing a multi cultural society where cultures exist side by side, but also blend, and that those who exist in that nation can, and should have free abilities to exist within what ever cultural continuum they wish.  Now this is what I advocate, yet you brand me a racist.

 

YOU should advocate that YOU have a right to have an identity as an Indo Guyanese, even though you might be culturally more akin to Afro Guyanese, and belong to what most Guyanese Indians will consider to be a white man's religion.  YOU have every right to select what is available on Guyana's cultural menu, and to reject what doesnt suit you, and adapt what ever identity that you wish.

 

Shaitaan, you see this India centered NATIONHOOD that you advocate, DOES NOT INCLUDE YOU! 

 

Without irony, when the Indocentrists reject you its the same monkey culture people who will adopt you, because they do not place demands on you as to what your cultural mix ought to be.  Because one thing about creole culture is that it draws from many others, is fluid and doesnt set boundaries, so it usually accepts people as they are.

FM

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