A New National Anthem???

[oliegirl]

After reading a thread about the "Black National Anthem" (also known as "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing") by James Weldon Johnson, I was curious. Why does the African American community feel it's necessary to have their own National Anthem? From my perspective, when they fought for civil rights, they were fighting to be treated as Americans like every one else and not have their freedoms taken away...so once they received that and they won the fight (as they should have, that was a dark part of American History), why would they, as a community, want to segregate themselves?

This is not the first time I have had this thought. I think the first time was in college when I was active in Greek Life...we held our Greek Week and invited all the "Black" organizations to participate, and even though they never did, we included their letters on all the shirts, etc...for the event. After Greek Week was over, a "Black Greek Week" would be held. Totally separate events, parties, everything, and the other fraternities and sororities were not invited and not included on their shirts, cups, hats, etc...

I am not trying to start a fight or anger people, I am just curious as to why this occurs and why the African American community thinks it's necessary. Also, is this a form of reverse racism?

These are the lyrics to the song. FYI - I found these by googling "Black National Anthem" and clicking on the first result that came up. hxxp://www.black-network.com/anthem.htm


Lift ev'ry voice and sing,
Till earth and heaven ring.
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise,
High as the list'ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast'ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet,
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might,
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee,
Shadowed beneath thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.

[Franklinnoble]

I think we need a white national anthem.

[Desnudo]

Originally Posted by Franklinnoble

I think we need a white national anthem.

There already is one

[Klinglerware]

Originally Posted by Desnudo

There already is one

Yeah, the one about the bombs with the tune stolen from an English drinking song...

[Subby]

Define "African American Community" first.

[oliegirl]

Originally Posted by Subby

Define "African American Community" first.

Well, I guess it would be the politicians and activists who come up with ideas like the "Black National Anthem", and then it would include the people who buy into the idea and feel it's a good thing.

I had a hard time writing my post, I was trying to be very PC and not offend anyone, because that is not my intention, I truly am curious about this, however it's a very non-PC topic. If it's rambling or incoherent, that is why

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Desnudo

There already is one

Yes, yes- because everything this country has is white unless it's convenient for someone else to use it.

SI

[Subby]

I think you are making a leap of logic when you attribute the actions of a few "politicians and leaders" and their supporters to the entire African American community feeling it is necessary to have their own national anthem.

I don't know - the whole thing seems pretty harmless to me...

Your point about separatism in the greek system - now *that* is a good topic. That always bothered me.

[oliegirl]

Originally Posted by Subby

I think you are making a leap of logic when you attribute the actions of a few "politicians and leaders" and their supporters to the entire African American community feeling it is necessary to have their own national anthem.

I don't know - the whole thing seems pretty harmless to me...

Your point about separatism in the greek system - now *that* is a good topic. That always bothered me.

I see your point, but in my mind, they are the same...just on a different scale. I don't see much difference between having 2 anthems and having 2 greek weeks. Just one is viewed on a national level, and one on a school by school level. But it's 2 symptoms of the same thing - a group of Americans feeling that they, for whatever reason, need to segregate themselves by having their own "whatever", be it a week of celebration, a song, etc...

[John Galt]

Originally Posted by oliegirl

I see your point, but in my mind, they are the same...just on a different scale. I don't see much difference between having 2 anthems and having 2 greek weeks. Just one is viewed on a national level, and one on a school by school level. But it's 2 symptoms of the same thing - a group of Americans feeling that they, for whatever reason, need to segregate themselves by having their own "whatever", be it a week of celebration, a song, etc...

Could it be that they already feel excluded and segragated against, so they decide to pursue separation on their own terms? In other words, if you feel American culture doesn't include you, you might want to start working on developing your own culture (instead of being defined simply as "different" or "out of the mainstream).

[MJ4H]

Originally Posted by Klinglerware

Yeah, the one about the bombs with the tune stolen from an English drinking song...

Many national anthems are "stolen" if this is what you mean by "stolen."

[Flasch186]

it was the same at my school I didn't and don't understand it considering the fight for equality. If they feel segregated against our downtrodden I say fight harder, fight more, fight louder, fight, fight fight....nonviolent of course I feel that everyone should be equal and hate it when one group no matter whom chooses to pull out of the equality thing.

