So the bigots WERE right, Harold Ford Jr.!

You DID tell that woman to call you!

As Harold Ford Jr. preps for his upcoming marriage to Emily Threlkeld, he may want to also be thinking about how to appease some black voters in his home state of Tennesse — if, that is, he ultimately wants to be elected as governor there, as insiders have said.

In reaction to his proposal last month, several African-American voters have been asking in various Internet forums why he didn’t choose a black mate.

“Why is he doing this to his people?” one woman who claimed to have dated him in the past has asked Big Head DC. “I am hurt, and we should all be angry.”

Lawd, when Snob reader Kimberley sent me this nugget all I could do was laugh. I’m not one who thinks every interracial relationship is a personal rebuke of me, because, um … it’s not about me. But still, this is HILARIOUS! Naturally some people are pissed, but the IRONY!

Some of you may recall the attack ad that made Ford look like a white woman chasing playboy. Does he owe the RNC an apology now? I mean, the bigots probably would appreciate their apology considering the razzing they got for that moronic ad.

But oh wait? You lost your senate bid. Never mind.

daniellebelton

48 responses to “So the bigots WERE right, Harold Ford Jr.!”

  1. Andrea Avatar
    Andrea

    I hate, hate, hate trivial gossip but I will say as fact from my 2…no, 4 eyes, the RNC was not making it up. For whomever this woman was tearing into his reputation as if it was a form of betrayal, I have to say she either never really knew him or she was in denial. So many White People I knew knew about Harold Ford and his propensity to ignore Black women in favor of theirs’. The language we use when we make them assumptions and assaults against Black Men that chose to go this way is more of the pathology on all of us. The men don’t understand the severe long-term affects on us in a caring way of the Black Woman’s psyche, the dilution of the Black Family unit, or the self-elimination by extinction of the Black person via anthropology. I think most of our men do it out of mere selfishness to fulfill their desires whether than be escape of social connection to us and our collective problems or they want to use their unions as brokerage for an easier life. I see it all around and some of the nicest guys do it not knowing the residual trauma and disolve of US. I think some of them hate themselves, their mothers, and us, the women. I think it is a serious psychological illness and White Liberals however accept it more easier because for them it serves as racial penance to befriend a Black Person reaching to assimilate into their world.I don’t think we should spotlight Harold Ford just because he is prominent. We need to take this on as a real public health issue. It’s taboo but I bring it up all the time in front of White Liberals I know because I know how they operate and think. They could care less about our long-time existence as a people. Gay Talese, the writer, believes the only way to end racism is for more people to procreate interracially. So… that means: being Black would become extinct. And I already see that: Jordan Sparks, Tiger Woods, Derek Jeter.There are so many mixed Blacks who are trying to use their interracial mix as their appeal in marketing a niche that makes them special. All I have seen is that it is an attempt to Halle Berry dark skin women in competition to realize “only if we were mixed too like Halle”.

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  2. muslimahlocs Avatar
    muslimahlocs

    hmmm…let me guess, she is a rocket scientist and he respects her work.

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  3. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    i can’t…*starrie*

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  4. The Black Snob Avatar
    The Black Snob

    andrea: I just thought it was HILARIOUS how Ford, who was trying to make himself appear like Churchy McChurch Church while running for senate was allegedly “settling down” so he could run for governor. I mean, why? So you can pull an Elliot Spitzer?Or maybe you’ll air all your dirty laundry so the can’t “pre” ensnare you, a la David Paterson’s self-outing. Then two, the whole white woman thing. I mean, I was underwhelmed by that as well, so I also didn’t know where that one sista was coming with the anger about. That would be like me getting pissy over Tiger Woods who had only dated, 9,000 blond fembots before he settled on the purest fembot he could find.So this is clearly Harold and all on Harold and all about Harold. And I don’t know why any one would want Harold other than kooky logic of he’ll give me “pretty kids” that I had to tolerate when I was in grade school. And yes. Ten year old girls at my all-black elementary school who had black parents were talking ALL about how they were marrying mixed or white guys when they grew up so they could have “pretty kids.” It’s THAT deep, people. The ONLY reason why I didn’t go around touting such foolishness was because my parents told me from jump, there is nothing wrong with being black, black people are beautiful, you are beautiful. My word! Is it hard to love your children and tell them that? That they’re not nutters for being Negroes?I second myself, my word!But there is a long history of black people wanting to be anything but black. Who end up believing the hype on their own people. We all battle with it as if you’re born America and you’re black you’re going to deal with some degree of self-hatred and the many ways it manifests.Also, while I don’t get as obsessive about the gossip as others I do enjoy poking fun at the gossip from time-to-time, so … um … just wait until something less Page Six pops up, Andrea. 🙂

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  5. sasha Avatar
    sasha

    I don’t understand the outrage some people have over the race of Harold Ford Jr.’s fiance. He should not live his life the others want him to. Who he chooses to marry has nothing to do with the voters. I believe that a lot of the people who make comments like the ones in the post have self-esteem and self-worth issues. I believe that of a lot of the women who complain about black men dating white women. Why do you need a man you don’t even know to validate your self-worth? to make you feel beautiful? It does not bother me at all to interracial couples, am I the weird one???

