When I was in elementry school I was one of very few white people at my school and I was treated very badly for it it got to the point I just wouldnt go to school.

Unfortunately, it's always going to be a color thing. Because there is always going to be blacks in pageants and yet the blacks are still going to have their black pageants, then the NAACP, they need to stop with all that if they want everyone to be treated equal. Everyones blood is the same color, so, all the nonsense needs to stop on both parts.

Just because we are young dosent mean we havent experienced or understand empathy. That is judgmental and stereotypical. He shouldnt get a free pass because of that when hes speaking to over a million people.

I don't know, but where I live, whites are becoming the minority. Most jobs we apply for we are told that we must speak both english and spanish in order to even be considered for the job. I think that's racism and discrimination. I can't get a job because I don't speak spanish? I don't want to speak spanish and I don't feel I should have to, but I'm not given equal opportunities. I don't see anyone as a minority. Everyone is equal.

Thats one of the things I was trying to say just couldnt come up with the word doubled standard. :)

[quote=Ashley V;2432096]I don't see where you are proving your point. It said even Obama stopped smiling at that.

It proves the point in that these words weren't created for the speech. He is quoting a man who went thru the trials and errs of the past. Its simply a quote. The original author died in the 1950's.

Was it appropriate? I can say when I first heard it I thought it was a break from the normal pomp and circumstance but in a day that is steeped in MLK and the long way that our country has come with embracing all cultures a statement from the past may not have been received in the best of light.Obama is not looking back, he is moving forward. We should all learn from that.

I look forward to a world where we all move forward and quit blaming and pushing for reminders from a past that has long since past. We can only lift ourselves as high as or sights can set and you cant set them high if you keep looking back.

[quote=RebelBelle;2433138]

However I also don't have a problem with business owners requiring a second language. Business is about catering to your customers needs and employees must be qualified to do so. My job requires a college degree. The woman in the cubicle next to me was required to know sign language. That's not discrimination. It's a fact of our changing global community. [/quote)

:thumbup::thumbup:........

Actually, after a bit of digging, this chant goes much further back in history. It was an intra-racial chant used by early african-americans most likely dating back to the slave days when the slaves were assigned duties based on how dark and light they were... i.e. the darker skinned slaves were given the worst jobs, while the lighter skinned ones got the premium jobs (field slaves vs. house slaves)

Here's a link that gives some of the background of the chant...

Big Bill Broonzy - Biography

Quoted in part...

"Is it possible, we wondered, if at least some of those words were inspired by Big Bill's lyrics for his song Black, Brown and White? Check it out: Black, Brown and White

We got a response from Chris Smith, blues researcher and author of 'Hit The Right Lick' a discography of Big Bill. He wrote:

It was an old rhyme in black oral culture before Bill and others changed the
subject from intra-racial to inter-racial color caste, by editing it. To
quote from a review of mine in Blues & Rhythm:

Big Bill abridges an old rhyme, which John Cowley suggests he may have got
from Zora Neale Hurston via Alan Lomax. In Hurston's Story In Harlem Slang
(American Mercury, July 1942), one pimp says to another: Man, I don't
deal in no coal. Know what I tell 'em? If they's white, they's right! If
they's yellow, they's mellow! If they's brown, they can stick around. But if
they come black, they better git way back! (Im indebted to Konrad
Nowakowski for this reference.)

Personally, I suspect that the first line originally started 'If they's
bright...' (light-skinned black) rather than 'white.' In other words, it
originally expressed internalized racism, as Brenda Dixon Gottschild notes
in Dancing in the Dark: African American Vaudeville and Race Politics in
the Swing Era¹ (New York, Palgrave, 2000; p. 135):

Internalized racism ensures that the values encapsulated in this vernacular
rhyme serve as an insidious, self-fulfilling prophecy:"

It's amazing to me what you can find on the internet now days... :D

It is discrimination when you apply for a job like McDonald's and there are people getting hired left and right that don't speak english very well, but you aren't even considered because you don't speak spanish. I have literally went to the drive through and have been greeted in spanish.

And I've been denied a job because I'm a girl. It was a host job at a restaurant.

I mean obviously if you are looking for a job as a doctor or a computer specialist or whatever, you need a degree. If you are speaking to those who are deaf, you need to know sign language. That's a given.

Thanks for sharing that :thumbup:

My son had the same problem when he applied at KFC :(
He is not bilingual and has no plans on becoming bilingual.
He is trying so hard to find a job, and its been almost impossible.

This is so WONDERFUL to know, thank you so much.