Just so you don't think I'm ignoring you, Killa, I appreciate your post and intend to get back to you. I also want you to know that I meant nothing offensive by my response, so if I've offended in any way, I apologize.

Now that being said, I could see this becoming a lengthy discussion, so I'm going to wait until I have a bigger slice of time to do so.

Posted by playa2:

Wow Killa, your 1st part should be on a billboard somehwere !

I always wished that to get ahead in america white people had to study black history too.

We had to study white history to get ahead in school so as african americans we know you, but the question is do you really know US ?????

I do not ever remember being in a class called white history. History is what it is. You seem to be fixated on white and black when there are hundreds of creeds colors and religions in the world. You are segregating one class of human being which can be construed as raciscm.

Posted by Solace:

Just so you don't think I'm ignoring you, Killa, I appreciate your post and intend to get back to you. I also want you to know that I meant nothing offensive by my response, so if I've offended in any way, I apologize.

Now that being said, I could see this becoming a lengthy discussion, so I'm going to wait until I have a bigger slice of time to do so.

Solace please dont apologize. We are talking about ideas, we need to both assume we have no ill will and just talk and debate, its no big deal. I know it will take time, my first response took me a long time to write.

I'm no historian, but I honestly don't feel all of this is entirely accurate. I also don't feel like people should be held responsible for the mistakes of ancestors. If you want to enlighten about how 'most' people and the government intentionally targetted black people in the ways you're saying, with some credible sources, I'd be interested in reading.

Edited by - Solace on Jul 22 2007 5:55 PM][/size=1]
[/quote]

I saw this on PBS a survivor who was 98 yrs old, it was mind boggling to me this was kept secret for so long !


Black Wall Street: The True Story

If anyone truly believes that the attack on the federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma was the most tragic bombing ever to take place on United States soil, as the media has been widely reporting, they're wrong -- plain and simple. That's because an even deadlier bomb occurred in that same state nearly 87 years ago. Many people in high places would like to forget that it ever happened.


Searching under the heading of "riots," "Oklahoma" and "Tulsa" in current editions of the World Book Encyclopedia, there is conspicuously no mention whatsoever of the Tulsa race riot of 1921, and this omission is by no means a surprise, or a rare case. The fact is, one would also be hard-pressed to find documentation of the incident, let alone and accurate accounting of it, in any other "scholarly" reference or American history book.


That's precisely the point that noted author, publisher and orator Ron Wallace, a Tulsa native, sought to make nearly five years ago when he began researching this riot, one of the worst incidents of violence ever visited upon people of African descent. Ultimately joined on the project by colleague Jay Wilson of Los Angeles, the duo found and compiled indisputable evidence of what they now describe as "a Black holocaust in America."


The date was June 1, 1921, when "Black Wall Street," the name fittingly given to one of the most affluent all-Black communities in America, was bombed from the air and burned to the ground by mobs of envious whites. In a period spanning fewer than 12 hours, a once thriving 36-Black business district in northern Tulsa lay smoldering--a model community destroyed, and a major African-American economic movement resoundingly defused.


The night's carnage left some 3,000 African Americans dead, and over 600 successful businesses lost. Among these were 21 churches, 21 restaurants, 30 grocery stores and two movie theaters, plus a hospital, a bank, a post office, libraries, schools, law offices, a half dozen private airplanes and even a bus system. As could have been expected the impetus behind it all was the infamous Ku Klux Klan, working in consort with ranking city officials, and many other sympathizers.


In their self-published book, Black Wallstreet: A Lost Dream, and its companion video documentary, Black Wallstreet: A Black Holocaust in America!, the authors have chronicled for the very first time in the words of area historians and elderly survivors what really happened there on that fateful summer day in 1921 and why it happened. Wallace similarly explained to me why this bloody event from the turn of the century seems to have had a recurring effect that is being felt in predominately Black neighborhoods even to this day.


