@canefan said in US Politics:
@Siam said in US Politics:
@No-Quarter I really really struggle with the notion that the lives of my grandparent's grandparents have any influence on me in the year 2020.
To subscribe to that flimsy theory is to confirm that a race of people are all born inferior to those born with no "documented" slavery.
Show me a population or society where absolutely everyone is in poverty, and I'll reconsider the idea of " ancestral oppression "
You're white aren't you mate....?
Well, since you asked, here is my Pepeha:
Ko Tiheia te maunga
Ko Te Waimimi o Pekehaua te awa
Ko Ngatirangiwewehi te hapuu
Ko Te Arawa te waka
Ko Tamatekapua te tangata
Ko Whakaue raua ko Tamatera oku tupuna o mua
Ko Tawakeheimoa te Tupuna Whare
Ko Te Aongahoro te Wharekai
Ko Tarimano te Marae
Ko Haana Ngaki raua ko Te Kapaiwaho toku tupuna wahine
Ko Rangimakehu Ainsley tana tamahine
Ko Hineiri
My Whakapa has Tamatekapua at the top.
I'm sorry mate, I'm Maori, just like all my cousins and uncles and auntys. Can't help it, born that way.
What does that do to the words that formed my opinion? Does it change them?
What on earth has a person's skin or dna have to do with expressing an idea?
"I am sure you can look right through NZ history and find examples of the indigenous people being screwed over by those in charge."
Can I use my very own one of these examples?
Will that give me a seat at the table to express an idea?
Will that earn me enough points to expand on my parroting of Thomas Sowell, David Webb, Coleman Hughes, Ronnie Coleman, Larry Elder, and other credentialed black american scholars and journalists?
I have no ideas or claims of my own on the US racial issue - none of us can have and that's understood - so therefore our arguments will always be sourced from someone else in America.
I've found that the intellectuals version of the tribulations of black america to be a far more compelling (and equally saddening) narrative compared to the narrative from 20 years of race grifters and news anchors and teenagers screaming systemic racism, never showing where, and yet it apparently has gotten worse. The same people in charge of the money for fighting racism are the ones always screaming how worse it's getting. hmmm
We know the miniscule value our opinions on anything we're not first hand connected to, hold - that's what the applause to photo fox was all about, and the authenticity to Crazy horse's work observations. It's a given. But the source of our info has to be open to scrutiny. scrutiny of details. I'll take Coleman Hughes over Don Lemon anyday.
My application for the brown infinity stone, (the only one I'm elligible for by birthright
So, it turns out I'm the bastard great grandson of a late Supreme Court Judge. Apparently the highest in the land at one stage.
That's my Nana's father. She's also a bastard, obviously.
Yep, ol judgey had 2 kids to my great granny, 2 years apart. Never married and then was whistled back to Auckland to earn his way towards his knighthood. Never any contact with his kids ever again except for a parcel of books and pencils prior to them starting school in the 1930's.
As mum often remarked "I wonder how many absent fathers he prosecuted or ordered to pay child support on his way through the judicial system?"
Nana did occasionally see her father on TV during coverage of Arthur Allen Thomas trials and such and it fits now that they were the only times she stopped and sat and watched the news. We were all quiet at those times, and nothing was ever said about her father while she was alive.
The herald did a tell all expose about it after Judgey's death, so I guess it's a matter for public record now. Silly nephew of Nana tried to get some money for our family secret but only succeeded in irritating the scar tissue of a nicely healed wound. The worst part was the paper getting it drastically wrong and my Nana at age 80 facing the indignity of reading about her death 2 years ago in New Zealand's premier newspaper. Aunty told me Nana just exhaled "Huurrumph", folded the newspaper and spent the rest of the day alone in the sun porch. We got an apology from the herald after Nana died but the same mistake is still there. Strike off the herald as a trusted source of accurate news.
The article is called The Judge, The Maori Princess and the secret family. Haven't heard anything in the family about granny being a princess, so thanks Herald.
So the judge shacked up with my granny. hung around for a couple of years siring 2 kids then buggered off to fame and fortune never again acknowledging his first kids who both lived to their eightys.
There's a bit of oppression there right? A shot at the victim olympics? All that white privilidge missed out on? A piece of the will? Something surely? I always wanted to be famous enough to do one of those "where did I come" from geneology tv shows...
I guess Nana could have chosen to be bitter over her paternity situation. She could have passed down her hurt and trauma from her father to us. She could have filled our heads with the "realities" of white authority. Today her story would get applause and fawning from the right audience, but still it's her choice on how she deals with that pain that a powerful white man caused, through no fault of her own.
Turns out she chose to take that hurt and injustice on her own. To shield her kids from growing up bitter and pointing at things and people that denied us a perfect upbringing and family history.
Perhaps she realised she could keep the pain away from her kids and and mokopuna because times change and she knew none of her daughters would have to go through the ingnomy of watching an absent father, adulated from afar, in the future world. Different times, then and now.
Perhaps she had a choice at her kids view of the world and their place in it.
She chose that no one would ever call us victims. She chose it was her burden to bear and it all ended there with her.
It's the same message coming from Hughes, Webb, Sowell and Elder, and a large section of the black community. It's just one way of looking at this situation, and it has some merit and some familiarity to me.
So can we explore the notion of ancestral oppression and discover strong evidence that the black situation in america is primarily due to racism or due to poverty or something else?
And can we agree that a ferners skin colour plays no importance on this site whatsover? The content of their words first??
All good canefan