But I also do not like  the idea that he is posthumously abused as a racial icon, because that's not who he was or wanted to be. I don't want to speculate too much about his racial sense of belonging but my feeling is that he really loathed himself for being black.

So now when black artists (or politicians etc) want him to be a symbol for African American identity it strikes me as very wrong. If NAMBLA did that, I could understand.

Well, the other things you talk about like special African American Awards or Black History Month, I very much disagree with you. As long as there is racial discrimination and unequality, such events are a necessity to raise an awareness of the issue to the (ignorant or oblivious or in parts racist) general public to try and change the disparity. Of course in that sense WET and White History Month would not make much sense, because they are the dominating "culture" and as such pretty much the non-labeled events are theirs by default (if there is no conscious effort to include minorities, aka affirmative action). Just wait 50 years and you can put white and black history month together to counteract the oppressing nature of the dominating latino culture (jk, or am I?).

On a sidenote: I was amazed when I first payed attention to the Academy Awards and discovered that so few African Americans have been honored so far. Are there Black Oscars yet? Well, there should be, then!

I'm a Black man, and I feel sorry for you.  Are a lot of Black people racist? Sure.  There are racists in every ethnic group.  Unfortunately, it is a pandemic trait at the level of human development where our species currently stands.  Is there often an unfair standard applied to Whites as opposed to Blacks in terms of what is acceptable to say at times? Yes.  Do efforts to overcome racial inequities occasionally overreach and unfairly impact Whites? Yes.  Are Whites sometimes accused of racism when such a charge is not justified? Yes.

But you White guys feeling sorry for yourselves, I feel sorry for you.  I feel sorry for you, because you are so depressed, your self-esteem is so low, your own personal sense of self-worth so lacking, that you can't see the fact that YOU RUN THE FREAKING WORLD!  The overwhelming majority of the people on this planet with any significant wealth or power are white males.  But yet, some of you guys, who enjoy so much privilege as a group, can only bitch and moan and remain obsessed with the few rare instances where privilege benefited someone NOT white.  Success is never guaranteed in life for anyone, but if you are an American white male, you have, on average, more chances than anyone else in the WORLD to get it right, more opportunities to succeed than anyone.  You can't see all the thousands of doors that being White opens for you in life--instead you're fixated watching for any door that opens for a minority so you can complain about why you can't go through THAT door.  Every time a Black person has any success or privilege, it burns you up.  But you're blind to the MILLIONS of white males that enjoy success and privilege every day in America and around the world.  You need to open your eyes and broaden your scope.

You're obsessed with OJ and Michael Jackson because you believe they got away with crimes, but yet you seem not to care at all about the fact that thousands of Black men around the country are wrongly imprisoned for crimes they DIDN'T commit.  You're obsessed with OJ for 15 years now, and steam comes out of your ears every time his name is mentioned, but you NEVER mention Robert Blake, or any of the dozens of rich White guys that have gotten away with murdering their spouses over the history of this country.  OJ is infamous to you you, but I'll give you $10 if you can name the white guys who murdered Emmitt Till and got away with it without looking it up.  How many lynchings were successfully prosecuted in American history? Not many.

And please stop telling me about America's racist PAST.  America has a racist PRESENT.  We've made a ton of progress, everyone who is reasonable recognizes that, but minorities in America are still impacted by racism and prejudice every day.  It's far better than it was, but if you think it no longer exists, you need to go to the Black neighborhood in your town and sit down and talk to some people about their life experiences.  These days, the disadvantages may arise more often from systemic things rather than deliberate hateful things, but they are still present.

So I'm not going to call you racist.  I'm going to call you myopic.  You need to take a broader look at the world instead of just focusing on a small group of things that you feel are unfair, or on the small group of situations where possibly, Blacks are privileged more than Whites.  Look at the big picture.  Which would you rather have? The right to tell dumb jokes like Jamie Foxx or 43 of the 44 presidents?  Which would you rather have? One weird screwed up entertainer who maybe molested children but yet is still worshipped after dying at 50, or 490 out of the Fortune 500 CEOs? Stop feeling sorry for yourself.  As an American White male, you are the most privileged creature on the planet.  I know, that doesn't mean your life is easy. That doesn't mean you have it made.  But the problems and frustrations you have are multiplied for everyone outside your group.

And as a final note, it cracks me up that right-wing types (and honestly a lot of left-wing people too) who are so "rah rah America" reject the basic foundation of the American legal system, innocent until proven guilty, any time someone who they have concluded was guilty based on evidence gathered from our sensationalist news media.  Do I think OJ was guilty? Yes.  Do I think Michael Jackson was guilty? Maybe.  But its just funny to me how so many people in America now basically have a presumption of GUILT when someone is accused of a crime, and don't respect the legal process unless it yields the same conclusion that they reached from the evidence they gathered from their diligent investigations of watching television.  So when OJ gets off, when Michael Jackson gets off, there is outrage.  But when you want to talk to these same outraged people about people who are wrongly incarcerated, their attitude suddenly changes to "Oh no, there is no significant number of innocent people in prison.  The justice system always works".

