Gbaji wrote:
You were the one who made the correlation between someone buying goods at a "black store" to buying "black music". I'm the one who's been saying all along that those are two completely different things. Congratulations for finally seeing why I started out saying that your argument was "irrelevant". Remember?
My God, how do you confuse yourself with your own arguments. I told you (which I can quote if you would like) that a black store caters to black people with black products. This is when you went on your label rant.
STOP HERE, Transition in argument
At this time, I responded to your label argument. In reference to labels and only labels to things such as "black music". This had nothing to do with black stores, but a response to YOUR label argument.
Gbaji wrote:
Yes. Congratulations. Do you see now why responding to my point about how it's wrong to buy something to support a race with "but what about buying black music" and "but what about eating Chinese food" is completely irrelevant and completely misses the point I was making?
Remember, you were the one who brought these things up, not me. If they are unrelated, then that's your fault, not mine. I tried to tell you repeatedly that what you were saying had nothing to do with what I was saying.
Remember, you were the one who brought these things up, not me. If they are unrelated, then that's your fault, not mine. I tried to tell you repeatedly that what you were saying had nothing to do with what I was saying.
Read above.
Gbaji wrote:
This is also irrelevant, but for the record, when we speak of black gospel music (ie: music sung in "black churches"), we're not really talking about the sound of the people's voices, are we? It's a style of singing.
It's relevant because the sound is different. Even if you were to try to imitate the style, it will still sound different. Your criteria was based using labels that make actual distinctions and not distinctions solely to segregate. Well, if only black people naturally makes a particular sound in music, then that is an actual distinction.
Gbaji wrote:
Except you just pointed out that one of the biggest rap musicians is white. That means that the label "black music" when applied to rap isn't about segregation, but is about a style of music (personally, I don't know anyone who calls that black music anyway, but you're the one who used the term, not me).
You don't know anyone who calls it black music because you probably don't know any black people, hence how you probably don't know what you're talking about.
This whole time, you have made up theories that you believe are going on and I've denied those theories from the start. Why you constantly continue to argue them is beyond me.
Gbaji wrote:
When you refer to the "black community", are you speaking of a community of people who might just happen to be black? Or are you speaking of black people as a whole, with an assumption that they share common needs and goals and should work together for common purpose and "help each other out", because they are all black. Does a white person living in a predominantly black neighborhood become part of this "black community", or not?
Do you see why those are different things?
Do you see why those are different things?
I can quote my answers if you like, but I've already stated to you that both occur. You first have the local argument, which includes EVERY race in a predominantly black neighborhood and you have the national argument that includes statistics that heavily affect black Americans, i.e sickle cell.
Do you see the difference? You're combining two things into one argument.
Gbaji wrote:
It doesn't offend me so much as I see it as a harmful self-labeling. And lest you forget from a paragraph or two ago, this isn't just about labeling something "black". It's about labeling it that way specifically to differentiate the race of a person for the purpose of identifying and targeting that person for different socio-economic treatment. There's a difference between calling rap music "black music" or a do rag part of "black clothes" and choosing to buy those things because you like the music or the style of clothes and calling a store a "black store" because it's owned by a black person and buying stuff there because that person is black and you want to help him out financially.
It will sink in when you stop attaching stuff that I'm not referring to. NO ONE IS CALLING A STORE BLACK TO SUPPORT SOMEONE FINANCIALLY. I've told you that a million times. My label question had nothing to do with black stores, I even told you that in the last post and you STILL are talking about black stores.
I explicitly told you that I'm talking about the existence of racial labels on things such as food and music. You don't think having the words "Japanese" besides sushi increases business? If not, then why is it there? It's doing the same exact thing that you're arguing against. It's creating an unnecessary segregation.
Gbaji wrote:
No. I'm arguing one point and one point only. You keep introducing other things that have nothing at all to do with that point and insisting that I respond to them. It's frankly hilarious that you recognize that we're arguing two completely different topics, but that you don't seem to realize that the second topic is the one you generated all on your own and which has nothing at all to do with the one I was talking about.
This is why I keep dismissing your questions as irrelevant.
This is why I keep dismissing your questions as irrelevant.
Read my first response in this post.
We "concluded" the argument about black communities and who that all consist of, that it's based on who is helping you and not necessarily on race.
You were the one who made an argument about labels.
I countered your argument on labels.
Instead of you talking about racial labels on music and food, you revert back to the other comments on black neighborhoods and stores, asking the same questions that I already answered and you already AGREED on.
Gbaji wrote:
Um... No. I'm trying to keep the topic on the one point. You keep trying to argue a second topic on which we don't disagree. The only thing I can figure out is that you're arguing that since it's possible for labels to exist which reference race but which are not used for racial discrimination, that all labels which reference race are completely fine. To support this, you keep tossing out non-discriminatory labels containing race and saying "but why don't you oppose this?".
That's irrelevant. No amount of showing labels which aren't discriminatory proves that no labels are. You need to look at the examples I have given and which I argue are discriminatory uses of racial labels and decide if you agree or disagree. But instead, you just keep going off on new tangents.
That's irrelevant. No amount of showing labels which aren't discriminatory proves that no labels are. You need to look at the examples I have given and which I argue are discriminatory uses of racial labels and decide if you agree or disagree. But instead, you just keep going off on new tangents.
Dear Gbaji from Fantasy Land,
All racial labels are discriminatory.
sincerely,
Almalieque from the Real World.
Gbaji wrote:
Holy cow! You used the term in the context of speaking about "helping out" members of your own race. You were very clearly speaking of a "black owned store". WTF?
It doesn't matter who owns the store in your community, as long as you support it. I've said that numerous times and I can quote that. I used racial talk, because in reality, chances are that person will be the same race as you. People are not going to buy something from someone just because the owner is of another race. I pointed out that the Koreans dominate the black hair business.
You created a nonexistent argument and now you've gone too far to end it with no relevance.
Gbaji wrote:
This isn't about knowing anything about an ethnicity, although it's telling that you think it is. It's about parsing language. You were not speaking about buying "black clothes" or "black music" when you said that. You were speaking about black people keeping their purchasing within black owned businesses in order to help make black people more prosperous. You argued this very point quite strongly. It was only when I disagreed and pointed out the racist aspects of that sort of behavior when you switched to arguing about black products like Jet magazine, and do rags, and whatnot.
So basically, being ignorant as you are, you made an assumption about something you don't know about and was wrong. Instead of just saying "My bad, I thought you meant this..." you refuse to accept my argument as original and claimed that I "switched" it.
It all makes sense now..
Gabji wrote:
You created that second topic. Not me. I've attempted to stay on the topic of whether it's ok for members of a racial group to choose to financially help out other members of their own group because they want to make that group more prosperous relative to others. That's the topic I'm talking about. I don't know why you keep bringing up things that have nothing to do with that.
Read above.
That wasn't a "second topic", it was the original topic. I made an assumption that you knew what you were talking about, then I had to spell it out to you. It's all the same argument. The second topic came along when you brought up how wrong racial labels are.
Do you understand now?