Obama on 'The View,' Calls African Americans 'Mongrels'

[NovaSkegee]

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Obama on 'The View,' Calls African Americans 'Mongrels'

By Ruth Manuel-Logan
Black Voices

Video
http://www.bvblackspin.com/2010/07/29/obama-on-the-view/




When Barbara Walters hit Obama with a question as to why he does not consider himself to be multiracial, he didn't seem taken aback. Instead, Obama said that he was less interested in whether people perceived him as black or multiracial and more interested in seeing people treat each other with respect.

The President went on to state that after going through an "identity crisis" as a teenager, he realized:

"If the world saw me as African American, then that was something I needn't run away from, that's something that I could go ahead and embrace. I'm less interested in how we label ourselves, I'm more interested in how we treat each other. And if we're treating each other right, then I can be African American, I can be multiracial, I can be, you name it. What matters is, am I showing people respect, am I caring for other people."

Obama also went on to say how Blacks as a race are "mixed up":

"We are sort of a mongrel people. I mean, we're all kinds of mixed up," Obama said. "That's actually true of white people as well, but we just know more about it."

[oldsport]

m&g, u, and y...imagine the length of this thread if a white politician had describe Blacks as mongrels...

[eagle pride]

We are a mixed people.  As black as I am, my great grandfather was half white/indian.  Meaning one of his parents was white and the other indian.  He married a dark skinned woman, but yet that white person's blood is still flowing in my grandmother's vains. 

[iceman4221]

m&g, u, and y...imagine the length of this thread if a white politician had describe Blacks as mongrels...

I don't understand why you would expect that, the use of the word is appropriate regardless of the source, unless its used with malicious intent...  Maybe Merriam Webster can help you out, since you are reaching for straws on this one... 

For the record OS, most on this board don't have problems dealing with facts and/or truths...  Its the opinionated BS without sound foundations that gets most people on this board,  all up in arms... 

If the issue is objective and measurable, the arguments are less, its when something is subjective, open to interpretation, inspired by angst and hell bent on pushing buttons, based on manipulation, twisting of the facts, out right lies or a blending of opinion with factual info that creates the most heated of discussions in this forum... 

Main Entry:  Mongrel
Pronunciation: \ˈmäŋ-grəl, ˈməŋ-\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, probably from mong mixture, short for ymong, from Old English gemong crowd — more at among
Date: 15th century

1 : an individual resulting from the interbreeding of diverse breeds or strains; especially : one of unknown ancestry
2 : a cross between types of persons or things

[NovaSkegee]

We are a mixed people.  As black as I am, my great grandfather was half white/indian.  Meaning one of his parents was white and the other indian.  He married a dark skinned woman, but yet that white person's blood is still flowing in my grandmother's vains.  

eagle pride and iceman4221.

How many black people go around saying they are 'Mongrels'? Do African Americans use the term 'Mongrel' so that they can feel less black or less connected to Africa?  Again, is this term part of the African American daily language?

Most blacks in the United States that have any European blood came from by forced sexual acts on enslaved black people. That fact can not be debated. Also, all blacks in the United States are not mixed with whites and Native Americans. Some may want to think this is true. But, there are many African Americans that have no 'Mongrel' heritage as the President states.

Because if the President is going to use the term 'Mongrels' then when is he going to talk about Reparations for slavery and Jim Crow Apartheid?

And being the your family has white and Native American blood does that mean they weren't treated like other Africans in the the United States?

If Vice President Joe Bind had said 'Mongrels' or Sarah Palin had said 'Mongrels' what would you be thinking if they said it in the exact same context as President Obama saying it?

[eagle pride]

We are a mixed people.  As black as I am, my great grandfather was half white/indian.  Meaning one of his parents was white and the other indian.  He married a dark skinned woman, but yet that white person's blood is still flowing in my grandmother's vains.  

eagle pride and iceman4221.

How many black people go around saying they are 'Mongrels'? Do African Americans use the term 'Mongrel' so that they can feel less black or less connected to Africa?  Again, is this term part of the African American daily language?

Most blacks in the United States that have any European blood came from by forced sexual acts on enslaved black people. That fact can not be debated. Also, all blacks in the United States are not mixed with whites and Native Americans. Some may want to think this is true. But, there are many African Americans that have no 'Mongrel' heritage as the President states.

Because if the President is going to use the term 'Mongrels' then when is he going to talk about Reparations for slavery and Jim Crow Apartheid?

And being the your family has white and Native American blood does that mean they weren't treated like other Africans in the the United States?

If Vice President Joe Bind had said 'Mongrels' or Sarah Palin had said 'Mongrels' what would you be thinking if they said it in the exact same context as President Obama saying it?

The fact still remain, not all of my fathers and mothers were black.

[NovaSkegee]

The fact still remain, not all of my fathers and mothers were black.

You didn't answer the question.

[NovaSkegee]

Just think if Sean Hannity said black people are Mongrels.

Or if House Minority Leader John Boehner or Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell used Mongrels to discuss African Americans the same as President Obama did on The View.

Black people would be going crazy and you know it.

[Bison 4 Life]

Nova,


I think its one of those little Black secrets we like to keep to ourselves . But alot of us ( self included) have other races in our background. The mongrel like mulatoo was given  extra negatives by you knw who in the past. The word is rarely used but  we know the intent.

Another issue here is remember  he is no the historian for Black America.