[maximus]

Originally Posted by oliegirl

After reading a thread about the "Black National Anthem" (also known as "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing") by James Weldon Johnson, I was curious. Why does the African American community feel it's necessary to have their own National Anthem? From my perspective, when they fought for civil rights, they were fighting to be treated as Americans like every one else and not have their freedoms taken away...so once they received that and they won the fight (as they should have, that was a dark part of American History), why would they, as a community, want to segregate themselves?

This is not the first time I have had this thought. I think the first time was in college when I was active in Greek Life...we held our Greek Week and invited all the "Black" organizations to participate, and even though they never did, we included their letters on all the shirts, etc...for the event. After Greek Week was over, a "Black Greek Week" would be held. Totally separate events, parties, everything, and the other fraternities and sororities were not invited and not included on their shirts, cups, hats, etc...

I am not trying to start a fight or anger people, I am just curious as to why this occurs and why the African American community thinks it's necessary. Also, is this a form of reverse racism?

These are the lyrics to the song. FYI - I found these by googling "Black National Anthem" and clicking on the first result that came up. hxxp://www.black-network.com/anthem.htm


Lift ev'ry voice and sing,
Till earth and heaven ring.
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise,
High as the list'ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast'ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet,
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might,
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee,
Shadowed beneath thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.

No offense to black people but they are segregating themselves eveday but yet they oppose segregation.

BET Channel
Black Stars channel
All black colleges
All black churches (yes, I have actually seen this)
*A few others I can think of right now as I haven't spelt for 24 hrs*
"African American" - this one really confuses me. If you are born here (in the US) then you are an American not African. If they want to go that route then I want to be refered to as a Serbian-English Amercian and if not - I will cry racism.

[Flasch186]

.....ALthough it is important to keep your heritage.....diversity is what makes America better than any other country in the world, IMO.

[QuikSand]

I think it's really difficult for any one person to try and make a judgment about what is right for all people to do to reflect and respect their cultural hertage.

[Subby]

Originally Posted by maximus

No offense to black people but they are segregating themselves eveday but yet they oppose segregation.

BET Channel
Black Stars channel
All black colleges
All black churches (yes, I have actually seen this)
*A few others I can think of right now as I haven't spelt for 24 hrs*
"African American" - this one really confuses me. If you are born here (in the US) then you are an American not African. If they want to go that route then I want to be refered to as a Serbian-English Amercian and if not - I will cry racism.

Yeah, those blacks should know better. Wise up, black people!

[rkmsuf]

Originally Posted by Subby

Yeah, those blacks should know better. Wise up, black people!

Fight the Power!

Word to Yo Mutha.

That WB is killin you mo fos.

[John Galt]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

it was the same at my school I didn't and don't understand it considering the fight for equality. If they feel segregated against our downtrodden I say fight harder, fight more, fight louder, fight, fight fight....nonviolent of course I feel that everyone should be equal and hate it when one group no matter whom chooses to pull out of the equality thing.

It is not just about equality, though. I don't know anything about the specifics of the national anthem discussion, so let me offer examples with which I am more familiar.

Gays in America have long felt like outsiders. So much so that they have remained in the closet until very recently (and many still do). However, some gays actually decided the best way to confront prejudice was to "queer" it. This is the source of what gay academics call Queer Theory (QT). They believed that embracing the flamboyant, "out" gay image was a necessary step in escaping the closet. They tried to turn a negative into a postive.

Feminists on the other hand have rarely tried to "queer" the stereotypes applied to women. Generally, they have opposed efforts to inflict patriarchal norms on them.

Both the gay and feminist strategies have had success (and both have triggered backlash as well). However, the common strain in each is a measure of separatism. Feminists felt it was necessary to have "private" space for women to discover what being female was about. Simply being "not men" was insufficient. Similarly, some gays felt having gay pride and strong communities was a way to make their political presence known. Otherwise, they feared they would spend decades more in the closet.

Neither agenda was opposed to equality, but both recognized that the battle over culture was important (and not just the battle over laws).

edit: I'm a slow typer sometimes and I see this thread is going in VERY different directions. Oh well.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by maximus

No offense to black people but they are segregating themselves eveday but yet they oppose segregation.