The best description of Black Wallstreet, or Little Africa as it was also known, would be liken it to a mini-Beverly Hills. It was the golden door of the Black community during the early 1900s, and it proved that African Americans had successful infrastructure. That's what Black Wallstreet was all about.
The dollar circulated 36 to 100 times, sometimes taking a year for currency to leave the community. Now in 2007, a dollar leaves the Black community in 15-minutes. As far as resources, there were Ph.D.'s residing in Little Africa, Black attorneys and doctors. One doctor was Dr. Berry who owned the bus system. His average income was $500 a day, a hefty pocket change in 1910.
During that era, physicians owned medical schools. There were also pawn shops everywhere, brothels, jewelry stores, 21 churches, 21 restaurants and two movie theaters. It was a time when the entire state of Oklahoma had only two airports, yet six Blacks owned their own planes. It was a very fascinating community.


The area encompassed over 600 businesses and 36 square blocks with a population of 15,000 African Americans. And when the lower-economic Europeans looked over and saw what the Black community created, many of them were jealous. When the average student went to school on Black Wallstreet, he wore a suit and tie because of the morals and respect they were taught at a young age.


The mainstay of the community was to educate every child. Nepotism was the one word they believed in. And that's what we need to get back to in 1995. The main thoroughfare was Greenwood Avenue, and it was intersected by Archer and Pine Streets. From the first letters in each of those three names, you get G.A.P., and that's where the renowned R and B music group the Gap Band got its name. They're from Tulsa.


Black Wallstreet was a prime example of the typical Black community in America that did businesses, but it was in an unusual location. You see, at the time, Oklahoma was set aside to be a Black and Indian state. There were over 28 Black townships there. One third of the people who traveled in the terrifying "Trail of Tears" along side the Indians between 1830 to 1842 were Black people.
The citizens of this proposed Indian and Black state chose a Black governor, a treasurer from Kansas named McDade. But the Ku Klux Klan said that if he assumed office that they would kill him within 48 hours. A lot of Blacks owned farmland, and many of them had gone into the oil business. The community was so tight and wealthy because they traded dollars hand-to-hand, and because they were dependent upon one another as a result of the Jim Crow laws.
It was not unusual that if a resident's home accidentally burned down, it could be rebuilt within a few weeks by neighbors. This was the type of scenario that was going on day- to-day on Black Wallstreet. When Blacks intermarried into the Indian culture, some of them received their promised '40 acres and a mule' and with that came whatever oil was later found on the properties.


Just to show you how wealthy a lot of Black people were, there was a banker in the neighboring town who had a wife named California Taylor. Her father owned the largest cotton gin west of the Mississippi [River]. When California shopped, she would take a cruise to Paris every three months to have her clothes made.
There was also a man named Mason in nearby Wagner County who had the largest potato farm west of the Mississippi. When he harvested, he would fill 100 boxcars a day. Another brother not far away had the same thing with a spinach farm. The typical family then was five children or more, though the typical farm family would have 10 kids or more who made up the nucleus of the labor.


On Black Wallstreet, a lot of global business was conducted. The community flourished from the early 1900s until June 1, 1921. That's when the largest massacre of non-military Americans in the history of this country took place, and it was lead by the Ku Klux Klan. Imagine walking out of your front door and seeing 1,500 homes being burned. It must have been amazing.


Survivors we interviewed think that the whole thing was planned because during the time that all of this was going on, white families with their children stood around the borders of their community and watched the massacre, the looting and everything--much in the same manner they would watch a lynching.







[Edited by - playa2 on 22-07-2007 21:46]

Theres also a movie about something lke this that happened in Rosewood, Florida. The movie is called Rosewood, done by John Singleton, based on the true story which is nearly identical to the black wall street story. The is other stuff I will post later, but I did want to say that your point is taken about approach and tone, I'm going to make serious adjustments in my next post.

[quote]
Posted by playa2:

The problem lays with this , whenever black people come together in this country and unite to do something positive as a community it is destroyed by angry whites.

What other nationality (ethnic group)that came to america has the same problem.

You can have a china town, Little Italy, Korean, Arabian etc... and they aren't destroyed, but african americans were always at a disadvantage because of fear of retaliation and some just gave up.

http://www.displaysforschools.com/survivor.html

survivors of ROSEWOOD

Posted by Silverfuel:

Posted by playa2:

The problem lays with this , whenever black people come together in this country and unite to do something well as a community it is destroyed.

