Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Why Do White Folks Agree To Handouts Only When Its Them Receiving It?



The Shirley Sherrod case made white folks upset, the Pigford case for the black farmers made white folks question black farmer’s integrity, but the ruling to uphold the ban on Affirmative Action in California made white folks happy.

When Shirley Sherrod was accused of discrimination against a white farmer by Andrew Breithart and Fox We Make Up Lies News, and later discovered that this allegation was false, white folks ran over each other to stand in her defense. After all, the white farmer was one of their own—a part of their skin color group. I’m not saying that the white farmer did not deserve or need Sherrod’s help, because he did! Because the man was being screwed by his own people—white folks, but then, why doesn’t that also apply to black farmers and Native Americans who need help because they too are being screwed by  those white folks up in Congress? 

However, white folks  are not running over each other to stand in the Native Americans and black farmer’s defense.  Oh no! How is it that Blanche Lincoln will get 1.5 billion for white farmers “only”, but the 1.2 billion settlements promised to the black farmers has been reneged on? Isn’t it strange how the Pigford case was about discrimination against the black farmers, but the 1.5 billion for white farmers “only” isn’t seen as discrimination by whites? I guess in their opinion, it's okay  for  Congress to sell the black farmer’s fried ice cream. In other words, Congress is trying to weasel their way out of paying the black farmers discrimination suit and discriminate against them again.

Here in sunny California [the sunny is a myth] the Supreme Court has upheld the ban on Affirmative Action and white folks are beaming with joy. For some reason, they don’t quite get it or rather pretending not to get it.  Although, whites have enjoyed  a long history of Affirmative Action benefits from the time they annihilated the Native Americans up until now.  It is the reason why there is a huge income gap between whites and blacks and other people of color. Here is a list of those Affirmative Action benefits whites have benefitted from and enjoyed:

"• The 1830 Indian Removal Act, which forcibly relocated the Cherokee, Creek, and other eastern Indians to west of the Missippi River to make room for white settlers.
• The 1862 Homestead Act - Gave away millions of acres of Indian Land. Two hundred and seventy million acres of land converted to private hands to whites.
• 1700 Naturalization Act - Permitted only "free white persons to be naturalized citizens. Only citizens could vote, serve on juries, hold office, and hold property.
• The Alien Land Laws reserved farm land for white growers and prevented Asian immigrants ineligible to become citizens, or owning land, or leasing land.
• Immigration restrictions limited opportunities for nonwhite groups. Racial barriers to naturalized U.S. citizenship weren't removed until the
• McCarran-Walter Act in 1952.
• The South, the federal government never kept their promise to divide up plantations and give each freed slave 40 acres and a mule as reparations.
• Only monetary compensation for slavery in Washington, D.C. was $300 per slave upon emancipation, but not to the slaves, but to local slaveholders as compensation for loss of property [slaves].
• Jim Crow laws reserved the best jobs, neighborhoods, schools, and hospitals for white people.
• The New Deal's Social Security Act of 1935 provided a safety net for millions of workers and guaranteed them an income after retirement, but specifically excluded two occupations: agricultural workers and domestic servants, which were predominately African American, Hispanic, and Asian. As low-income workers, they couldn't save for their retirement or pass on their wealth to their children.
• The 1935 Wagner Act bestowed on white people a new right. It granted unions the power of collective bargaining, which helped millions of white workers gain entry into the middle class over the next 30 years. But permitted unions to exclude non-whites and deny them better paying jobs, union protection, benefits such as health care, job security, and pensions, which remained well into the 1970s.
• Another New Deal program was the Federal Housing Adminstration helped generate much of the wealth so many whites enjoy today. It made it possible for millions of average white Americans, but not non-whites to own a home for the first time. The government system was set up with a national neighborhood appraisal system tying mortgage eligibility to whites only. Integrated communities were labeled financial risk and made ineligible for home loans, which was known as "redlining.
• 1962, the federal government backed $120 billion of home loans. More than 98% went to whites. Of the 350,000 new homes built with federal support in northern California between 1946 and 1960, fewer than 100 went to African Americans.
• World War II Government subsidies for municipal services helped develop and build segregated white suburbs around the country, in turn fueling commercial investments. Freeway tied to the new suburbs to central business districts, but cut through and destroyed the vitality of non-white neighborhoods in the central city." ~~The University of Dayton School of Law~~

It appears that Affirmative Action is fine when it is being handed out to benefit whites only. However, when it comes to people of color, that’s a different story because then it becomes a problem and labeled handouts or welfare. Believe it or not, the false assertion of reverse discrimination is not new either. Nope, that’s an old trick too because whites complained to FEPC back in the 50’s that they were being discriminated against. It is a trick that goes back as far as Post-Reconstruction. Do they just want to keep a brother and sister down?

~~Picture borrowed from the New York Times~~

2 comments:

Francis Holland said...

I've been asking myself the same question, but about different facts. Why does the Democratic Congress suddenly feel a need to hang out to dry Reps. Charles Rangel and the longtime US House member from California Maxine Waters?

Why not investigate President Bush's war crimes instead?

GrannyStandingforTruth said...

Frances, I've been thinking about that myself. It's strange but then again not so strange how all of sudden only blacks are being targeted. The other day I happen to turn on Keith Olbermann and caught a quick comment he made something about the person who is in charge of calling for ethnics charges worked for Bush in the CIA or something like that. I didn't quite catch it all what he was talking about because I had something to do. I had meant to watch him again later on that night, but it slipped my mind.

Bush left a lot of his people planted at the White House before he left and fixed it where they couldn't be replaced because they had some type of term contracts if I recall correctly. Do you remember that? I dunno what became of that because it wasn't mentioned again.

The GOP bigots want to try and strip us of our civil rights and their trying to do it in a crafty and subtle way, but it's so obvious, right up under our
nose, in our face thing. They want to get rid of the 14 amendment and that's not all on their agenda. It was created initially for black people to ensure our citizenship because we were not considered citizens even though we were born here. Don't forget we were not even considered full human and property. If you are not a citizen you cannot vote. They kept the Asians from voting by denying them citizenship.

I keep trying to tell our people we need to stick together and unite like never before because we're in for the fight of our lives this time around and it is gonna take all hands on deck. I just wish I could express what all I'm trying to say in words like you young people. If they let the GOP get back in power, it is not going to be nothing nice for people of color or poor people.