Black History Month Ireland, why?

Fishdoodle · 24-10-2021 11:03pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118068915#Comment_118068915

The trailer states that -It started off in the USA in 1926 and is currently celebrated in the US, Canada, Netherlands, Uk and … Ireland 🇮🇪 .

I had a look at some of the Hector series ‘Éire Nua’ about immigrants who have settled in Ireland. Some of them can speak Irish 😉 I noticed how many of those featured found Ireland to be very welcoming - how they found it refreshing not to be treated differently (rare to no exceptions) compared to other countries (even home countries).

Perhaps the title ‘Black History Month’ creates a label. I prefer the ‘Éire Nua’ angle of the TG4 series as it celebrates immigrants experience of settling in Ireland, how they were supported by community, how they contributed to community - it’s a great show as you can identify with the people on it-you don’t pidgeon hole them with labels as you watch…they’re all people.

24-10-2021 11:05pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118069017#Comment_118069017

https://gingerparrot.co.uk/calendar-of-redhead-events/

lots of events for gingers 😁

24-10-2021 11:10pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118069100#Comment_118069100

none of the redhead stuff seems to be funded by the taxpayer.

Potential-Monke · 24-10-2021 11:11pm

And not a single one in Ireland... for shame! #GingerPride(NotTheLGBT+TypeOfPride,ButStillPride)

Also just copped through Googling, another meaning of pride:

2

: a feeling that you are more important or better than other people

Hmmm...

gormdubhgorm · 24-10-2021 11:12pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118069087#Comment_118069087

Your last line sums it up they are all people. In these debates there is always people who want to create difference or focus on difference. On one end of the spectrum it is pride/celebration or the other end of spectrum intolerance.

The clip a poster showed of Morgan Freeman saying why is not American history sums up the awkward position it places people in. In a box/label. I will check out that series anyway. Just the list of countries where black history month is celebrated seems odd -

USA - ok they started it obvious reasons

Canada - next door neighbours

Netherlands - lots of Dutch suriname origin/ancestry

UK - lots of British of Nigerian or West Indies origin/ancestry

Ireland - ah sure we will celebrate it as well for the craic!

24-10-2021 11:12pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118069001#Comment_118069001

I don't know if it makes him mixed race, but he was black!

I read things were he said he was passionate about race, but he didn't get much racial prejudice in Ireland, probably cos he was famous!

Fishdoodle · 24-10-2021 11:12pm

😅There were some red head festivals in Ireland -I think they had the last one in Youghal!

People with freckles have never been recognised for their historical contributions- …….it’s bad form.

Bring on Freckle History Month!

gormdubhgorm · 24-10-2021 11:17pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118069135#Comment_118069135

My top 3 in that -

24-10-2021 11:22pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118069087#Comment_118069087

it’s a great show as you can identify with the people on it-you don’t pidgeon hole them with labels as you watch…they’re all people.

This isn't entirely aimed at your post, and also includes a lot of general things relating to comments on the thread.

That's the problem though. We're not supposed to see them just as people, or just as Irish people. We're expected to see them as Black people, or whatever racial group they belong to. Their cultural group comes along a close second, but the emphasis is on how they're to be considered as different to Irish people, but at the same time, to be accepted as Irish people.

I noticed the emphasis on this when I last returned to Ireland. Previously, people just got on with things, and while initially there was some reservations about foreign groups, most people remained quite friendly towards them. I heard so much from my parents about those settling in our midlands town, and the glorious reports about how they settled in so well. Lovely people and all that. But now, there's so much emphasis on them not being a natural part of the community, and that we should recognise them as being different based on their skin color. It's so.. American. And yet, the opposite result seems to be happening where both from family and friends, where they'll complain about these groups, noting a minority that is great, but that the impression is that there are a lot of wasters, beggers, and troublemakers around now. Interesting how things have flipped in just a few years.

I agree, the TG4 show is petty good, and I watch it fairly regularly (with the parents). However, at the same time, it (nor any other shows) doesn't seek to show the downsides to immigration or the failures by immigrants coming to Ireland except where somehow Irish society or the Irish state has failed them. It's a propaganda piece to present the success of multiculturalism, and the signs that integration is happening.