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  6. The Black Snob Avatar
    The Black Snob

    sasha: Interracial dating outrage can get old, I grant you. Hence why I found this funny (and the outrage funny). But it is still a very sensitive issue in the black community as a lot of people do take it as a rejection of blacks or part of a whole “self-hatred” deal. Personally, as a light-skinned person who has had too many doomed relationships with black men who were into me based on skin tone and hair quality, I would rather have them just date the white girl. I don’t need a bunch of garbage about how you can’t stand it when I tie my hair up in a scarf at night or how I sometimes like to wear my hair au natural.I’m tired of someone else’s “colorism” being forced on me by black people who hate themselves, but don’t want to admit it and deal with it.But that’s my opinion. I know not everyone has the “just date the white girl and leave me alone” philosophy with men obsessed with marrying Halle Berry even whiter-and-brighter cousin.

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  7. Fantastically Misunderstood Me Avatar
    Fantastically Misunderstood Me

    I read that “so you did tell that…” at the top and I was like what is she talking about? Then I watched the video. Was that a real ad? I mean, it looked like an SNL spoof to me. Guess it did the job. In other news, I don’t care about who he’s dating, marrying, mating with, etc. I’m probably the only ignorant one on here, but he had no relevance to me whatsoever till you mentioned him here a couple weeks ago. In a continuation of that “ignorance,” I say thanks, white girls for weeding out the undesirables. The vast majority of black men who choose to date white or “other” women EXCLUSIVELY have something wrong w/them (abusive, self hating, egomaniacs, identity issues, controlling, etc.) and I’m thankful WCs and their brethren who are willing to take one for the team. Shout out to Vanessa, (Kobe’s wife), Tiger’s Norweigan (is that her nationality?) and Kim Kardashian. LOL, I’m clearly kidding there. But I am NOT mad at you…

    Reply
  8. Andrea Avatar
    Andrea

    I know…With me saying that I hate commenting on trivial gossip, I did comment because the issue is not so trivial about this issue of Harold Ford. I think the woman who was hot and bothered made it trivial and an act of sheer desperation in herself venting and wanting public sympathy. We like solidarity and we like to simmer. But here…here…I see it as R & D. We are cultural anthropologists calling the behavior of Harold on it’s more acute importance of social and scientific relevance in the continuum in the breakdown of Black People.I mean…it’s truly scientific and social substance in studying how post Civil Rights babies have passed the Tipping Point of feeling any dedicated commitment of loyalty to each other as a anthropological duty to not self-eliminate.I didn’t think you were trivial but I noticed other blogs were in taking on the issue. It’s like what I poke at: we have to keep levitated at times to not get smothered and caught up in the bathos. I saw him a few years ago hanging in this White Woman’s truck near the Archives Metro Station and just seeing the body language (forcing him to lean into the auto drawing attention to him), it was insulting because it was the “grinning” over a White Woman in what seemed to be theatrical display of his body language that I could not fathom any public official doing out in public in the daytime. It was back in the nineties but the whole episode with me walking out of Teaism to witness it was a bit jarring considering I had heard how polished and professional he was. It just caught me off guard and then I assessed the social factors at play that weakened his so-called reputation.And hence there were other story of political foes of other parties spreading the tales of his behavior. I guess the shameful part of it was that he was unapologetic about something as used it as his claim of being a benefactor of social progress that we can do these things as an act of progress.I want my opine credited to social data of the pain it does feel and how desperately I want for America to address this as a public health issue. You think if the White Race was threatened by a genocide of White Males and they had their most qualified in numbers procreating in increasing numbers with others that this would not be a public health issue. Genocide by assimilation needs to be a public campaign.Dr. King did not seek integration for us to self-annihilate by using exercise of progress as alibis.

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  9. Ms.Martin Avatar
    Ms.Martin

    AndreaIsn’t ironic that some segregationists feared integration for the very reason you don’t seem to approve of interracial relationships.

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  10. Andrea Avatar
    Andrea