[NovaSkegee]

Nova,


I think its one of those little Black secrets we like to keep to ourselves.

No, it's not some secret. When white men had sex with black women and had back in the day what they called Mulatto children...there was no hiding that and on the plantations everyone knew when a white overseer or slave master raped the women.

The white women knew their husbands were having sex with the women.

Also, where there were times when white men and black women or white women and black men openly had relationships and had children, no one hid this.

So, what do you mean the little secrets?

White folks have always known what they did to black people in the Americas. Black people even wear the names of their former slave masters. That's not a secret either.


little Black secrets not at all. ...again whites know more about blacks because whites controlled the life of black people. Don't be fooled to think they don't just because whites don't discuss these facts around black people.
__________________________


Conditions of antebellum slavery
1830 - 1860
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2956.html

African American women had to endure the threat and the practice of sexual exploitation. There were no safeguards to protect them from being sexually stalked, harassed, or raped, or to be used as long-term concubines by masters and overseers. The abuse was widespread, as the men with authority took advantage of their situation. Even if a woman seemed agreeable to the situation, in reality she had no choice. Slave men, for their part, were often powerless to protect the women they loved.


The Life of a Woman Plantation Slave
http://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/836.html

[Pmist]

I would think EP knows a little more about her family history than others, so if she says that is what she is from, then how could you say yea or nay on it?

[NovaSkegee]

Mongrel:
1: an individual resulting from the interbreeding of diverse breeds or strains; especially : one of unknown ancestry
2: a cross between types of persons or things
3:  An animal or a plant resulting from various interbreedings, especially a dog of mixed or undetermined breed.
4: mongrel - derogatory term for a variation that is not genuine; something irregular or inferior or of dubious origin.
5: mongrel - an inferior dog or one of mixed breed

In the United States as a legal or census definition, "mulatto" meant not just the product of a union of a white parent and a black one, but also of the union of a black and a mulatto. The child of any enslaved African who had one white grandparent, whether by a white or black spouse, would be a mulatto.

The one-drop rule is a historical colloquial term in the United States for the social classification as black of individuals with any African ancestry.

Both before and after the American Civil War, many people of mixed ancestry who "looked white" and were of mostly white ancestry were legally absorbed into the white majority. State laws established differing standards. For instance, in 1822 Virginia law stated that to be defined as "mulatto" (that is, multi-racial), a person had to have at least one-quarter (equivalent to one grandparent) African ancestry.

Similarly in the United States, people of partial Native American descent were usually classified as Native American.

Quadroon is a racial category of hypodescent used to describe a person of mixed-race with one-fourth African and three-fourths Caucasian ancestry.

Octoroon refers to a person with one-eighth African ancestry and that is, someone with family heritage of one biracial grandparent, in other words, one African great-grandparent and seven Caucasian great-grandparents.

Terceron is a term synonymous with "octoroon," derived from being three generations of descent from an African ancestor (great-grandparent).

Mustee refers to a person with one-sixteenth African ancestry; Mustefino refers to a person with one-thirty-second African ancestry.

The one-drop rule is a historical colloquial term in the United States for the social classification as black of individuals with any African ancestry. Similarly in the United States, people of partial Native American descent were usually classified as Native American.

According to the 1860 census, 39 percent of freedmen in Southern cities were mulattoes. Among urban enslaved Africans, the proportion of mulattoes was 20 percent. 95 percent of the enslaved Africans did not live in the cities and most did not have mixed blood with whites.

In the Works Progress Administration survey of former enslaved Africans, of those who identified parentage, only 4.5 percent indicated a white parent. And the later work of geneticists lowers the number even further: measures of DNA mutations that are identifiably African or European among modern Southern rural blacks indicate that the share of black children fathered by whites on slave plantations probably averaged between 1 and 2 percent.

Jim Crow laws reached their greatest influence during the decades from 1910–1930. Among them were hypodescent laws, defining as black anyone with any black ancestry, or with a very small portion of black ancestry.

Tennessee adopted such a "one-drop" statute in 1910, and Louisiana soon followed. Then Texas and Arkansas in 1911, Mississippi in 1917, North Carolina in 1923, Virginia in 1924, Alabama and Georgia in 1927, and Oklahoma in 1931. During this same period, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Utah retained their old "blood fraction" statutes de jure, but amended these fractions (one-sixteenth, one-thirtysecond) to be equivalent to one-drop de facto.

[y04185]

i just watched the segment where the president uses the term mongrel.  he probably should not have used the word.  i also see nothing wrong with it.  i think the story took the word and what the president said out of context.  the media is taking this out of context.  this is the problem with sound bite journalism. 

[Wildman78]

I didn't like his choice of  that word and I which he hadn't used it.  However, I don't think he intended to demean or low-rate Africa-Americans.

It is a non-issue with me.  If Sean Hannity had said White Americans were mongrels and then said, African-American are Mongrels too, like Obama did, I probably wouldn't have problem with Hannity saying it either.  

[oldsport]

i just watched the segment where the president uses the term mongrel.  he probably should not have used the word.  i also see nothing wrong with it.  i think the story took the word and what the president said out of context.  the media is taking this out of context.  this is the problem with sound bite journalism. 

Again, what's so amazing is to watch the double standard among these Barrydrones and sycophants. It makes me laugh. If this man said, "eating chit is good for your health". My question is would these dumbazz K----s eat chit?