-Walking down the street in college

-In casual conversation with a middle school classmate

Give up?

All places I've been called a nigger in an unprovoked manner, and times I did not respond in anger or violence.  I am 26 years old, you do the math.  Does that sound like racism is dead to you?  Do I hate white people because of this?  HELL NO.  Do I blame ALL white people for racism?  HELL NO.  My point is, racism however ugly it may be, and however much you may not want to admit is alive and well, is DEFINITELY still around.  What about the holocaust museum shooting...You're just being inflammatory with this post.

Chris

...while we're acknowledging the fact that Whites are not the only racists, let's not lose sight of the big picture, which is that its not a simple case, "oh, some Whites are racist, some Blacks are racist, so it's 50/50!".  I don't believe anyone is that dumb, so I do believe people might be hiding a racist agenda when they take that path.  There are racist people in every ethnic group, BUT here in America, it is only Whites who have the social, political and economic power to translate that racism into broad, harmful discrimination.  So the racism of Blacks and the racism of Whites is NOT 50/50, because for the most part, Blacks are not in a position to ACT on that racism in ways that negatively impact Whites financially, professionally or socially.  So racism+ the power to do harm is a much more toxic combination than racism as a member of a group that is a social, political and economic underclass. 

So we have to stay focused on the big picture.  There may be some racist minorities, but Whites, as the majority in America and the politically and economically dominant ethnicity in America, have a power to do broad harm to other ethnic groups with their racism.  No ethnic group's racism call harm Whites collectively.  That's obvious, and to deny that is to align yourself with the KKK and Neo Nazis.

But I wonder why it matters that he was black -- or if he was white, for that matter.  I continually wonder what part of having a color-blind society people don't understand.  Why do they keep wanting to inject a person's skin color into the conversation?

People who like to focus on race, whether they are black or white, are the problem.  The only way we can have a color-blind society is to actually be one.

Now, if you want to talk about culture, that's another thing.  Culture is behavior, not skin color.  I have to yell at my kids all the time (because that's they only way they'll hear me) to turn down that goddam rap pseudo-music so I can hear myself think!

BigDave: 

Obama is a dictator?  Explain how you define this term.  He defers on virtually every issue to the Congress, and has given very few executive orders in comparison with his predecessor over a given 6-month period.

People are afraid to speak up against the government?  Which people?  The Right does NOTHING but trash Obama and the government as loudly as possible, the Progressive Left is squawking about Obama's performance all over this forum and other Progressive sites, and if you're referring to his mainstream Democratic and Independent supporters, why would they be afraid to speak out?  They aren't afraid of Obama--they LIKE him.  Please give an example of someone who is afraid to voice an opinion about Obama.

The media are socialist?  THIS American media who blatantly kisses up to corporate sponsors?  This media who desperately shills day and night for ratings?  They are socialist?  Please explain.

I will leave the unbelievably patronizing discussion about "slaveowners being thanked and applauded because they had the kindness to employ slave labor" for someone with a bit more outrage on the subject.  But I do find it also patronizing that you would name one historically important Black inventor (Carver) and then, instead of talking about influential authors, politicians, businessmen, scholars, war heroes, etc., you jump right to musicians and athletes who "entertain" for a living.  If you were listing off a group of white Americans who had made positive contributions to our history and our society, how far down the list would you go before you named a single athlete?

You are free to express your opinions here at this forum, even if others don't agree with almost any of them.  But please bring us something stronger than "Obama is a dictator like his buddy Chavez."  We are smart people, and we call it as we see it, including if that means calling out Liberals and corporatist Democrats when warranted.  But we are not suspectible to fact-free partisan hackery from either side.

When there were 4.2 million card-carrying members in the KKK (proud moment for us whities). Lynching was still legal - in other words murdering black people wasn't a crime. Umm, we have come that far in America since then to be ready to abolish Black History Month.

I'm also a fan of Asian Pacific American Month as well.. if only to remember and recognize the contributions that Asian-Americans have made to our society as well as remember some of the horrible things that have happened to our Asian-American countrymen (anyone remember the Internment Camps)?

Let's let everyone have their damn month.  And guess what, every month is white American history month already! Geez, get over it elove.

If you're that upset over Jamie Fox just remember that assholes come in all colors and move on with your life. He's an asshole, he's black, so what?