    Yes. I see the relation. Little did we know that integration would reduce the Black Female and the Black Female in an even more vulnerable station on the totempole of social importance.I pointed these issues out to a policy wonk at my job a few weeks ago and she was speechless. She admitted that she did not see that it was her responsibility to consider the fair outcome of equilateral citizenry of Black Women to that point. It’s like when Gwen Ifill asked Dick Cheney what he thought of Black Women and the AIDS CRISIS. On one end, as a White older male he had no relative interest but as a lawmaker he should have known about the long-term prospects of a demographic. Our people as mocha, cocoa, and chocolate people are determined by mocha, cocoa, and chocolate procreation. After you and I are dead we will not know how long the brown skin will last. Hell, look at Darfur. Look at the plight of Black Females in South Africa. It’s participation in genocide.But what I am saying is not everyday discourse because its heady and uncomfortable. It’s unpopular. But damn. In my brown skin aging I already know that a degrade under me has no one to marry and carry on with unless of they simply settle to continue the pathological scheme of being a single mother. It’s a sick cycle. (Patrick Moniyhan’s Negro Family data 40 years ago)So its up to us to continue to want to play politically correct parts to also see our extistence faded. Like Andre’ 3000 talked about in the song The Prototype, the dark skinned female as well as the Black Person is going to go extinct at the hands of our own self-elimination to buy into interracial relationships. Anthropology is not a common subject and Black People tend to think everything will work out. The sad thing is that fatal occurences happen everyday via our involvement with us not knowing the parts we play.Back in 2004 when I spoke at Dillard University I told the audience of mostly women that they were not going to get married and afterwards the Q & A’s they commented that no one at the universtity told them that before. They were until that moment of hearing me say it, they had not suspected that that was the fate of our people willfully self-eliminating.So when I am at work and I am talking about this same very subject with my co-workers who are many, Ashkenazi Jews, they know their history dating back to when they were run out of Jerusaleum to flee to Europe. They tell me that they are dedicated to the preservation of continuing the bloodline of their people and try to find someone of their kind to marry. But for us, we feel ashamed as bigots because we consider the importance of our human extistence as brown people continuing for future generations. That is the same type of double-conscious guilt Dubois was talking about. This country makes us feel guilty about self-preservation.I have had many interracial couples and people support me but that does not deter me from being unapologetically honest with them. That is not the guilt I have to carry to make them comfortable. I understand all of the reasoning of their creation and brokerage. But how many more times am I and other people who are not mixed have to carry the burden of their angst. We all have angst but Blacks — the dark man — is always left carrying the bag.My truth is not intended to cut and hurt. My silence only ends up inflicting me and assisting the enabling pathological gambles with life when life isn’t playing.

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  11. LeLe Avatar
    LeLe

    Didn’t Ford date some white girl who was a sophomore at Georgetown when he was in the house of representative?? Scandalous!!!Anyway, I going to put money on Ford not running for office in Tennessee again. I’m thinking he’s going to become a power broker/rainmaker/lobbyist a la Vernon Jordan. Or he may luck up on a cabinet position.America has changed with the impending nomination of Obama, but not much. This will sound bad but its my belief that a majority of black women will not vote for a black politician with a white wife. Ford knows this. Without that constituency, it would be impossible for him to win anything.Let’s not get it twisted, if Obama was married to a white woman, he would not have the support among black women he has today.I’m just sayin’.

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  12. I am not Star Jones Avatar
    I am not Star Jones

    Although I understand Andrea’s points …I have to say Harold can marry who he wants and we have to hope that not all African American men of every class and socioeconomic background feel that partnering with anyone but a black woman is the way to go.That’s the part that’s scary…to consider that the majority of AAs may feel that way.

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  13. aulelia Avatar
    aulelia

    lmao @ “That would be like me getting pissy over Tiger Woods who had only dated, 9,000 blond fembots before he settled on the purest fembot he could find.” — snob, that is hilarious. I don’t think that the IR issue should be ignored. In reality, it would be great if we could all just choose partners on the specifics of how we feel and many of us do but loads of black people do not. Black people really hate themselves a lot. That is a massive generalisation across the diaspora but especially black men and women in the public eye; how many black sports stars have black partners? **crickets**

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  14. Ford Acquaintance Avatar
    Ford Acquaintance

    Harold is ashamed of his race. He doesn’t identify with blacks very well. It’s true that he uses black women for the bedroom only. Harold would never have married a black woman. My friend says that Harold’s father even stated that Harold preferred white women to black women. I don’t have a problem with interracial dating/marrying but I just don’t think a person should be ashamed of who they are and where they came from. He has used so many blacks to rise to the top and now he’s distancing himself from them. He has even stabbed Obama in the back.

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  15. grown Avatar
    grown

    I could care less about who HFJ is dating…HOWEVERI do care that 10 year olds think that they need to marry outside their race in order to make ‘pretty babies’ or be successful in life. That’s extremely disheartening. We have got to stop this idealization of white people as the archetype of society. Especially when they spend most of their time trying to COPY US! It’s baffling to me that black people routinely teach our kids that to grow up and marry outside our race is somehow going to better your status in life. And I guess that’s why I have a problem with interracial dating…not so much because of the individuals involved but the ideology of it. It really bothers me because you do not hear White, Asian, nor Hispanic people encouraging their kids to date blacks or teaching their kids that ½ black babies are somehow more beautiful.And don’t be telling people I read your blog at work! You gone get me fired! LOL!

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  16. aulelia Avatar
    aulelia

    grown expressed exactly my sentiments. I really agree that black people must fight the pathology of self-hatred. This does manifest in IR for some black people, not all. Good post here.

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  17. aulelia Avatar
    aulelia

    woah, who is this Gay Talese writer who said that ? that is such a shocking statement to say that is the way to eradicate racism. Andrea wrote “Genocide by assimilation needs to be a public campaign.” — this is exactly where we should start but the problem is, and I think this may be a global black problem, black people especially here in England want to assimilate. They don’t want to accept blackness as part of their identity because blackness is the one image that has not been successfully crossed over unless it is within music & sport which is a shame because both domains promote colourism AND oppress black people.