That's an easy one -- "they" aren't as opposed to "elective segregation" as some outlets would have you believe.

The difference is that if you're white & choose "elective segregation" then you're deemed racist. Any other race/ethnicity and you're just "celebrating your cultural heritage".

[Klinglerware]

Originally Posted by MattJones4Heisman

Many national anthems are "stolen" if this is what you mean by "stolen."

Very true. But I guess that if we were going to borrow the tune from another song, we could have at least taken something a little more dignified. The original song has long since been shrouded by the mists of time, so it has little meaning for us today. But to put in perspective, if the same thing were to happen today, I guess it would be akin to a new nation setting the words to their newly written anthem to the "Meow Mix" jingle or something.

[HomerJSimpson]

I thought we had a spanish national anthem.

"Jose, can you see?"

[Schmidty]

There are so many things I want to say in this thread, but I don't need the headache that would occur if I said them.

[JPhillips]

The difference is that if you're white & choose "elective segregation" then you're deemed racist. Any other race/ethnicity and you're just "celebrating your cultural heritage".

I heard this from a guy in Little Italy during the St. Patrick's Day parade while riding on his Highland games float.

[Blackadar]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

I heard this from a guy in Little Italy during the St. Patrick's Day parade while riding on his Highland games float.

That had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer...

[Greyroofoo]

I am against this idea because one national anthem at a sports game is enough to sit through

[oliegirl]

Originally Posted by maximus

No offense to black people but they are segregating themselves eveday but yet they oppose segregation.

BET Channel
Black Stars channel
All black colleges
All black churches (yes, I have actually seen this)
*A few others I can think of right now as I haven't spelt for 24 hrs*
"African American" - this one really confuses me. If you are born here (in the US) then you are an American not African. If they want to go that route then I want to be refered to as a Serbian-English Amercian and if not - I will cry racism.

I think this pretty much is how I feel...they fought so hard to be equal, but now they are trying to set themselves apart. Yes, slavery was wrong - but no one alive today ever owned a slave (or the number is so few they aren't countable), so why are we as white americans still forced to apologize for mistakes that happened in the past? No black/African American person today was owned (again, or the number is so low...) so why do they feel that this is still a point of argument and hold onto it? If I had something that ugly in my past, I'd want to let go of it and move on...the German's don't keep dredging up Hitler and reliving that part of their history, do they? Do the Italians still discuss Mussolini on a daily basis and rehash it all? There are many other groups of people who were treated just as badly - the Japanese during the war, the Irish Americans, etc...yet they have all seemed, as a community, to have moved on. There may be Japanese churches, but that is because they are speaking a different language and praying to a totally different God. Why are there "black" churches and "white" churches? I just think that if they want to be treated equally and fairly, then there has to be less self-imposed segregation. I am not saying don't celebrate and imbrace the diversity which makes America so wonderful, I am just saying don't think that diversity makes us so different that we are inherently different.

[Klinglerware]

Originally Posted by oliegirl

I think this pretty much is how I feel...they fought so hard to be equal, but now they are trying to set themselves apart.

The fact that you are making assumptions about all black people and lumping them all together because of one song that one person wrote (and one that very few people have actually heard of) perhaps suggests that black people are still not viewed as individuals by the country at large...

[oliegirl]

Originally Posted by Klinglerware

The fact that you are making assumptions about all black people and lumping them all together because of one song that one person wrote (and one that very few people have actually heard of) perhaps suggests that black people are still not viewed as individuals by the country at large...

No, I said earlier that in this post I considered the Black Community (aka "them or they") to be to the political leaders who thought this was necessary and the people who chose to agree with them and follow their lead. I never lumped all black people together and went out of my way to say I was avoiding doing so.

[Klinglerware]

Originally Posted by oliegirl

No, I said earlier that in this post I considered the Black Community (aka "them or they") to be to the political leaders who thought this was necessary and the people who chose to agree with them and follow their lead. I never lumped all black people together and went out of my way to say I was avoiding doing so.