Which is the problem with all these shows aimed at promoting Black people or whatever racial group. It's doing very little to encourage Irish people to forget what skin colour a person has, or what cultural group they come from, and instead, it seeks to make that difference important.

The interesting thing though is the skewed angle of many of these shows. I saw one a few months back taking about Irish people involved in the slave trade (under the British Empire), and while there was a lot of talk about White people engaging in the slave trade, there was no mention that slavery was a huge business for Black people in selling other Black people centuries before White people ever arrived in Africa. Hell, the Egyptians were buying slaves in Africa from African tribes, but RTE won't acknowledge anything like that, and instead continue promoting the view that Black people were entirely victims of western aggression.

24-10-2021 11:27pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118069133#Comment_118069133

Netherlands has a rather large Black population both dating back to their colonial times, and also more recent immigration. None of the list seem odd to me except for Ireland, considering the population of Black people here is quite small, and the increased numbers are a fairly recent development (20-30 years)

Fishdoodle · 24-10-2021 11:30pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118069133#Comment_118069133

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118069173#Comment_118069173

it seeks to make that difference important.

-Yep, difference as opposed to common values. As the great Doctor famously quoted:

24-10-2021 11:55pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118069207#Comment_118069207

Ireland is not the US... and Boston is a shithole. So, well done there.

As for walking in their shoes, racism is common worldwide. I've spent extended periods in parts of Africa, and lived 12 years in China. Try being part of a tiny minority of white people where there's far more Black or Asians than you. Yeah.. you'll quickly learn what living with racism is like. Sorry to break it to you, but Black people can be rather racist, and White people are not exempted from being on the receiving end of it.

Although I'm terribly impressed that you (I assume you're a white person?) understand what's it's like to be Black... simply because you sympathise with the situation of Black people in predominately white nations.

Donald Trump · 25-10-2021 12:00am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118069035#Comment_118069035

Yes. Do you not know how websites work? There is a limited amount of space on each landing page. One does not simply have the landing page as a massive wall of text of everything in the world that has happened today.

The issue here is that you were ignorant of this "Black history Month" guff that other posters referred to as getting publicity. You proudly proclaimed your own ignorance and extrapolated it to apply to everyone else. Now you are getting your knickers in a twist and digging yourself into a hole. Let's make it simple. You weren't aware that this "Black History Month" was getting promoted. Now you are. Are you upset that you can no longer brag that you'd never heard about it?

Fishdoodle · 25-10-2021 12:08am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118069173#Comment_118069173

If RTÉ wanted to do a cutting edge ‘inclusive’ series they could do a show on slavery -it affected , well many different ‘peoples’ 😅

The Sack of Baltimore -1631 when Algerian pirates raided Baltimore, Cork …”for many it would have been to end their days as galley slaves or concubines in the harems of Algiers.” It seems slavery was rife across the world. St.Patrick -former slave. Many Irish were sent to the US, Canada, Australia, Caribbean as slaves. Some, I’m sure became slave owners too. African tribes took whites as slaves, Islamic kingdoms took Christians as slaves, English, Dutch, Belgians, Americans took Africans as slaves. There were slaves and slave ‘owners’ on every continent - it was happening everywhere…and still goes on.

There’s a great story of Englishman John Newton 1725 who became involved in the slave trade…only to become a slave himself to a princess of the Sherbro people of Sierra Leone. He did manage to escape “It was on this journey home, from servitude, that the ship was beset by a severe storm off the coast of Donegal.” -He prayed to God & had a divine experience which he acknowledged was of Gods will. He had a ’conversion’ & later became an Anglican Christian and became vocal on the issue of abolishing slavery. He wrote the tune ‘Amazing Grace’ …. which later became a song sung by American plantation slaves.

It’s such a great story as everything in it comes full circle. There is cruelty in everyone from the Royal Navy, Slave Ships, North Africans, English etc … it’s a human condition.

Anyway…. I guess when a narrow lens is focused on things we are shown division - a wider lens illuminates a bigger picture and shows how cruelty in the human heart has hurt. That’s something all of humanity can acknowledge and work to reconcile together.

Fishdoodle · 25-10-2021 12:30am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118069341#Comment_118069341

I love Boston - great city for culture & family friendly. I’m sure there are rough neighbourhoods there too. Squeezing lots of people into a tight space (tenements) causes problems …. it’s unnatural!