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  18. The Black Snob Avatar
    The Black Snob

    andrea: I understand the implications of the pro-delusion of black people and the marginalization of black women. But statistically the number of blacks marrying whites is still very small in comparisson to people who marry their own race.By and large, the majority of people marry their own kind, BUT …Black people DO have a problem when it comes to marriage overall. Most black women who are college educated and are of a certain age do find themselves in a dating bind. Their options become increasingly limited as because of racism (among other factors) we aren’t a “hot commodity.” And that’s where my concern mostly lies, with the men who will happily date us, sex us up, get us pregnant but will not marry us. And the fact that some young blacks see marriage as “a white thing.” That is far more disturbing to me.lele: It’s true. Black women would be dramatically less supportive if he had a white spouse and I’d gather that some of the excitement black women feel about Obama is because there is a black women from Chicago’s south side that we can admire. More than anything we immediately identify with Michelle, see ourselves in her, see our sisters and mothers in her, agree with her thoughts and admire her successes and talents. She’s an aspirational figure for black women. Seriously. She’s going to be near deified if she makes it to the White House. Black women just feel so unloved by society so a black woman in the White House in any capacity is pretty uplifting.Especially since she’s married.All politicians who go interracial run the risk of catching some flack. That’s why there are so few of them. The only one who became successful that I can recall right now is Jeb Bush who’s wife is Latina.But then he was governor of Florida where having a Hispanic wife is less of a liability. grown: The 10-year-old thing was depressing to me even when I was 10. It just sounds craaaazzzy.But that still exists in the minds of black folk long after they leave the playground and go into the real world. It’s such a pathology. Everyone you see that’s considered “beautiful” is white, you’ve got a bunch of black people who will quickly tell you they’re part Cherokee (never mind that the Cherokees were the only Native Americans who owned slaves), or will obsess over hair quality and skin tone.In college I wrote a column about my hair and my obsession with it and the unhealthiness of it all and people DID NOT GET IT. Or they got it and did not want to admit it. Black people, suddenly, acted like they’d NEVER been obsessed with skin color or hair. That they all were incredibly “pro-black.” But how pro-black could you be if you were OBSESSED with light-skinned people and hair quality? If you hated light-skinned people vehemently (and I met some of those in school, mind you) or you were light-skinned and you thought you were the shit because back in the day somebody raped your grandmother?And I wrote a column about that and ALSO caught some flack. I wrote that I was “tired” of people asking if I was mixed and said that from now on when people asked I was saying I was mixed with “slave master.”God. I was such a militant back then. But it’s sooo true. On both sides of my family the “light bright and almost white” factor was not to be spoken about and was all about rape and tragedy. It was fucking depressing. I couldn’t understand why people were “proud” of being light-skinned when for most black families it was rape that caused it to be that way.So I get sick of people trying to pretend this obsession with being as close to white as possible does not exist. Why are we all getting weaves/lace front wigs/perms for? Would we be doing that shit if we were all still in “natural” Africa back when everyone was with their own tribe and the land was still relatively peaceful, plentiful and unspoiled? No. We’d all be operating under African standards of beauty based on our individual tribes. I tried to have that convo with my mom once and she got it twisted to accusing me of saying Coretta Scott King was less of a black person because she had a perm.I’m like, dude, you’re not listening. You wouldn’t WANT straight hair unless someone told you that was what you should have.Lordy Lord. It doesn’t make you LESS of a black person, but you have to admit it’s part of the pathology. I desire straight hair and I can admit that it is part of my pathology.But no one wants to hear that. Yaki weave and wigs for everyone!aulelia: Gay Talese is a very well known journalist and author, he wrote some pretty amazing pieces back in the late 60s and 70s. He’s dead now, but he’s very well known in literary circles.And I think black people in America would have happily ran to the nearest white person they could find if it weren’t for the fact that we were A) forced to together so oppressively due to racism, hence most American blacks feel a degree of loyalty to one another and B) the “black and proud” movement after the 1960s that sought to re-educated black people by making them confront their pathologies and love themselves.That’s still a work in progress.Without some degree of solidarity the pull of westernized beauty and self-hate is so strong that you could fall to pieces over next-to-nothing. I don’t know how long this “loyalty” factor in America will last though. As more racial doors have opened with each successive generation more and more are open to interracial dating and don’t fee bound to the old ways. So we’ll see how that goes.

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  19. dewfish Avatar
    dewfish

    I still don’t see the big deal. What made the republican attack ad against Ford so wrong wasn’t the fact that he might be attracted to white woman and that they might be attracted back. What is wrong is assuming that this is a bad thing. The ad itself isn’t bigoted in stating that white women might actually like him, but they knew how bigots (their intended audience) would react to it. In honesty, the ad is actually hillarious due to its degre of stupidity. I still can’t belive a group of adults sat in a room together, thought of ideas, and this is best they could come up with. Whats even sadder is that it worked.