Okay, fair enough. But why assume that just because one black guy wrote some song, he is the voice of the "Black Community" (whatever that means)? Remember the thread about the White Power twelve year old singers from a few days ago? Nobody in the mainstream considers them the voice of the "White Community", and laugh off any possible influence they may have. I doubt that this anthem is any more mainstream in the black community (or else more people would have heard about this before), so I don't see what the concern is all about...

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Klinglerware

I doubt that this anthem is any more mainstream in the black community (or else more people would have heard about this before), so I don't see what the concern is all about...

I dunno, I've heard of it in the past.
And a quick Google turns up 633,000 hits for "Black National Anthem", among them, a link to the lyrics as they were recognized by the state of Florida as part of Black History Month.

So it doesn't appear to be that obscure.

[Klinglerware]

Jon,

Your assertion is fair that the "Black National Anthem" is probably not as obscure as I think it is.

But what does a google search hit count prove? Google "White power music", you get 17,900,000 hits. Hell, typing in "Jon In Middle GA" yields 6,490,000 hits...

[yabanci]

Originally Posted by oliegirl

.... From my perspective, when they fought for civil rights, they were fighting to be treated as Americans like every one else and not have their freedoms taken away...so once they received that and they won the fight (as they should have, that was a dark part of American History), why would they, as a community, want to segregate themselves?.....

It sounds like you are assuming that this is a recent thing, when in fact it originated in 1900.

Lift Every Voice and Sing — often called "the Black National Anthem" — was written as a poem by James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) and then set to music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954) in 1899. It was first performed in public in the Johnsons' hometown of Jacksonville, Florida as part of a celebration of Lincoln's Birthday on February 12, 1900 by a choir composed of 500 schoolchildren at the segregated Stanton School, where James Weldon Johnson was principal.

Singing this song quickly became a way for African Americans to demonstrate their patriotism and hope for the future. In calling for earth and heaven to "ring with the harmonies of Liberty," they could subtly speak out against racism and Jim Crow laws — and especially the huge number of lynchings that were accompanying the rise of the Ku Klux Klan at the turn of the century. In 1919, the NAACP adopted the song as "the Negro National Anthem." By the 1920s, copies of "Lift Every Voice and Sing" could be found in black churches across the country, often pasted into the hymnals.

During and after the Civil rights movement, the song experienced a rebirth, and by the 1970s it was often sung immediately after the Star Spangled Banner at public events and performances in cities and towns across the United States with a significant African-American population.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift_Every_Voice_and_Sing

[Klinglerware]

Thank for the post, Yabanci. You learn something new every day. I guess this is something that can be considered "tradition" and "honoring the past" then...

Singing this song quickly became a way for African Americans to demonstrate their patriotism and hope for the future. In calling for earth and heaven to "ring with the harmonies of Liberty," they could subtly speak out against racism and Jim Crow laws — and especially the huge number of lynchings that were accompanying the rise of the Ku Klux Klan at the turn of the century. In 1919, the NAACP adopted the song as "the Negro National Anthem." By the 1920s, copies of "Lift Every Voice and Sing" could be found in black churches across the country, often pasted into the hymnals.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Klinglerware

Jon,

Your assertion is fair that the "Black National Anthem" is probably not as obscure as I think it is.

But what does a google search hit count prove? Google "White power music", you get 17,900,000 hits. Hell, typing in "Jon In Middle GA" yields 6,490,000 hits...

If I'm getting that many Google hits, with the phrase inside quotation marks, I really got raise my rates for appearances

[Klinglerware]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

If I'm getting that many Google hits, with the phrase inside quotation marks, I really got raise my rates for appearances

Heh, heh, my bad. Let's put in the quotes:

"Black National Anthem": 4,690
"white power music": 9,850
"JonInMiddleGa": 28

I guess you aren't as influential as I thought

[Pumpy Tudors]

Originally Posted by maximus

No offense to black people but they are segregating themselves eveday but yet they oppose segregation.

BET Channel
Black Stars channel
All black colleges
All black churches (yes, I have actually seen this)
"African American" - this one really confuses me. If you are born here (in the US) then you are an American not African. If they want to go that route then I want to be refered to as a Serbian-English Amercian and if not - I will cry racism.

There are a lot of points in this thread, and I can't address them all, but let me try to tackle the above point from my perspective.

