Racial Situations in the Workplace

An interesting take on how one can use racist attitudes to one’s advantage – they hit some things dead on, some they missed, entertaining nonetheless.

KING CORN tells the story of two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation. As the film unfolds, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the east coast, moveto the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help offriendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America’s most-productive, most-ubiquitous grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to followtheir pile of corn into the food system, what they questions about how we eat—and how we farm. 

Super Delegates & Bill Clinton
The Power, and the Questions the Super D’s must ask

This Democratic race between Senator Barack Obama and Senator Hilary Clinton is a nasty contest; as both candidates are fighting to secure the democratic nomination. In an election year, where the general public wanted to see a change from the Bush regime, that is to say to avoid another 4 years of Bush style politics in a John McCain, the Democratic party is so divided that they may have hurt their chances to win the general election. At the beginning of 2008, heck even 2007, the democratic party expected to win the ‘08 election because of the many ills the current administration has administered on the American people and the world.

Mathematically, Obama has the nomination locked – but not all math is equal; meaning all values are not treated the same. We all have been introduced to the term ‘Super Delegates’, and it is the super delegates that ultimately have the power to decide and can override what the delegates decide. And it appears that Clinton will have more Super Delegates than Obama.

Thus, the Super Delegates have some tough questions to ask of themselves:
1. What will be the social cost of selecting Clinton over Obama, even though Obama had more votes than Clinton.
Answer: This will send a message (direct/indirect) that even if a Black Man can win, ultimately he will lose. Furthermore, this can cause social upheaval as the cost of this decision is not just Obama vs. Clinton, but will also regress the progress that black people have accomplished.

2. How much loyalty do I have to Bill?
Answer: To the Democrats, Bill Clinton is the best thing since slice bread – on a whole, the Clinton presidency was one of the best eras in U.S. history in terms of economic and social progress; the economy was soaring, jobs were booming, and the healthcare industry was improving. Thus, a lot of the Super Delegates owe their status to Bill Clinton – meaning that Bill still has a lot of pull within the upper echelons of the Democratic Party, and if it comes to the Democratic nomination being decided by a bunch of Super D’s in a back room, then Bill Clinton will be a power to be acknowledged.

In all, whoever the democratic nominee will be, they will have the daunting challenge to reunite a dilapidated party that is divided by gender, racial, and ideological differences, and will have to mount a tight campaign in a short period of time.

…… Looks like the Bush Regime will die another day, McCain can’t be any worse, right?

.:: d.b

Black Like Me
Virtues: race, distinction, etiology

Black like me, like who? Whether your background is Caribbean, American, or African, if you are black you share traits – people look at you with common expectations. However, amongst black people, we like to distinguish ourselves from each other, even though we essentially come from the same place – Africa. My background is Caribbean, but now I reside in North America (Toronto to be specific), and I once talked to this African woman; I thought that it would be just as usual if I was talking to a Jamaican or Trini, but I soon realized that I felt that our cultures were so different; I almost thought that I was dating a white girl. I was learning about different foods, traditions, heritage, attitudes that I thought that I should know (because we share the same race), but I was grossly mistaken.

Historical Sense
In North America, you generally have two classes of black people: domesticated/westernized blacks & Africans. The former group comes from a diverse background; they have either migrated from the Caribbean islands and/or are the offspring of slavery. From the shores of Halifax Nova Scotia which was Canada’s first black population settlement, to the deep south of Mississippi, there is similarity of a shared struggle throughout history that exists even to this day; their heritage only spans from somewhere in the 1800’s – anytime before that, and the details of their heritage gets sketchy, fuzzy, like channel ‘01’. Similarly, the Caribbean people that have migrated to Canada & the U.S. for better prosperity share a similar heritage-like progression as they too have lost details about their history from around the 1800’s and even early 1900’s. This is significant to the domesticated/westernized blacks because they have a loss of culture; a loss of roots.

I know the enlightened person is like, ‘you shouldn’t group Caribbean’s with domesticated westernized blacks because their culture is different’, such a person would be right; but they share the same etiology – the etiology they share is different from African blacks.

Noticeable Differences
It is the etiology that essentially creates the distinction and divide that exists amongst blacks – so much so that both groups are prejudice to each other. And with all types of prejudice behavior – it is a result of a lack of knowledge and respect for others. Meaning, that the Westernized blacks may know about the history of Africa (i.e. slavery), but currently, the Westernized blacks do not know much about the current state of their brethren across the Atlantic. According to the media, Africa is still full of savages, AIDS, poverty, and tribes.

In my experiences, both groups have an inherent bias towards themselves. The domesticated/westernized blacks believe that they are better than the Africans because they have been in the West longer, understand the western culture & ideals better, and have better language skills. Whereas, the Africans believe that they are better than the domesticated/westernized blacks because they believe that they have more heritage, know their roots, and are more ‘black’ (pure) than their brethren. So basically, this correlates into a subdued (or at times overt) attitude that people develop of ‘frowning’ and/or ‘looking down’ on others. Which really shouldn’t be the case, because in the end, while we battle ‘looking down’ at each other, the ‘man’ is looking down at us – laughing, exploiting as usual.

Think about that!

.:: d.b

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