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  20. Andrea Avatar
    Andrea

    I thought about what I wrote after I sent it and realized I should have clarified the class issue concerns. And the issues that I have that are not conclusively deduced to class implications. Here in DC as well as in other places I have seen the TREND growing of our (here on this blog, educated females of academia and social knowledge)demographic lop-sided of the Black Male counterparts with a White or Other on their arm. Now this is Chocolate City…or at least it was when I moved here in the 90’s. My peers of Gen X were not buying into that TREND as the norm. I think and when I talk to female peers that went to Howard in the late 80’s and early 90’s, we all concur that we were raised the same no matter that we came from various parts of the country. We knew to stick with our own and find one of our own. We understand the mathematics…the algebra in cancelling ourselves out in the next couple of hundreds of years. You have to be raised and educated in understanding anthropology and revering the circumstances that eventhough you would be dead and gone, your offspring will be having a hard time continuing on without any of their kind left to continue on.See people think that because if you are just alive, that is progress but they don’t understand lines (lineage) ends and fades away when the line is engineered to self-eliminate and decompose.Yes, mixed breeds will populate but the Dark Man will diminsh. And yes, we…we here…we will be gone. And you can say that is not of your concern. And I can say, that’s absolutely selfish and it is.For those few Dark Men left alive in the future marginalized in smaller population, it is even harder for them to survive than the hardships we face in 2008 with the pandemics in the Congo, South Africa, and Darfur let West Philly, Los Angeles, or Miami.It’s all about anthropology. It’s about the question and why Gwen Ifill laid into Dick Cheney. It was and is about the fact that everyday the Dark, pure dark men, are dying from various forms of genocide. So while I can live and take care of myself (barely), it will be even harder in the future for decades ahead Black Females to do it. It’s like what happened to prehistoric man. Some just could not cut it because when their family units started dropping with too many of one sex and not another or too many deaths and not enough births, your line has no chance to continue.So when it comes to Harold and whomever, I wish them the best. My argument is not about the pettiness of her being White and being jealous. That is a secondary argument. My main concern is about the obvious viral trending of what has transpired and is going under the radar.The 50 Cents and Little Kims can procreate all day but a people cannot sustain only on that class (I know I am stereotyping but I am being lazy…I want to go to lunch). A group of people need variants but without an educated class, we are doomed. And without a class of educated Black Males procreated to create stabilized healthy dark family units, those 200 and 300 years ahead dark men will have no hope or solidarity while they watch themselves decline further. They will ask questions about what were we thinking and what were we doing. We can’t see that now because we see ourselves vaingloriously but the future will be cussin’ us out.I just don’t live thinking about my personal pain. I think about the pain I will birthright for future brethren to receive as their cursed inheritance. Our language needs to change in the Black Community to realize “Shit ain’t all about us”. We need to them far ahead and think of our children (even if we don’t have any).So when in DC and I am looking at Brothers who are definitely a member of the generation Y, born after 80, and he is hooked up with a White Woman and I notice that more and more of my peers who would have never tried it out as well taking it on as if it is what Martin Luther King fought for, I realize that the trend is building and not being addressed in a scientific and anthropologic way that far exceeds petty bigotry and jealousy of “White Women taking our men”. This something White Women should know as citizens as well as all people because we are one part of the populace dying off to continually dwindle in numbers.

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  21. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    That is one man “Becky” can have seriously. I don’t consider him attractive at all, and frankly his politics sicken me, and I don’t feel he represents black constituents.Sghe probably makes a mean eggs benedict. I don’t feel every interracial relationship is an attack on me personally, however I would like Tiger and Reggie back… thanks.

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  22. aulelia Avatar
    aulelia

    @The Black Snob: Thank you for the background on Talese. I am digesting your comment and I have a question for you. Do you then think that black politicians like this man Harold Ford Jnr would be better suited to the “deracialisation” of attitudes towards black and white politicians like you mentioned as younger generations seem less averse to IR ? I think the Black American example is very illuminating of the opposite of assimilation. From what I have read and been told about Black America, assimilation has not been de rigeur as it has been in France or the United Kingdom. Any black person desperate to make it on a public stage here in the UK has blended into the word “assimilation” because notions of national identity demand it. Maybe Harold Ford Jnr could be symbolic of indirect assimilation ?This is an interesting discussion. I think Reggie, Tiger and all the other Taye Diggs-esque blokes running around should do us all a favour and just stop pretending like they are bad. I personally cannot stand Tiger Woods and I will admit part of it has to do with the fact that he just seems like one of those blokes who was not interested in dating women who reflected his heritage. And that “cablinasian” bollocks cemented his self-hatred. However, this politician, as I am not familiar with US politics, had he previously said that he was campaigning for the African-American community? Should he play the part or should he play the part as a general politician sans carrying race in his hand ?

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  23. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Isn’t this man biracial? Who cares if he dates white women? *cough* Marries them even? LOL