First of all, there's a big difference between the phrase "all black colleges" and "historically black college." Nobody is going to be excluded from a historically black college because of their ethnicity. I would imagine that the same is true of churches, although I can't verify that.

As far as TV networks are concerned, it seems pretty clear to me that these are created to provide entertainment to people who are interested in seeing and supporting projects that feature black participants. Personally, it doesn't matter to me whether the director or the actors are black, but there are a lot of black people who feel that this type of programming comes from a more familiar perspective. I don't think it has anything to do with black people wanting to separate from everybody else. It's just to provide around-the-clock entertainment that has been slow to break into other television networks.

Are people really offended by the concept, or are they offended by the name? Does the name "Black Stars Channel" offend people because there would be a huge uproar about a "White Stars Channel"? Would this really be an issue if there just happened to be a television network that just happened to show Jason's Lyric followed by Poetic Justice followed by Juice, but there was absolutely no indication in the network's name that there would be a lot of programming with a high concentration of black culture? I think people who don't care for that programming just wouldn't watch and there wouldn't be many complaints. Am I just being naive here?

As far as the phrase "African-American", some people like to be referred to in different ways. I don't think the term itself is offensive, and it appears to me that the real problem is that other people don't know which term to use. I can see a white person thinking "Does he want to be called 'African-American'? Does he want to be called 'black'? Does he want to be called something else? Why do I have to walk on eggshells around this guy?" Those are valid concerns to me, but a lot of the complaints end up sounding like "Why don't those people just PICK A NAME?" Of course, considering that we're all individuals, there's not going to be some name that we can all just agree to. After all, you might meet four people named Robert, but you might find that you could have to use "Robert", "Rob", "Bob", and "Scooter" to get polite responses from all of them.

As far as the accuracy of the term "African-American" goes, well, that seems to be a related but ultimately separate discussion.

[Buccaneer]

Well said, Scooter.

[Klinglerware]

Originally Posted by Pumpy Tudors

First of all, there's a big difference between the phrase "all black colleges" and "historically black college." Nobody is going to be excluded from a historically black college because of their ethnicity.

Very true point on historically black colleges. In fact, there has been an institutional push at some of these schools to be more diverse. I do remember a 60 minutes (or whatever) story about how some of these schools actually have scholarship programs aimed at non-African American students. There have even been charges that at some schools, white applicants are admitted (or are offered scholarships) with a slightly lower academic profile than a typical african-american admit (I'm not sure on this point though--it might have been just to do with scholarships, ie, how black students did not have access to scholarships that white students with lower academic credentials got).

[Buccaneer]

As much as I believe in meritocracy, I encourage the support of HBCU.

[oliegirl]

Originally Posted by Pumpy Tudors

There are a lot of points in this thread, and I can't address them all, but let me try to tackle the above point from my perspective.

First of all, there's a big difference between the phrase "all black colleges" and "historically black college." Nobody is going to be excluded from a historically black college because of their ethnicity. I would imagine that the same is true of churches, although I can't verify that.

As far as TV networks are concerned, it seems pretty clear to me that these are created to provide entertainment to people who are interested in seeing and supporting projects that feature black participants. Personally, it doesn't matter to me whether the director or the actors are black, but there are a lot of black people who feel that this type of programming comes from a more familiar perspective. I don't think it has anything to do with black people wanting to separate from everybody else. It's just to provide around-the-clock entertainment that has been slow to break into other television networks.

Are people really offended by the concept, or are they offended by the name? Does the name "Black Stars Channel" offend people because there would be a huge uproar about a "White Stars Channel"? Would this really be an issue if there just happened to be a television network that just happened to show Jason's Lyric followed by Poetic Justice followed by Juice, but there was absolutely no indication in the network's name that there would be a lot of programming with a high concentration of black culture? I think people who don't care for that programming just wouldn't watch and there wouldn't be many complaints. Am I just being naive here?

As far as the phrase "African-American", some people like to be referred to in different ways. I don't think the term itself is offensive, and it appears to me that the real problem is that other people don't know which term to use. I can see a white person thinking "Does he want to be called 'African-American'? Does he want to be called 'black'? Does he want to be called something else? Why do I have to walk on eggshells around this guy?" Those are valid concerns to me, but a lot of the complaints end up sounding like "Why don't those people just PICK A NAME?" Of course, considering that we're all individuals, there's not going to be some name that we can all just agree to. After all, you might meet four people named Robert, but you might find that you could have to use "Robert", "Rob", "Bob", and "Scooter" to get polite responses from all of them.

