Originally posted by Bashar Teg
it's all implied by saying "black". granted there are a minority of black americans who come from voluntary immigrant ancestry. but most are just "black". they have nothing more to trace back to, whereas whites (and likely you as well) have knowledge of our heritage (beyond just 'white'😉that we can come together and take some shallow meaningless pride in. italian american, irish american, german, dutch, english, etc. [b]if any of these white ethnicities groups together exclusively under that identity, they are not labeled racist. blacks however are apparently not able to do the same without being demonized.you're ignoring the overal reality of my observation with technicalities. yes the issue is confused when considering voluntary black immigrants. it's a complex issue that can be explained thoroughly via twitter or some meme. [/B]
Here's the issue though, I never see these gatherings discussed as a matter of ethnicity. I don't see why black specifically implies "those of lost ethnicities because of slavery" because I've never seen anybody before you ever make that distinction or bring that up as a topic of conversation.
In fact, I've looked it up and the articles I can find defending it seem to suggest this movement was borne out of activism specifically related to racial tension rather than ethnicity, and as is shown by the first article no distinction is made between blacks descended from slaves and those descended from voluntary immigrants, which does make it seem based around race rather than ethnicity:
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/harvard-hold-graduation-ceremony-black-students-only-1620929
Courtney Woods, the daughter of a Jamaican immigrant who will graduate from Harvard's School of Education, said that the ceremony recognises the contributions and sacrifices the families of black students have made to get them to Harvard."When we walk across that stage, all of our families will know that they're walking with us. They all know the sacrifices that they've made," she said.
https://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/05/08/harvard-students-plan-graduation-ceremony-for-blacks-only-claim-its-not-about-segregation/ (I know, not an article defending it, but the quote from the organizer still emphasizes the racial rather than ethnic focus)
Michael Huggins, who is set to graduate this year with a master’s degree in public policy, told The Root. “Too often at Harvard, there is not cross-discipline contact between black students. So it can feel like you are the only person of color.”
http://www.bet.com/news/national/2017/05/06/here-s-why-black-harvard-students-are-holding-their-own-graduati.html
Aside from studying and taking grueling tests, if you’re a minority, the outer pressures of society make the already challenging coursework even more difficult. Knowing this, Black members of the class of 2017 decided to form an individual ceremony. It’s the first of its kind at the school in recent memory and took nearly a year to plan.The separate graduation is an effort to highlight the aforementioned struggles and resilience it takes to get through those.
http://www.theroot.com/black-students-at-harvard-will-host-individual-graduati-1794977320
The event, which took nearly a year to plan and is scheduled for the morning of May 23, is an effort to acknowledge the struggles and resilience that black students have had to possess in order to thrive in higher education, an environment where minorities are typically underrepresented.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/05/08/black-grad-students-harvard-hold-own-commencement-ceremony/6tGHbUjyz8vLvDNVZwzidL/story.html
“I can only imagine how special I will feel when I walk across that stage and be able to honor my identity and my struggle at Harvard,” said Woods, who is completing a master’s degree at the Graduate School of Education. “I know this is exactly what students like me need to be inspired as we leave this place as emerging global leaders.”
The ceremony for black students was created during a period of heightened activism related to racism on college campuses and in the country at large — from the Black Lives Matter movement to the increased focus on “micro-aggressions,” passing comments that seem to trivialize or marginalize the experiences of minorities.
“I can only imagine how special I will feel when I walk across that stage and be able to honor my identity and my struggle at Harvard,” said Woods, who is completing a master’s degree at the Graduate School of Education. “I know this is exactly what students like me need to be inspired as we leave this place as emerging global leaders.”
Every article in defense of it and the students who put it on identify it as being based around race and racial tensions rather than ethnic ties in slavery, and you're the only person identifying it as ethnic, so this notion that it's justified because its based around ethnicity rather than race is one that I simply don't think is substantiated by any evidence or discussion that went behind or in defense of this ceremony.
Additionally I noticed in one of those articles that Harvard is for the third year in a row having a special graduation ceremony for Latino students, which is a race rather than a single ethnicity, and unlike with descendants of slaves there isn't that same ethnic confusion you've cited in defense of blacks. Do you consider this to be racist?:
https://scholar.harvard.edu/nlanter/events/2017/05/latinx-graduation-ceremony
And lastly, though this entire post has been arguing against this ceremony, I did come across something in one of these articles that, to the credit of those hosting this ceremony, makes me look at it in a less negative light, and it's one relevant to your discussion with Surtur:
But the ceremony is “not about segregation,” said Michael Huggins, president of the Harvard Black Graduate Student Alliance, which is organizing the event. Students of all racial and ethnic backgrounds may attend, he said, and the black students taking part in the ceremony also plan to attend the university’s official commencement on May 25 in Harvard Yard.