Showing posts with label blacks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blacks. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 02, 2022
Monday, May 17, 2010
THE INDEPENDENT: What does it mean to be white? An explosive new book by an American academic argues that whiteness isn't biological at all – in fact, it can be learned. Precious Williams* disagrees
It is tempting to tell ourselves that we're on the verge of an inclusive, multicultural new age.
An era where colour doesn't matter all that much, where race doesn't define us. After all, society is changing. Radically. The Conservative Party's first-ever black female MP, Helen Grant, has just been elected. And across the pond, there is a black man in the White House. Or is there?
A controversial new book, The History of White People, claims that Barack Obama is, to all intents and purposes, white. Not because he had a white mother but because of his educational background, his income, his power, his status. The book's author, the eminent black American historian Nell Irvin Painter, has written a fascinating, sprawling history of the concept of race, looking specifically at the idea of a white race and at why and how whites have dominated other, darker-skinned races throughout recent centuries. The conclusion of Painter's book – which has taken more than a decade to research and write – is explosive. Race, she argues, is a fluid social construct, entirely unsupported by scientific fact. Like beauty, it is merely skin-deep.
Technically, she has a point. The $3bn Human Genome Project revealed in 2003 that every human being has a unique DNA sequence which differs from that of any fellow human being by just 0.1 per cent, regardless of ethnic origin. Thus, all humans beings are 99.9 per cent the same and, from a scientific viewpoint, there is no such thing as racial difference. >>> | Monday, May 17, 2010
*Precious Williams's memoir, 'Precious', is published by Bloomsbury on 2 August. 'The History of White People' by Nell Irvin Painter is published in hardback by Norton (£19.99). To order a copy for the special price of £17.99 (free P&P), call Independent Books Direct on 08430 600 030, or visit www.independentbooksdirect.co.uk
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
Related:
MAIL ONLINE: Stephen Robinson: Drunken Racist Buffoon Who Bewitched A Blonde Liberal >>> Stephen Robinson | Easter Monday, April 05, 2010
Monday, April 05, 2010
MAIL ONLINE: Stephen Robinson: Drunken Racist Buffoon Who Bewitched A Blonde Liberal >>> Stephen Robinson | Easter Monday, April 05, 2010
NZZ ONLINE: Zehn Wochen vor der Fussball-WM droht der gewaltsame Tod eines bekannten Apartheid-Befürworters Südafrika wieder zu polarisieren. Präsident Zuma bemühte sich stark, die Lage zu entspannen.
Südafrika fürchtet neue Rassenkonflikte: Nach dem tödlichen Anschlag auf den Rechtsextremisten Eugene Terre'Blanche am frühen Samstagabend warnte Südafrikas Präsident Jacob Zuma vor neuem Rassenhass. «Die schreckliche Tat» dürfe nicht dazu missbraucht werden, «Rassenhass anzustacheln oder anzuheizen», betonte der Führer des Afrikanischen Nationalkongresses (ANC).
«Niemand darf das Gesetz in seine Hände nehmen», sagte der Präsident im sichtlichen Bemühen, zehn Wochen vor der Fussball-WM in Südafrika die Lage zu entspannen. Auch der ANC, hervorgegangen aus der schwarzen Befreiungsbewegung, verurteilte den Anschlag «auf das Schärfste». >>> sda/Reuters/dpa/afp | Sonntag, 4. April 2010
MAIL ONLINE: For the self-styled Boer warrior, this was the ultimate humiliation.
Death came to Eugene Terreblanche not with his boots on, rifle in hand, defending the volk from the heathen hordes, but tucked up in bed in his pyjamas, probably passed out with the drink, and bludgeoned to death by two of his own black staff.
His supporters must today be asking themselves how such an advanced student of South Africa's racial peril could have left himself so vulnerable to ambush.
More than 3,000 farmers have been murdered in South Africa in the past 16 years, and no real man of the soil would go to bed without a pistol under his pillow.