    Reply
  24. The Black Snob Avatar
    The Black Snob

    aulelia: I know for a fact that ANY black person in America running for public office who needs the black vote NEEDS a black spouse. Seriously.A lot, A LOT of black people, especially black women will not vote for a black man with a white wife because they will concluded that this politician will not be “loyal” to the black community, that by marrying white he has committed an “infidelity” on the black community and should punished by not receiving our vote.Ford comes from a well-known black political family. His father was involved in the Civil Rights Movement (if I’m recalling correctly.) He went into politics following in his dad’s footsteps so a lot of his “black” support was based more on his dad than him. If Ford had been anyone but the son of Harold Ford Sr. and not a politician most black people in the states would have just given this an eye-roll and moved on, but when you’re a black politician elected out of a black district or are appealing directly to the black community for votes in a statewide election you can’t afford to not appear to be “pro-black” in some capacity.Things just aren’t ducky enough for black people in America to tolerate this sort of thing out of our elected officials. In fact, that if most entertainers and athletes had to rely on votes for their careers they would be in the same bind.So Ford definitely would have benefited if black women weren’t still being treated like second class citizens. And it also wouldn’t happen if “black identity politics” weren’t so strong here in America.Assimilation is such a loaded and dirty word in black America that even when we do things that are assimilationist (Re: straighten our hair, lose our accents) we don’t acknowledge that as assimilating. Some blacks are so militant to the idea that you have this perversion of black culture that devolves all the way down to crass stereotypes. Hence the suburban, middle class black youth romanticizing poor black, ghetto culture through rap music. There’s nothing glamorous about gun violence and poverty, but this stereotype is the most popular and widely seen in American society so a lot of kids buy into it and sun anything too “white.”So, yeah. We’re different here in the states. Once again, I depressing to admit, but hundreds of years of oppression will make you stay together. It worked for the Jews. It’s worked for black Americans. We’ve just lost a bit of our mind lately. I’m hoping that we get that back soon.Tiger, who I like as an athlete, has some serious twoness going on with himself and in some cases, three-ness. While it’s obvious for black women to be annoyed I find it FAR more telling that he didn’t date ANY Asian women. Before he married he’d occasionally take a sister on a pity date once in a while, but no Asian people were ever near him. His mother is half-Thai, half-Chinese. She’s a lovely woman who raised him to be tough and disciplined, but Tiger did what a lot of Hapas do, which is what a lot of biracial half-black/half-white kids do … date a white person. So Tiger is technically fulfilling two stereotypes. The typical Hapas-who-won’t-date-Asians excuse is that other Asians remind them of their “Asian” parent. No shit. Half-black people know how insane that sounds so they usually just say they fell in love or that black people rejected them first. Or something else. Anything but, “dating a black person makes me think of my dad.” Once again. Insane. Most people marry people who remind them of their parents OR marry within their own ethnic group. Ford was banking on the same people who elected his dad and himself to Congress to get him to the senate, hence if the White woman stuff were better circulated in the black press there would have been some brouhaha. Being married to a black woman while gathering black votes is a political reality. Ford Jr. knew that. All black Americans know that. It’s sort of like being gay and running for political office. You know it’s going to be a hindrance in 90 percent of the country. But if you’re serious about it, you just accept it and do what you can.Ford will obviously take his political lumps and find another way to be a power broker in the party.

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  25. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I will be happy when we are all brown. I don’t get the preserving the purity of the race talk (or preventing self-elimination, whatever.) I don’t want seperate but equal, I want equal. I think that’s what MLK did fight for. And why is Tiger self-hating again? Shouldn’t it be Thai women who are pissed at him marrying a blonde girl? I mean he must hate his own mother, right? Give me a break.

    Reply
  26. dewfish Avatar
    dewfish

    I think I agree with the last anonymous post. I still don’t see what the big deal is. what’s more disturbing to me is all the people in here talking this “pure race” crap. The only people I hear that talk like that are the KKK and the nazis.

    Reply
  27. kara Avatar
    kara

    aulelia: Gay Talese is a very well known journalist and author, he wrote some pretty amazing pieces back in the late 60s and 70s. He’s dead now, but he’s very well known in literary circles.Um, Gay Talese is not dead.But excellent post anyway. Glad to see everyone is not cowed into being 100% PC about IR relationships. Harold Ford really isn’t the point (I actually respect him more for marrying white instead of marrying some poor black woman for appearances sake) but the larger implications (especially on dark black women who are chosen dead last (if at all) by black men unless they have something the man needs (like money or position) is real.

    Reply
  28. dewfish Avatar
    dewfish

    I will disagree with anonymous on the “when we are all brown” sentiment. Racism is a mindset, and it can’t be erased by merely “f*cking” and having a darker child over each generation.

    Reply
  29. Andrea Avatar
    Andrea

    No one is talking about “pure race” or pushing it. Intermingling is going to happen. Just the fact that it is a trend without warning of social ramifications is what is the problem in context to Dark Men existing.How and why do you go to extremes to pull out what you want to hear? No one pushed any “pure race” theology. What we have is a completely ignorant race of our own who are self-eliminating not understanding that eventhough the Disney-effect of mixing is positive feat, also the disparity of those who are of the negated race and color, they are further and marginalized and simply, fated as the Bigger Thomases of humanity because they didn’t come out mixed.The human experimentation to try to annihilate race by egocentric blending is as destructive as being racist. I think distinct races are more appealing because we as a human race have distinct cultures that make life interesting. I think as much as the White Man is and has the Imperial Colonizer, they do have fantastic contributions of their histories and cultures even as barbaric dominating people.I think people want to hear certain things when they read of others contrasting and jarring statements and put thing out there that we are not saying. I literally and figuratively LOVE a lot of White People I know and have known but that does not discount and exempt the finite science of the Dark Man’s excruciatingly painful demise and that is US.Nobody here is trippin’ off Harold Ford in a personal way. It’s all about a bigger picture of human existence pressing the halt of their preservation. We need to respect our heritage and fate that we were born brown and that it is not something that needs to be dealt with in assimilating us out of existence as if it is the only remedy the past and present ails of world society as if it is our fault and we must comply to get along. This is not what MLK was lobbying for.All people should not have to socially engineer to eradicate themselves to deal with race superiority assailing them. Like Jill Scott says, “Sometimes you have to fight!” when you don’t want to. “It’s about principle”.

