May 21, 2008
sorry its late….but here it is
I think its good that people were able to get jobs and become artists and what not, but there was one thing that struck me when i read “Getting By” in our class workshops.
Within this reading this black man was talking about blacks in general compared to whites. He was saying that blacks do not complain about any financial problems, and if anything they would complain or fight about women problems or random fights. The black men worked and would get $25 and then a white man would get $60 and yet the blacks were still just working and not complaining as much. The blacks never got mad about what food they were eating and the little things that were not worth complaining over. The whites on the other hand would complain when the wife came home with beans rather than steak.
This is all in my opinion, but its how i feel and i want people to know that im writing this in a general sense and not breaking the ethnic groups to the max. SO basically when i read this the thing that struck me was how things to me havnt changed. Especially when i look around at CSW. At this school it seems that the whites take a lot of stuff for granted. That seems harsh, but it is what it is. Obviously everyonnnnneeee complains at times, like when theres bad food for lunch not everyone wants to eat it, but when it comes to those other little things that are so easy to do or not do “whites” are the ones to like complain and what not. There are so many complaints that are just plain dumb have the time and its like how bout you suck it up and just do your work.
“The American white man has ben superior so long, he can’t figure out why he should come down.”(getting by)
(I don’t want it to seem like i hate white people because i mean i do have a white family but also its just the societys fault how things are now)!
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:43 am
Ella, when you say it’s “society’s fault” — what do you mean? How do you think society encourage this culture difference?
May 22nd, 2008 at 7:25 am
I think when people become superior and gain rich and power, they have highrer standard and start to demand for more.
Same thing happen in CSW, all the students and teachers are so rich(at least not like my old school), so we seldom recycle stuffs and we complain about the everything like food and stuff.
May 22nd, 2008 at 7:27 pm
ok this is a hard to explain.
like its never been that “blacks” have been on top or even any other race. like in manny’s capstone its a “White america.” since whites started on top and have remained there, they don’t seem to understand how to come down or how it actually is on that lower level. I also think that society encourages this difference because i rarely hear that there are many blacks being hired for a big company or being at the top of that companys organization. It’s basically the statistics say it all.
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:54 am
i’m not sure this is necessarily specific to race superiority, i think it applies to every category of people that is on top of a hierarchy. white people happen to be on top in terms of race, men with gender, rich people with class, and a cosequence of being on top is a lack of having to worry about the injustice that the other categories of the hierarchal pyramid under you are subject to. because all is well and good, as you said, they begin to raise the bar and they become not as easily satisfied. it’s sort of human nature, which sucks. that’s why there are all of those books that exist about there that has one character who’s very poor/opressed, but they are happier because their standard of happiness is just at the point of “lack of opression= happiness” and then there’s another a wealthy character who is never fully happy because they can never satisfy their wants. i don’t think this comment made any sense.
May 25th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
shit that comment has terrible incoherent grammar
May 25th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
I think i get part of what ur all saying and I think it’s true. Taking it out of racial terms an putting it into economic ones, I think that in our current society the poor man is more satisfied then the rich man because rich people have just gotten so high up but they’re always looking for more and there’s nowhere else to go. Poor people on the otherhand can be satisfied much more easily because they’re not used to any good shit happening to them so finally I have enough for a piece of bread and they can overjoyed. I feel this ‘unsatisfactory syndrome’ if you will, has been perpetuated into racial terms because white people have had superiority in this country from the beginning and oppressed the black people and so white people have climbed on top financially and not allowed Blacks to do many things so its not a level-playing field to begin with and thus the blacks end up in poverty. At this point the economic unsatisfactory syndrome sets in and the powerful white buisness leaders are complaining.
I realize though that this isn’t and shouldn’t be looked at as a solely economic problem because Blacks are oppressed in many things having nothing to do w/ their financial status (altho bad financial status is most likely the result of Racism that affected their family).
I’m starting to confuse (and probably contradict) myself now so i’m gonna stop.
I will say though just in response to Mewda that while I believe CSW students are privileged in having the amazing opportunity to go here, I don’t think it’s true at all that they or the teachers are really rich. The teachers really don’t get paid that much at all, and many of the students, including myself, are hardly rich and are lucky enough to be given finanical aid.
May 25th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
This is also really random but when I was reading Ella’s post, it reminded me alot of the summer reading book “All Souls” (which is so far really good!) but it’s really interesting because the author talks about the White people in the Old Colony projects in Southie and how they are some of the poorest white people in America and yet, they all judge and look down upon another nearby all-black project, and talk about all the horrible things that go on in the black project when the exact thing is happening in their white neighborhood.
And it’s just really interesting because their superiority complex reminded me of what Ella was saying because even though the people in Old Coloniy projects arn’t complaining about their own situation, they like to talk about and act better then that of the black people, while the same thing’s happening to them.