As far as the accuracy of the term "African-American" goes, well, that seems to be a related but ultimately separate discussion.

OK- I guess in hindsight I should not have used the Black National Anthem as an example, it still intrigues me, but does not really coincide with the point I was trying to make. As subby stated early on, he too had experience with the greek week/black greek week issue. Can you explain that?

Why is it OK for a group of black students to decline an invitation to participate in an event called Greek Week with all the other fraternities and sororities, then within 2-3 weeks later throw their own celebration called Black Greek Week? If the Panhellenic Council of a school decided to not invite the black fraternities and sororities because they knew they would decline the invitation, and then call their celebration "White Greek Week" - there would be cries of racism and bigotry and the story would make national news. I just see it as a double standard.

[maximus]

IMO, anyone who is born in the US are just "American". But what is American really.(?) It is a mixture of races, cultures and ways of life. There are no "African-Americans" just like there isn't any Serbian-English Americans. If you are born in the US then you are an American. If you are born in Africa and then live in America (or become a US citizen) then you may be considered an African-American. Both my parents were born in different countries. My mother was born and raised in England and my father in Serbia. I don't go around telling everybody I am a Serbian-English American nor does anyone observe me that way even though I look european.

I refuse to call any black person an African American. If I start to do this I might as well start calling Jamaicans who live in the US "Jamaican-American" or a Japanese person who is a US citizen a "Japanese-American". Before you know it everyone will be labled a different name. I will not be aprt of that. It's an old saying but there is only one race and thats the human race. This is not to say I am against black people (or any other "race"). Actually I am far from it. I've dated black girls in high-school and one of them was a very serious.

[Pumpy Tudors]

Originally Posted by oliegirl

Why is it OK for a group of black students to decline an invitation to participate in an event called Greek Week with all the other fraternities and sororities, then within 2-3 weeks later throw their own celebration called Black Greek Week? If the Panhellenic Council of a school decided to not invite the black fraternities and sororities because they knew they would decline the invitation, and then call their celebration "White Greek Week" - there would be cries of racism and bigotry and the story would make national news. I just see it as a double standard.

For starters, I wasn't in a fraternity, so I don't even know what happens during a Greek Week. That means that I can only speculate about this. Anyway, I would imagine that Black Greek Week was celebrated in a fairly different way than Greek Week was. Perhaps the crowd that is inclined to show up at Black Greek Week wouldn't feel as comfortable or as entertained at Greek Week, expecting that a lot of the activities or music at Greek Week wouldn't really be aimed at their culture. I guess Black Greek Week is something that would appeal to the crowd that a Black Greek Week would attract.

Again, I'm only guessing here. Maybe the groups who declined to go to Greek Week did so because they really felt like Greek Week wouldn't be for them. Instead, they decided to create something that would be for them. As I mentioned earlier about the TV networks, it really seems that this has to do with the name. Instead of calling it "Black Greek Week", what if they had called it something that had no reference to "black" in it? What if they had called it "Boogie Week" with the same activities and music they'd had at Black Greek Week? Would anyone really care?

[Pumpy Tudors]

Originally Posted by maximus

IMO, anyone who is born in the US are just "American". But what is American really.(?) It is a mixture of races, cultures and ways of life. There are no "African-Americans" just like there isn't any Serbian-English Americans. If you are born in the US then you are an American. If you are born in Africa and then live in America (or become a US citizen) then you may be considered an African-American. Both my parents were born in different countries. My mother was born and raised in England and my father in Serbia. I don't go around telling everybody I am a Serbian-English American nor does anyone observe me that way even though I look european.

I refuse to call any black person an African American. If I start to do this I might as well start calling Jamaicans who live in the US "Jamaican-American" or a Japanese person who is a US citizen a "Japanese-American". Before you know it everyone will be labled a different name. I will not be aprt of that. It's an old saying but there is only one race and thats the human race. This is not to say I am against black people (or any other "race"). Actually I am far from it. I've dated black girls in high-school and one of them was a very serious.

