Capitol Hill Blue Forums Capitol Hill Blue Opinions CHB Columnists The horrid face of a Racist Republican Party that threatens America

yeah, pagans of all sorts have issues with that.

yet, do I risk being accused of cultural appropriation if I agree with them too heartily?

Yes, you do... smartass!

But seriously, I think the CA line has everything to do with attitude and intent. James Skeet, my Navajo colleague, is well-educated in the White sense, holding several degrees in philosophy and other things and has worked in the white collar world. But he's back on the Rez working to revitalize indigenous agricultural wisdom, with food security in mind - here's the website: https://covenantpathways.org

I've visited his farm and he and his wife have visited ours, and the Trollworks shop. In the course of several days of intimate talk and looking we are both surprised and gratified that we are traveling in the same direction, but with some complementary "technologies" that need sharing. It's all practical cultural appropriation, and not for conscience relief or copycat-ism. It's problem solving.

James told me straight up in the beginning that he is tired of people who want to "help", but whose real motive is to take advantage of the special consideration given to tribal efforts by funders. I'll be delivering a biochar+energy system to Spirit Farm in about a month to heat their greenhouse while making biochar.

Log, my objection to”Indian (feather)” was not to “Indian” but to “feather.”

But Log has made a point that I’ve been thinking about: the difficulty is not so much what is said but what is heard.

The problem with that, of course, Is ignorance. Words used in ignorance can often be as offensive as if they are used with intent.

Similarly (and Greger, you know, I hope, that there is absolutely no malice in this) if you say you have real knowledge of racism, mostly from the racist side, then you are saying you have much less knowledge from the point of view of those affected. I may well be reading you wrong.

My apologies, I didn't provide all of the links, but my assertion stands. Both have used those phrases to describe themselves.

I happen to agree that "mixed" has a connotation that can be offensive, as it was a pejorative used by racists in the past. Any "mix" made you "dark". There has been a whole series of legitimate words and phrases that have been corrupted by racist usage. Negro became nigger became darkie became colored became mixed became black became African-American, and now black seems to be becoming a preferred term, along with the more generic "people of color".

From the Vox article I posted earlier:

"Pew Research estimates that 6.9 percent of the adult American population is multiracial, and the Census Bureau predicts that the multiracial population in America will triple by 2060. But though this identity group is growing rapidly, many Americans still don’t know how to talk about multiracial people. Americans want to be able to easily label people by race and put them into one box.

Harris herself told the Washington Post in 2019 that when she entered politics, she felt pressure to define herself. “When I first ran for office that was one of the things that I struggled with, which is that you are forced through that process to define yourself in a way that you fit neatly into the compartment that other people have created,” she told the Post. “My point was: I am who I am. I’m good with it. You might need to figure it out, but I’m fine with it,” she said.

Sanchez says that multiracial people can face what she refers to as double discrimination, where they experience discrimination from both communities they are members of. In Harris’s case, that leads to South Asians saying she’s not South Asian enough and Black people saying she might not be Black enough. “So there’s all these different sources of discrimination that are affecting the development of your multiracial identity and your experience with it, and that can make it hard to navigate,” Sanchez said."

and "Carole Boyce-Davies, a professor of Africana studies at Cornell University, told Vox earlier this year that the pressure to choose an identity is something uniquely faced by Black Americans with immigrant families. “This is a good time for Americans to think through this question, and particularly since it’s not raised often in the context of white immigrant identities. [White immigrants] just pass and fade into white identities, and nobody knows what their background is.” The pressure to choose one identity over the other, Boyce-Davies said, is “often put on Black subjects, or subjects of color, where people feel you don’t have full allegiance to one identity when really we are all a complex set of identities.”

The most important identification is what Kamala Harris has herself used, “How do I describe myself? I describe myself as a proud American.”

NW, I appreciate your clarification on the links, and I will certainly take your word as to having seen it elsewhere.

As this article says, many Americans don’t know how to “easily label people by race.” Which is exactly why I posted my original question.

Here’s a thought: how about if we didn’t need the labels (any more?)

I have pretty much zero experience as a victim of racial discrimination. I've always struggled with racism because I was taught it from the cradle, I've probably behaved like a racist assh*le on more than one occasion. But I've tried to mend my ways and would never knowingly insult someone based on their origins or skin color or sexual preference or anything else.

Everybody is just trying to get along and doesn't need a ration of sh*t from anybody for any reason. I may be too old to adjust my pronouns though....

I’m pretty sure I have as well. There are certainly words and actions I would take back if could.

A couple of thoughts on how racist things work...

The big grant project we have going on is a NRCS Conservation Innovation Grant (CIG). NRCS fund agricultural operations, usually rural. But they have recently carved out a $1.5 million set aside of the funds for urban agriculture. A long-time buddy of mine who presently works for the City of Boulder, and who is leading a national carbon neutral cities alliance, spearheaded a proposal that will put one of our biochar+energy systems into greenhouses at four "urban" food sustainability operations in Cleveland, Detroit (both black organizations), Vanderwagon NM (the Skeets' Spirit farm), and The Old Chinese Gardens LLC farm in Silver City (our farm). Though Trollworks is the core link between them all, we made sure that there was an element of technology transfer in both directions with all of the sites, mostly because each site has a strength or two that the other sites lack, but also to moderate the status establishment effect of all the tech flowing from the White entrepreneurs to the "minorities". In my mind this acknowledgement of the necessity of clear lines of transactional equality is fundamental to the success of the project.

I traveled to Cleveland in December with another member of our farm (both of us White boys) to take a look at the site where they want to install their unit, and for us to learn about their established aquaculture operation, which we plan to integrate into our greenhouse. The whole trip was a great success - the back and forth exchange of learning was productive and fun, due in some part to there being no fixed teacher/student dynamic.

They had a great aquaculture system, which we will replicate pretty much exactly - except we plan to raise shrimp instead of tilapia. If we are successful, they will add shrimp to their operation.

You spoke to Black people as equals! Or as clients?...there's a difference.

Tilapia too dark for you? They were just being polite when you mentioned they might raise pink shrimps.

Even the white girls are abandoning those.

Did you suggest catfish? I hear those are popular with the coloreds.

That sounds like a totally non-racist encounter, Logs. They happen all the time here in the South.