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  30. The Black Snob Avatar
    The Black Snob

    kara: WHOOPS! I must have got him confused with another “new journalist” who died last year. I know one did, and it was one who was not Hunter S. Thompson or Joan Didion … It’ll come to me eventually.

    Reply
  31. dewfish Avatar
    dewfish

    Andrea, you’re making a lot of assumptions that simply don’t add up. For one, you’re assuming that Harold Ford’s private life is somehow “ending the existence of Dark Man” or is representative of it. Harold Ford isn’t exactly the “Darkest Man” himself, and regardless of who he dates/marries, what business is it of yours? As far as “preservation of the dark man”, I have heard others express this same belief. Except they were saying, “preserve the white race”, and they had funny hats on. I am not a fan of the “f*ck racism out of existence” way of thought either. mainly because it would never work, and that it works along the same lines of the bigots. “Let’s just breed away the people we don’t like instead of learning how to live in peace with them and have an understanding of them.” I’m still having trouble understanding what it is you are “fighting” for…..

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  32. Andrea Avatar
    Andrea

    Dewfish,You’re incapable at this point.You are trying to make this more difficult than it is and that comes from cognitive disconnect. I can only but keep responding to take up time. Sometimes people don’t want to understand what someone else is saying that does not marry their thought.The issue is not about Harold being light or dark. You keep pulling stuff that requires extreme simplification. Just because Harold is light does not mean one or all of his babies will come out diluted. Genetics make some mixed bred children dark shades. But that is here nor there…or rather…I was not even thinking of that to use as an example to show you.And as I said again, the issue is not about Harold Ford. The issue I was making about the trend in mixing. You assume that is a bigoted sentiment and I telling you that I am talking about the campaign to cease wild, interracial mixing promoted by Black Males when Black Females of a certain demographic are mateless. Geesh! How hard is that to understand? Or are you just wishing my perspective was less dominant in resistance to yours?

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  33. Andrea Avatar
    Andrea

    Oh…and I forget to rebuke this:”Andrea, you’re making a lot of assumptions that simply don’t add up. For one, you’re assuming that Harold Ford’s private life is somehow “ending the existence of Dark Man” or is representative of it. Harold Ford isn’t exactly the “Darkest Man” himself, and regardless of who he dates/marries, what business is it of yours?”You said all of this and you assume this counter assumption. I never said Harold Ford was representative of the issue to campaign against racial mixing. You said that. You assumed I think that.Harold Ford is not even that social important as a posterchild of the issue because Harold Ford does not have a connection to the Black Community other than by default membership. Harold is the issue of the ironic question about whether RNC was accurate and I commented on his behavior in DC that I would have measured on the same rule if he was White. It just happens to be that when he was cutting up and looking unprofessional in the city, it was of cause evidence: White Women. I was telling Black Snob she was right in her ironic question. None of that is connected to Harold Ford being the Great Annihilator of the Dark Man. You assumed that to paint me to assert an assumption you could pounce on.The underlying theme of the post is the perplexing irony of why people give a fuck about Harold Ford’s personal life. Now if you read it again and read my comments you will see I am agreeing with Black Snob about that. We don’t care! We care about a bigger anthropological and social science issue, politically incorrect as it may be.

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  34. The Black Snob Avatar
    The Black Snob

    Not to interrupt anything but for the record I confused Gay Talese with Norman Mailer who DID die last year.In college I wrote a paper on him called “Mailer on the Couch” where he kept talking to himself in the third person, as he was wont to do.Thank you again, Kara, for pointing that out!

    Reply
  35. kara Avatar
    kara

    That’s alright Black Snob. I forgot about Norman Mailer and his crazy ass dying. He was a mess!

    Reply
  36. dewfish Avatar
    dewfish

    just so it dosen’t look like i’m taking your words out of context:The issue I was making about the trend in mixing. You assume that is a bigoted sentiment and I telling you that I am talking about the campaign to cease wild, interracial mixing promoted by Black Males when Black Females of a certain demographic are mateless.you know, there is another group that looks down on “wild, interracial mixing”. They used to wear these armbands with funny symbols on them, but nowadays I think they prefer shaved heads. You may need to re-think your views on some things. And why is this whole thing “promoted by Black Males”. Are there not Black Females who date/marry white men? H*ll, in TV and movies, black woman/white man is practically a cottage industry. Monster’s ball, Something New, the list goes on and on. I would think a movie shown in every theater in the country is more “promoting” than one man’s choice of wife. are black women not responsible for this “wild, interracial mixing” as well?