I see where you're coming from, but can you see where it looks like you're projecting your feelings and ideals upon others? If you don't want to be called "Serbian-English-American", so be it. That doesn't mean that people who want to be called "African-American" shouldn't at least have other people consider respecting their wishes. Again, if you wish to argue the accuracy of that term, that's fine, but it's a different subject.

In addition, and correct me if I'm wrong, you also seem to be showing the attitude that I mentioned earlier. It's as if you want all black people to pick a term and go with it. We don't ALL want to be called "African-American." Hell, I don't care if you call me "African-American" or "black" or "negro" or "Hyacinth." It really doesn't matter to me, but not everybody feels that way. When you say that calling somebody an "African-American" might as well lead to you saying "Jamaican-American" or "Japanese-American", what does that really mean? Do you actually know people who want to be called "Jamaican-American" or "Japanese-American"? You're already bound to call some black people by terms they don't like, and now you're suggesting that if you did give in to them, you might as well go ahead and call Jamaicans and people of Japanese descent by names they don't like. Following that logic, you're following a pretty vicious circle there.

[Flasch186]

were the Non-bl;ack fraternities invited to black greek week? I think that would be silly if theyre not because I can tell you from experience that many times ethnic group's activities are much more fun than the "white" groups. For example, when I was in High School, I joined the black fraternity for a couple of reason: 1. they thought it was funny and so did I...but for me, more importantly 2. they did much cooler stuff.

[Danny]

Regarding not being willing to call someone African American, what happened to respect for individuals? If I know someone who would prefer that I refer to them as African American, I will do so out of respect to that person.

[Klinglerware]

As far as the Greek system goes, I would say that the separate Greek weeks are probably a by-product of historic exclusionary practices on the part of the established fraternities. It's obviously a lot better now, but before the 60s fraternities were not very welcoming to Jews and non-WASPs, let alone minorities. In his auto-biography, even Joe Paterno talks about not being admitted by one of the fraternities then at my alma mater back in the 40s because of his ethnicity.

These exclusionary practices probably led to the formation of "Black" fraternities in the first place. It is easily conceivable that seperate greek weeks are probably a lasting effect of the earlier discrimination. There probably isn't very much animosity between the "black" and "white" greek systems today, but the celebrations have long since evolved separately (i.e., they do different shit), so people don't seem to see a need to change things.

This reminds me of the phenomenon of seperate proms that still is going on in several high schools in the South. In almost every case, the school sanctioned prom is attended primarily by the non-white students, while white students plan their own prom off-site. I doubt that most of the white students consider this racist, but the attitude seems to be "well, this is always the way it's been, so no need to change things now". This is another example of (a) how self-segregation cuts both ways (b) it may not always be fair to criticize black people for segregating, when the roots of the segregation were in response to what white people were doing. For example white people were not letting black people into fraternities, so black people had to form their own; after public schools desegrated a lot of white students in the south fled to private schools, leaving school systems just as segregated as before. The whole prom thing is a manifestation of this too: how can you blame black people for the separate prom, when white students were the ones who deserted the real prom to organize their own?

[maximus]

Originally Posted by Danny Drickman

Regarding not being willing to call someone African American, what happened to respect for individuals? If I know someone who would prefer that I refer to them as African American, I will do so out of respect to that person.

I will not appease someone just to appease them. They are not African-American if they are born in the US. Is that too hard to understand?

[maximus]

Maybe we should all start calling white Africans American-African.

[Klinglerware]

Originally Posted by maximus

Maybe we should all start calling white Africans American-African.

Then your implication would be that "American = white". And most white citizens of African states are descendants of Europeans, not Americans...

[21C]

Originally Posted by maximus

No offense to black people but they are segregating themselves eveday but yet they oppose segregation.

BET Channel
Black Stars channel
All black colleges
All black churches (yes, I have actually seen this)
*A few others I can think of right now as I haven't spelt for 24 hrs*
"African American" - this one really confuses me. If you are born here (in the US) then you are an American not African. If they want to go that route then I want to be refered to as a Serbian-English Amercian and if not - I will cry racism.

I know it's a typo but I couldn't help smiling at this.