If you're a white farmer in South Africa these days you learn to spot black faces at your window with the easy facility of a bushman sensing a juicy kudu in the veld.
Perhaps we should not be surprised, for Eugene Terreblanche was always the mountebank neo-Nazi, posing as a descendant of the great Afrikaner heroes such as Piet Retief and Paul Kruger.
For those of us who reported from his rallies in South Africa's platteland during the dying days of apartheid in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the most striking thing about him was not his shabby anti-black or anti-Semitic bombast, but the fact he could barely ride a horse.
I have seen sacks of coal more elegantly mounted astride a black stallion, and one of the funniest images I hold in my mind from those old battles was of Terreblanche riding to a political meeting in Pretoria, and promptly falling off his horse on to his well-padded back-side.
'Ach man, he's not a farmer, he's just a drama student,' one neighbour explained, noting that Terreblanche's small-holding extended to no more than 80 acres, which in South African terms is equivalent to tending a few marrows and runner beans on a suburban allotment.
Terreblanche was a risible-figure to all but his inner coterie even before he struck up an extraordinary liaison in the late 1980s with a bottle blonde temptress from a liberal South African newspaper named Jani Allan.
Miss Allan was famous in South African journalism as the plain-speaking voice of reason. Sending her to interview him was like asking some lefty from the Guardian to stitch up Nick Griffin of the BNP.
But it did not turn out as her editors expected. Rather than denounce this racial separatist, Miss Allan fell for him like a neo-Nazi falling off his horse.
'Right now I've got to remind myself to breathe,' she wrote of their encounter. 'I'm impaled on the blue flames of his blowtorch eyes.' >>> Stephen Robinson | Easter Monday, April 05, 2010
CNN: Video: Eugene Terreblanche Killed >>> | Easter Sunday, April 04, 2010
Sunday, April 04, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: Terreblanche murder is 'declaration of war' by blacks: South African President Jacob Zuma has called for calm as supporters of white supremacist leader Eugene Terreblanche said his murder was a "declaration of war" by blacks. >>> Sebastien Berger in Ventersdorp | Easter Sunday, April 04, 2010
Thursday, November 26, 2009
MAIL ONLINE: Controversial plans were unveiled yesterday to force political parties to make Parliament less white, male, middle-class and heterosexual.
Under proposals backed by Commons Speaker John Bercow, but labelled as 'insulting' by former Tory minister Ann Widdecombe, parties will be made to declare publicly how many women, ethnic minority, gay and disabled applicants they reject as potential Parliamentary candidates.
Parties also face demands to ensure at least half the MPs leaving Parliament at the next election - in what is expected to be the biggest exodus since 1945 - are replaced by women.
The proposals have emerged from a crossparty review set up by former Commons Speaker Michael Martin - and taken forward by his successor, Mr Bercow - on how to make the chamber more representative.
In an interim report published yesterday, the panel said parties must be made to be more transparent about the people putting themselves forward as would-be MPs.
The report said: 'The fact remains that, at present, the House of Commons continues to be largely white, male, middle-aged and middle-class: people from under-represented groups who are putting themselves forward for selection are still proportionately less likely to be selected.' >>> | Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Thursday, December 04, 2008
MAIL Online: Companies will be free to discriminate in favour of women and black job candidates under proposed ‘equality’ laws.
The move allows employers to give preferential treatment as long as applicants are equally qualified.
It is designed to boost the proportion of female and ethnic staff, as well as thrusting more of them into senior posts.
Ministers insist that businesses will not be compelled to favour the woman or the black candidate, but the law will be changed to ensure they cannot be sued for turning down a white man.
Equalities minister Harriet Harman says ‘positive action’ is vital so that the workforce more accurately represents the proportion of the population as a whole.
Positive discrimination, where a lesser qualified candidate is given the job just because he or she is from a minority, will remain illegal. >>> By Michael Lea | December 4, 2008
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback & Hardback) – Free delivery >>>
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