>> Stephen<mcavoys_at@aoldotcom> wrote:
>>> On 14/07/2011 6:09 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>>>>> Oreo is also derogatory American slang.
>>>> I hadn't heard that -
>>
>>> Black on the outside. White on the inside.
>>
>> Honestly, I don't understand what that's supposed to mean.
>>
>
> A black person who doesn't act like the rest of their homies from the
> 'hood.
>
> cf: Lewis Hamilton, Tiger Woods, Barack Obama.
>
> The inverse (and quite derogatory) is "wigger". White folks who dress
> with pants down to their knees and oversided basketball shirts. If I'm
> not mistaken, the Brits call them "chavs".

So, it's a degoratory term used to designate someone from an unfavorable 
origin, who, through hard work, sacrifices and perseverence, managed to 
rise above that background.

If I was in that case, I would receive it as a GREAT compliment, an 
awsome acknowlegement and recognaisance of the great hard work of my 
parents, possibly grand-perents, and mine.

When you are from some gethoized culture, you realy have a duty of 
getting OUT of it and it's stigma. You should never wilignly stay in those.



Alain

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Alain <aze### [at] qwertyorg> wrote:
> So, it's a degoratory term used to designate someone from an unfavorable 
> origin, who, through hard work, sacrifices and perseverence, managed to 
> rise above that background.

  If I understood correctly, it's probably more like they (ie. black people)
see him as a "traitor" to their subculture, one who doesn't want to belong
to his own people, to embrace their customs and culture, but instead tries
to live like the white people (who are often seen as the "oppressors", at
least by association).

  Of course the problem here is that they see it as him "trying to be white"
(with all the related culture and customs), when in fact it's probably just
that he wants a better life, as you commented.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 7/18/2011 13:53, Warp wrote:
> see him as a "traitor" to their subculture,

That is exactly the subtext, yes.  "Being black isn't good enough for ya?"

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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On 18-7-2011 5:47, Stephen wrote:
> On 16/07/2011 4:55 PM, andrel wrote:
>> On 16-7-2011 16:03, Stephen wrote:
>>
>>> Sometimes I get disapproval because I am a Scot living in London. (From
>>> fellow Scots, that is.
>>
>> .... but you answered that yourself
>
> You are just teasing Warp, now.
>
Oh I don't know, just trying out some non-linear newsgroup using.

-- 
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per 
citizen per day.

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On 18/07/2011 11:41 PM, andrel wrote:
> On 18-7-2011 5:47, Stephen wrote:
>> On 16/07/2011 4:55 PM, andrel wrote:
>>> On 16-7-2011 16:03, Stephen wrote:
>>>
>>>> Sometimes I get disapproval because I am a Scot living in London. (From
>>>> fellow Scots, that is.
>>>
>>> .... but you answered that yourself
>>
>> You are just teasing Warp, now.
>>
> Oh I don't know, just trying out some non-linear newsgroup using.
>

LOL

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On 18/07/2011 11:29 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 7/18/2011 13:53, Warp wrote:
>> see him as a "traitor" to their subculture,
>
> That is exactly the subtext, yes. "Being black isn't good enough for ya?"
>

I agree with Darren. Same in the UK.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> On 7/18/2011 13:53, Warp wrote:
> > see him as a "traitor" to their subculture,

> That is exactly the subtext, yes.  "Being black isn't good enough for ya?"

  If those same people complain about rampant racism, it's called
hypocrisy. (If they don't, then I suppose it's an internally logical
stance.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 7/18/2011 2:27 PM, Alain wrote:

>
> When you are from some gethoized culture, you realy have a duty of
> getting OUT of it and it's stigma. You should never wilignly stay in those.
>
>
>
> Alain

Context is everything.  The Irish who spoke Gaelic were ghetto for 
generations.  The American Indians and Australian Aborigines were 
repeatedly pressured to assimilate and renounce their ancestors ways. 
Now they are the lauded as guardians of their cultural heritage.

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Tom Galvin <tom### [at] impnospamorg> wrote:
> Context is everything.  The Irish who spoke Gaelic were ghetto for 
> generations.  The American Indians and Australian Aborigines were 
> repeatedly pressured to assimilate and renounce their ancestors ways. 
> Now they are the lauded as guardians of their cultural heritage.

  Some hundreds of years ago European colonialists had this utopistic
(and rather arrogant) concept that the cultures they were colonizing were
primitive (technically true), undeveloped and in many case even barbaric,
and that they were there to "bring light" to these backwards cultures,
educate them and bring them the joys of modern civilizations and high
culture. Generally speaking the primitive barbaric cultures had no value
and should be left behind.

  The results were not purely bad, though. Many of said civilizations did
benefit from the education and technology brought by the Europeans, raising
their standard of living significantly (just look at the recent history of
Zimbabwe to see what happens when this is undone). Of course sabotaging
local cultures wasn't always all that good either.

  Nowadays the trend has reversed itself, sometimes even to the point of
detriment. In many European countries the local culture is despised and
even considered "primitive and backwards", while cultures of distant lands
are utopized (to the point of actually ignoring and refusing to acknowledge
any negative sides of those cultures). The preservation of distant cultures,
even when those people immigrate to Europe, is so idolized that it actually
causes more problems than it's worth.

  One would think that the ideology of getting rid of cultures of distant
lands and replacing them with the country's own culture would be a thing
of the distant past, not being practiced for a century or so. However, in
some forms this ideology has persisted to surprisingly recently.

  A curious example of this is the importing of anime from Japan to the US.
Even as recently as the mid (and even late) 90's, there was an odd principle
among these importers that the Americans would not understand the Japanese
culture, they would want to see everything assimilated to their own culture,
and hence localization of the anime went often far beyond simply dubbing it.
In some cases anime series and movies were severely modified, re-edited,
merged and even partially redone in order to remove all possible cultural
references to Japan, replacing them with American equivalents. In some cases
this went even so far as to actually changing the script itself (by changing
dialogue, the order of events, cutting things out, adding original material...)

  It wasn't until the 2000's that the pressure from anime fans finally sunk
in and the importers have started preserving the anime series as well as
possible (many even going so far as to offering completely unmodified
versions, just with English subtitles, something almost unthinkable in
the US of the 80's and early 90's.)

  Censorship in imported anime still exists, though, due to some forms of
cultural dissonance.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 13-8-2011 7:59, Warp wrote:

>    Nowadays the trend has reversed itself, sometimes even to the point of
> detriment. In many European countries the local culture is despised and
> even considered "primitive and backwards", while cultures of distant lands
> are utopized (to the point of actually ignoring and refusing to acknowledge
> any negative sides of those cultures). The preservation of distant cultures,
> even when those people immigrate to Europe, is so idolized that it actually
> causes more problems than it's worth.

Are you talking about the same Europe that I am living in?

I am aware that some populist movements try to get this distorted view 
across. But things don't get true simply by repeating the same nonsense 
over and over again.


-- 
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per 
citizen per day.

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