Hamachi · 25-10-2021 12:34am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118069134#Comment_118069134

I’m not being obtuse but your first statement is patently false. Mixed race is not the same thing as black. Labeling Phil as ‘black’ is kind of erasing his white heritage, no?

Let’s take the former footballer Ryan Giggs. He too has a black father and a white mother. Have you ever heard him referred to as a black man?

Unless you know definitively how Phillo identified, I feel like it’s quite presumptuous of you to ascribe him a ‘black’ identity.

Quantum Erasure · 25-10-2021 1:05am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118069308#Comment_118069308

shur wasn't Saint Patrick himself a slave, it was the style at the time

gozunda · 25-10-2021 1:06am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118069133#Comment_118069133

The craic you say?

How about St Patrick, some snakes and an indiginous native Irish TWA pygmy tribes for a bit of old Afrocentic history?

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/saint-patrick-twa-pygmy-ireland/

Quantum Erasure · 25-10-2021 1:35am

love the way they go into the etymology of the word Leprechaun in that link..

but, weren't the protestants the original inhabitants of Ireland...?

Fishdoodle · 25-10-2021 2:00am

‘The Committments’ rendering of Black History Month….

“The Irish are the blacks of Europe. And Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland. And the Northside Dubliners are the blacks of Dublin. So say it once and say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud.”

- Jimmy Rabbitte 1991

Quantum Erasure · 25-10-2021 2:16am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118064907#Comment_118064907

Can't believe no one has addressed the points made in this video,

Also, yer mans understanding of the term BIPOC is rather naive: 'black indigenous people of colour' under some interpretations, he mightn't even be included...

Still stihl waters 3 · 25-10-2021 7:16am

Imagine trying to integrate into a community where you intend to work and socialise and send your kids to school and every turn you make you've some patronising gobshite patting you on the back telling you how great you are by virtue of the fact you've darker skin than everyone else, how welcome would you feel knowing they're just trying be inclusive because you're black or yellow ar have slanty eyes, we'd all get along better if we stopped putting everyone into categories, Phil lynnot wasn't black, he was Irish, if you need to point out the color his skin then you might just be the very thing you seem to stand against

whisky_galore · 25-10-2021 7:42am

We really are the 51st State. From Kripsy Kreme donut crazes to importing their ideology. It's like we cant have an original idea of our own.

Potential-Monke · 25-10-2021 7:46am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118069465#Comment_118069465

I made it about a minute into it before I turned it off. It did not hold my interest, and I lost him half way through his description of race.

generallyjack · 25-10-2021 8:23am

My sister is a primary school teacher. In the past few weeks, a pupil, an 11-year-old child who is Black, was standing on the footpath with classmates waiting to cross the road after school. A van was driving past. The driver stopped, opened the door, and spit on this child. The driver then drove off.

The teacher on duty at the gates couldn't get the full number plate, but did get most of it. The incident was reported to the Gardaí. The Gardaí who came out to take a report didn't seem all that enthused. No progress has been made yet in finding the culprit.

I can't stop thinking about this. An adult spit on a child.

I mean, if I follow the thinking (?) of people in this thread and pretend we live in a country where all people are the exact same, indistinct from one another and completely divorced from history, the child is Irish and the adult who spit on them is Irish, so why did it happen?

25-10-2021 9:06am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118069355#Comment_118069355

Well he famously referred to himself as a 'black Paddy' so without knowing him personally........

whisky_galore · 25-10-2021 9:15am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118069632#Comment_118069632

Because some people are cünts.

25-10-2021 9:20am

It appears from posts here that posters don't think Irish people can be black. Phil lynott was irish! Not black.

Actually he was both, described by himself. He was also an Irish Catholic as described by himself.

I suppose people with passports from two countries can't be both, either?🙄

Fandymo · 25-10-2021 9:21am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118064907#Comment_118064907

Have you ever seen a bigger load of bollix than this. Jesus wept.

Fandymo · 25-10-2021 9:39am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118069328#Comment_118069328

That’s just a jumble of words that make no sense.

Black History Month Ireland, why?

Comments

“The Irish are the blacks of Europe. And Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland. And the Northside Dubliners are the blacks of Dublin. So say it once and say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud.”

- Jimmy Rabbitte 1991