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  37. Andrea Avatar
    Andrea

    Again…do some research and read. Social trends are a result of social trends.If I only have to talk to you, I am not answering anymore. You obviously want me to talk to you and this is gamey and starting to to annoy. I really don’t know how you consistently draw counter assumptions in 2008 like this and not consider it narcissistic trolling…or unless you are narcissistically baiting.

    Reply
  38. aulelia Avatar
    aulelia

    @The Black Snob, you wrote “Being married to a black woman while gathering black votes is a political reality. Ford Jr. knew that. All black Americans know that.” — I wholeheartedly agree with this line of thinking but find it absolutely FASCINATING because there is no sense of this “i-will-vote-for-you-because-you-have-a-black-spouse” in England between black people who have lived here for more than a generation. Assimilation ensured that was crushed out. Aime Cesaire died last week and he was anti-assimilation; the negritude he and Senghor created advocated exactly what so many black people want to avoid these days: unity. I do think that by purposefully choosing a non-black spouse, you are assimilating. This conversation has intrigued me to learn more about black politicians in the United States besides the world’s favourite man: Barack Obama lol. I do have to say, one thing I have always liked about African-Americans/Black Americans is how proud you lot are of being black. As crazy as it sounds, finding black people like that here is like looking for an English person who doesn’t know where the Queen lives.

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  39. dewfish Avatar
    dewfish

    exactly how am I trolling? I asked a very straightforawrd question, and it was based directly off of the things you said. Maybe you are the one that needs better research. Still waiting for an answer to the questions I asked…..

    Reply
  40. dewfish Avatar
    dewfish

    And aulelia,sorry to hear that there is so much self-hatred in england.

    Reply
  41. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Harold ford is gay.

    Reply
  42. Aquarianbrass Avatar
    Aquarianbrass

    Why exactly is it self-hate to marry someone who is not a part of your socially defined ethnic group?As if your given “race” is encompasses your entire identity.I think “interracial” marriage can be radical if it challenges the socially excepted notions of race. The fact is our “race’ was given to us by our parents and society and to interrogate it though acts of passion and love(along with set notions of gender, religion etc) can be heroic. I’m sorry but there is nothing courageous about accepting the status quo concerning race. Andrea, you do realize that “whites” made us “black” just like they made themselves “white”. The black race is socially constructed. You can have near-black skinned people who aren’t “black”. I assure, many of our “African”(Africa was given to us by white folks too) ancestors didn’t even see themselves as “black” let alone as black first.As far as preserving particular skin colors, well thats non sense. Genetics is very much misunderstood on this board. Blending will not exterminate dark skinned people. Just look at Brazi or North Africa. The gene expression for skin color is a gradient and a child can be come out any color between either parent. Two “mixed race” people can produce very “black” children and very “white children”. Of course, the only way genes can be destroyed is through murder of the childless. Intermixing does not eliminate genes.And the idea of dilution is racist as hell.And stop assuming a black man is with a white women(or vice versa) because he hates black women. Its borderline narcissistic. He’s more likely with her because he likes HER, not because he dislikes YOU.But I guess love between so-called “blacks” and “whites” isn’t possible.

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  43. dewfish Avatar
    dewfish

    I agree with Aquarianbrass. The entire concept of race is a man-made social construct. What I find especially telling about andrea’s posts are that “wild, interracial mixing” is only wrong when black men do it.

    Reply
  44. Orville Avatar
    Orville

    I don’t think people are “outraged” that Harold is marrying a white woman. I think the “outrage” is the fact that when Harold was trying to get into political office be believed in “middle class values”, “respectability” and “church” and “morals”. The truth is Harold Ford Jr. is just a playboy he’s an attractive young man that doesn’t get it. In politics the “image” is just as important as the “message”. The republicans dug up dirt about the playboy ad and that totally screwed Harold over. I think some African American voters are “upset” because they felt Harold had more “morals”. And when I use the word “morals” I’m not talking about dating interracial dating. I am talking about being more in “tune” with black issues. And I think some blacks feel let down by Harold. I think Harold should just forget about a career in politics for now and just enjoy his life. I believe he has a right to date or marry whomever he chooses its his life right?

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  45. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I was in Jack and Jill with Fords former fiancee, the Black one that is. I felt so sorry for her when Fords mother said that his wife (then a fiancee) was “…just the type of woman he should marry…”. Ouch!Honestly, and I know this’ll sound strange, but for some reason I think hes into guys. Not that theres anything wrong with that.

    Reply
  46. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Anonymous,I read on another blog that Harold was into guys also. Someone posted that he has a jewish gay lover that he keeps in a hotel whenever he comes to town. They are stating that Emily is his beard and I’ve heard this many, many times from different people. You know what they say about a rumor when you hear it over and over again. There has to be some truth to it.As far as the happy couple goes, I just think they make a very odd couple. They are both beautiful people but they don’t necessarily look good together. She looks like she could be his little sister. From what I’ve read the two of them are hiding a secret.

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  47. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    You are exactly what Barack is fighting against. Why do you care who Harold marries. People should come together. If Harold dated someone on the down low that’s her fault (she should have dumped him, unless she wanted to brag).One more thing your grammar is horrible. Instead of worrying about Harold “learn to write”.

    Reply
  48. Terri Avatar
    Terri

    Who is “you”?

    Reply

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