Whats the solution to this playa?

This was a debate silver and many don't know what really happened bacause america has the tendecies to bury our african american history in america.

This is how it was resolved in florida:

In 1994, after the Florida Legislature passed the Rosewood Claims Bill, each of the nine Rosewood survivors received $150,000 as part of a total $2.1 million compensation. One survivor has since died.

In 1994, after the Legislature not only acknowledged the events of Jan. 1-7, 1923, but approved the compensation package, ''I became known as a Rosewood survivor,'' Daniels said.

Holland & Knight lawyer Steve Hanlon, who spent three years representing Rosewood survivors, said it was gratifying to hear Daniels express gratitude for the financial compensation and Florida's long-awaited acknowledgement of the massacre.

''The day we put the survivors on the stand was my best day of practicing law,'' Hanlon said. ''And it wasn't because of my preparation. They had a remarkable story to tell and they did a remarkable job of telling it. . . . The story was no longer buried in Florida's history.''

.

Posted by Solace:

Posted by TMS:

as much as we'd all love to believe that racism doesn't preclude people of minority descent from being successful in this country, i think it's foolish to think that holds true all the time. working at my old company for the past 5 years (many of you know which company i'm talking about), i noticed that not once had any minority officer been promoted to being the top of their divisions. now, one can say that maybe there were no minorities who deserved to be promoted during that time, but then all you need to do is to look at some of the non-minority kiss up fools who DID get their promotions & you'd wonder how in the hell any of them got to where they are.

working under the SVP of marketing for example, i can tell you for sure that she was as clueless as they came. there was no way that she deserved to be in charge of that division in the company for as long as she'd been in charge of it. there were plenty of other minority Asians, Blacks & Latinos who i would say were much more qualified for the role working in the department for a good number of years, but none of them were afforded the opportunity during the time i was there.

for every company-wide meeting that was held in the main auditorium of the company's campus complex, you'd see exclusively White upper execs standing up on stage addressing the employees. this included the visiting upper execs from the other worldwide branches of the company as a whole who came as guest speakers. All White, everytime - it never failed. Was racism the cause for this? Maybe. Whether by conscious choice or not, I don't think it's out of the question to at least consider it may have something to do with it. To assume that the minority candidates who could have been up for consideration for upper management positions at my company did not have what it takes to be promoted to that level is a somewhat biased viewpoint in itself, so I'm not sure how else to explain it personally.

Absolutely and a good point. The only thing I would like to acknowledge is that this is not true at every company. But I can certainly see it in some. I'd even go beyond racism here. As you said people who kiss up the most, but don't really know what they're doing, tend to get the highest promotions. That seems to be true almost everywhere, regardless of race. My previous company was very very blocked when it came to moving up the ranks, because they already had a lot of incompetent people at higher ranks and one unwritten company policy was that they almost never demoted anyone or rarely fired someone high up either (except the one guy who got fired for watching porn at work).

So, what does this all mean? Well, I think this might be a prime example of where society hasn't become fully equal yet. Women complain about the same things, although frankly, I would venture that they are treated more fairly than they would have you believe. I'm still was mystified about how women who reduced their hours to 25 hours per week (to watch their kids), two companies ago, were complaining about not getting ahead fast enough. Anyway, I'm straying from the point. The point is, I think, or at least hope, as time goes on, people will become more and more accepting of one another, and eventually issues like the ones you mention will continue to fade, although it will probably never achieve 100% perfection.

no doubt, i was in no way trying to imply this is the case all the time... like playa's list shows, there's plenty of companies out there that believes in diversity... i'm just speaking out of my own personal experience w/the company i used to work for... it was a running joke amongst some of my co-workers how many incompetent imbeciles got promotions after only working a year or 2 at the company while a very talented minority designer who i worked with that had been with the company for 12 years never even got a sniff of a promotion in all the time she'd been there.

i'm never someone who believes that minorities should be handed any charity in this country & i believe people should work for what they get, but i do believe minorities deserve at least a fair shake on an even playing ground, & i think it's clear that doesn't always happen in this country, & that's a shame.