A split off from this thread.. http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=104826&page=2 Due to the nature of the topic this WILL be kept on a short leash.
Here we go. Meh... not really a big deal either way. It's totally common to have this tattoo where I come from. Tons and tons of dudes have it... it's usually this and/or Aztlan Pride or your barrios name or you clika! Totally normal. From there you head towards spiderwebs on the elbow and black tears down the cheek and your old ladies name on your neck and usually something about 'Mi Vida Loca'. I find it funny that people get so worked up about a bit of ink. Man people get unicorns with hard-ons tattooed on themselves. Big deal. Why shouldn't he be proud of his people and what his parents went through. I think it's somewhat misguided but that's always going to be a deeply personal choice. The way race is handled in the US it's always going to be a hot button issue I guess. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkEOAcuquRo"]UFC Heavyweight fighter Cain Velasquez explains his brown pride tattoo - YouTube[/ame]
On a personal thing, my Aunt wears a swastika necklace due to her Buddhist beliefs. Now as a 4ft 60+ year old Chinese lady she doesnt get a 2nd glance. I think a couple of people in shops etc asked about it and she had to explain it. It would be however a lot more troublesome for a white person to wear it as suddenly the person would be considered a member of a Nazi league. I been to quite a few tattoo stores as well as conventions who show off their swasti ink but within the context of peace and buddhism/hinduism. I believe there is even a movement called 'Reclaim the Swastika'. note : No I dont have one myself, an awesome picture of Guan Yu on my phone and a small shrine of his I have that I place incense on is about as religious as I get.
Where I come from there's a big difference between someone wearing ink that says White Pride and someone that wears ink that says Brown Pride. Each has a different baggage associated with it. I dunno that either are really all that clever... but the whole White Pride thing has for ages been in league with the whole Stormfront lot and the Aryan Nation morons and the rest of that movement.
From the other thread: Champ-Pain It's really hard not to interpret this: As calling me racist. Fair enough. Worth pointg out I wasn't saying Cain hates everyone who's not his race I just feel the whole colour pride does have racist connotations and it does. How many people do you know who could see me or someone else walking around with a t-shirt with "white pride" written on it and not immediately think I'm at least slightly racist if not a supremacist. Then again it really does seem America has more of this "pride" thing than the UK does so maybe its just a cultural divide. I disagree. Taking pride in ones colour suggests there's something important and special about what race you are. As I said before you're then making race into a difference that's worth taking note of. Maybe that isn't proper racism as we know it but I wouldn't say it promotes racial harmony either.
Thanks for the vid Slip probably should have looked for an explanation from him before I started the whole thing. However it doesn't change my opinion on the whole thing, I understand why he has it better now and I get it but as far as the overall "*blank* pride" thing goes I still stick with what I've said so far.
Not if your colour/race is used to put you in a second class citizen position. It's more a levelling of the playing field back to equilibrium. Same with gay pride I think. People who are proud to be gay don't hate hetero people (although there is an undercurrent of anti-hetero feeling in some gay circles). But they use "gay-pride" as a label to say that they are as good as anyone else. If they were treated the same as everyone else in the first place then gay/brown/whatever pride would not such a needed slogan/position. There's no one using "blue-eyed pride" is there? Because no one looks down on people with blue eyes.
So the solution is to promote further difference and seperatism? If I was being hated on for being blonde then shoving it in peoples faces seems more likely to highlight the difference and increase the hating
Erm...are black people and gay people more accepted in wider society today than they were 20/30/40 years ago? They didn't do it by staying quiet and mute.
Yeah but I never enslaved anyone nor committed a racist act against anyone. Yet somehow I am expected to share some collective guilt for other people with the same colour of skin as me. I think it's high time that race stops being a political football used to manipulate people. That goes for all sides. It's about time alot of wee boys grew up. Racial pride is even more vulgar than national pride. The Bear.
Would that that applied to everyone. Although we, collectively, in the west are still reaping the benefits of our past subjugation of other races and people's though aren't we? Not something I feel guilty about personally but I can see why such a history would lead to someone declaiming a pride in a heritage that had hitherto been in shadows.
this is the whole issue of generational deficits due to racism. Some people subscribe to it and some people don't. The whole issue of 'pride' certainly isn't just an American thing. It's an anybody thing. Could be Kurds, could be Turks, could be Armenians or Algerians. When viewed in the proper cultural context it's not all that hard to see how it came about. For those not familiar with the American socio-economic landscape and history as it relates to minorities (which in many places are now moving up into the majorities) there are a lot of deep seated and divisive issues. I suspect there will always be. But in general on the issue of brown pride or black pride VS white pride... they simply don't have much of the same overtly racist supremacist connotation as the white pride lot. Even the whole issue of white pride... it was something often used by wealthy whites in order to divert the attention and criticism from their own unfair labor practices and get poor white riled up against blacks who only not that long ago had been freed. Class war. Keep the have nots fighting amongst themselves and the have nots of another color and you stay in business and reaping profits. People forget there are truckloads of very poor white people in the US - always have been. The last thing some white plantation owner wanted was poor whites rising up against them... so better to focus their hatred and rage on poor blacks who although free... had essentially no rights. Anywho... a heavy issue. The UK's race issues are very different because they have a very different issue. Many of the people from the UK that have been to my home state had no idea that the whole Mexican influence in California (and many other states was so massive) it shows no signs of getting any smaller. So I wouldn't expect someone from the UK to completely see how Brown Pride or Black Pride was any different than White Pride because in general they won't have known about the context.
By someone sporting a Brown Pride tattoo you aren't automatically expected to share any collective guilt. Like it or not race is always going to be a large issue especially in the states where you have a melting pot of peoples. People forget... the Civil Rights movement wasn't all that long ago.
I'm from the UK and have never been to the states but even I know that brown pride and white pride are different.
The UK did and does have similar movements, and it basically boils down to this (which is the same both sides of the pond): White pride: 99% likely to be fascist scumbags (and the bastards have co-opted certain celtic symbols) black/brown pride: movements designed to promote solidarity and a collective awareness and consciousness amongst a group of people whose culture and place in society is still questioned and still threatened, albeit in more subtle ways nowadays. Sometimes (I have examples, but they will probably derail the debate).
Whilst I have no problem with people being proud of their heritage I do feel that when it is expressed as white, brown, black pride etc. it does bring with it a racial hatred overtone. Would be much better to express his thanks to his heritage as Mexican Pride or American pride.
