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Mon 29 May, 2006 05:39 pm
BEAR WTH ME - WHILE I GET THROUGH SOME STATISTICS HERE:
The largest numbers of groups of immigrants, and dates coming to
this country by dates, were:
1607 - 1830 Irish, Scotch, African ( abolition of slavery 1861 )
1830 - 1890 British and Irish (primarily white Europeans)
1851 - 1860 Chinese
1670 - 1830 Irish and Scotch
1890 - 1924 Italian, Asians, Russians, Greek, Slavic, Eastern European, Armenian
1941 Irish immigration skyrocketed because of the potato famine. Throughout all these years has been a steady immigration of Germans as well, beginning in 1608 with John Smith the co-founder of Jamestown VA. Today immigrants COULD go to countries like France, Japan and others, but the degree of racism, harassment, arrest & deportation back to where they came from ...makes it not really a viable idea. The Japanese people consider themselves racially, culturally elite & almost ZERO Japanese women marry outside their race, or if they do, they can't hold onto much hope of returning home to Japan. Now THIS is racism extreme. The Chinese Exclusions Act of 1882 meant that NO chinese laborers could immigrate to the US for 10 years. The act was renewed in 1892 for at least 10 years with NO END DATE. This was at last repealed in 1943 permitting the immigration of just 105 Chinese citizens PER YEAR. THIS is very racist considering the ability of other races immigrating to the US during these same years. After all, it was chinese laborchinese labor largely responsible for the labor in building that first intercontinental railroad. The Chinese Massacre of 1871 refers to a racially motivated riot in Oct 1871 when a mob of over 500 "whites" in Los Angeles led an attack on Chinatown, eventually murdering about 23 Chinese residents there. The riots took place on Calle de los Negros (colloquially known as Nigger Alley) which later became Los Angeles. Every Chinese-occupied building on the block was ransacked and almost every Chinese resident attacked and robbed. At the time, only 200 Chinese lived in Los Angeles. The CHINESE EXCLUSION ACT of 1882 was many years later, overturned, and since then people from so many more countries have entered the US and assimilated themselves into America.
People run here from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Phillipines, Vietnam and on and on. My basic question in this topic is WHY, out of ALL the vast numbers of nationalities, skin colors, religions, all of whom faced the same kind of initial discrimination during the early and difficult years of integrating and assimilating into American culture, black people came into America LONG before many of equally different ethnic, cultural & religious groups YET only black people seem to resist ANY KIND OF EFFORT OR DESIRE TO BE SIMPLY called AMERICAN. To NOT be like everybody else, insisting they are to be called "African American" To be American is not good enough? After a Civil War? It's downright disrespectful to a country that fought, bloodied many a field over the right to be free for a black man. Is this meant to display some resistance to assimilating and integrating into America as did every other group of different cultures do in the past? Out of all the other MUCH LARGER NUMBERS of ethnically, culturally vastly different, distinct members of American society not a single group has ever
resisted being assimilation into American society. I don't hear people being described as German Americans, Chinese Americans, Cuban Americans, Japanese Americans,( remember what the US did to Japenese Americans during WWII?) Phillipine Americans, Korean Americans, Indian Americans, Irish Americans, Vietnamese Americans ?? Do you? Can you
tell me one good reasons WHY this particular ethnic group of Americans desire to be separate, desire to be racist, and encourage the separation of their race from all others here? Continuing after all these years to disparage mixed marriages. Mixed marriages are now more discriminated against by the black community than by any other ethnic community discriminates against a black man/woman's wish to be married. LOVE must be respected and race must be left behind.
Comparing the length of time Africans have been part of this country
( free men as part of this country) I would expect such ethnic issues as these and all others to have been put to rest, as part of our country's ancient history ages ago. What reason is there for a particular ethnic group to discourage the becoming of part of what's long been known as the "great melting pot" of America? What benefits are there for one ethnic group to refuse to merge with their society? When in fact, t'was over the black people of this country was an entire civil war fought. White men fighting other white men (I know blacks wished to fight and were denied) Many of these ancient battlegrounds are now marked throughout the eastern part of this country. The men who fought this war; they were not arguing over who came from Germany, England or Ireland. These old battlefields are marked by old monuments, that testify to an American people who were willing to go to war over the American Constitution, over the right of freedom for everyone. These ancient fields of battle were once soaked in the blood of the white men. fighting for the right of all men (and
especially for black men) to be free. I'm not a racist but ever since I moved to the south, my children have gone to schools where THEY found themselves targets of ugly racist behavior by black children, and yes, of racist behavior by black teachers. I find this appalling. And it has only been slightly over 10 years since my youngest child graduated from high school. I am still not racist. But, I can't comprehend any logical, nor ethical reason for this. From the outside, it looks as though the primary reason for this is: THAT THIS IS THE ONE PARTICULAR, SPECIAL ETHNIC GROUP WHO WANTS & WHO DESIRES TO REAP SOME KIND OF REWARD, OR A SPECIAL TREATMENT BASED ON NOTHING MORE THAN COLOR. NEVER has this been done in American society. And I don't agree with it today. If the black people here do not want to be American ... why not go back to Africa where you can see the REAL, TRULY HONEST meaning of horrible discrimination, if you're not outright slaughtered just like those
'undesireable roaches" where 150,000 people were slaughtered before dawn in just the first day in the Rwanda struggle between the Tutsi and the
Hutu. In Rwanda, as in many of these countries, no black American would ever be considered a kind of desirable, pure race. There is no malice in my reasons for writing this post. I simply look at the timeline of all the countless ethinic groups who came to this country and, being new, were treated like crap until a newer group of ethnicity came along - and then everybody picked on them instead. And I will not ever understand hiring by quotas...the best person for any job should get the job. Period. I don't see the American government going out if it's way to insist that companies hire Cubans, Chinese, Koreans or even just plain old women.
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