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A call to the Black Guys

I find this discussion interesting, although hard for me to make an opinion as I rarely see a black person (less then once a week), pretty sad. It would be interesting to see how many herpers are women vs men, maybe not so much herpers but a person willing to look at touch, handle a reptile.

If any of my wording has offended you, sorry I don't care
Sorry this is a gross generalization and while I appreciate any persons opinion PC or not, your remark is begging for an arguement. I know many Hispanics and never heard of them eating snake.
 
In my experience, Black people as a whole hate snakes. When I was trapping and would get a snake call from a black family it was as if they found radioactive waste in their home, whereas when I'd get called out to a white family it was a more relaxed situation and wouldn't act as if it was out of the ordinary.

On another note, if you want a snake to live DO NOT leave it around hispanics. Lets put it this way, the first time I had Rattlesnake, it was cooked by our migrant workers. I work as the Wildlife Manager on our farm and about once a week I have to deal with removing a snake, it took me a few years to finally get where the crew would call me out to remove it instead of just killing it where it lay.

Are you serious? To echo what others have said in their posts, I don't care for walking on eggshells either and I think PC-ness surrounding racial, ethnic and religious issues has gotten out of hand. But your exercise here in free speech is completely unnecessary. Not to mention dumb. Maybe you like to be antagonistic? If that's the case then you've succeeded. Congratulations.
 
This has been a good discussion. Lets leave Butch out of it. I'm afraid that would lead to a different discussion.
 
Butch apologized. Sometimes it pays to read through the entire thread before commenting.

I work with some Phillipino doctors. Nearly all have stories of eating snake.
 
I know a few Filipinos and my daughter has several Filipino friends. They are all from the Philippines. I don’t think I have ever met one that was a second generation American. The ones I know would never dream of owning a snake.
 
Very rarely do we hear any comments from anyone from the black community. Usually it is from some outraged honky that feels the comment may be offensive to black people.

I know of one black guy here who I have found to be a pretty good guy. Are there any others?

46 posts with a lot of words . . . and your original post still holds true! :crazy02:

D80
 
I must clearify, the hispanics I speak of are Mexican Nationals contracted out early to work our winter and spring crops of Strawberries and Cantaloupe. If I had the option to edit my previous post I would have quite a bit earlier. Earlier I spoke out of hast and frustation due to a 6 inch mainline breaking and wiping out 3 acres of newly planted pepper. Please consider this my formal apology and look over my previous post in this thread. Thanks Butch
 
On the whole I live in an extremely culturally diverse area and I only know of 2 black people who own reptiles, but they are young. All of my black friends parents HATE my reptiles and cringe when they are brought up so I think it may be an age thing as well with minorities. I once dated a black guy who hated my snakes.....that was a short relationship,lol:)
 
Butch, I don't know if you are aware of this, but for a mere $25/year, you get many benefits! One of which is editing. WELL worth it!!
 
I've noticed that in our area I am seeing MORE black individuals attending reptile shows than in the past. One time a black guy and his white GF said some things that concerned me (the whole "I want to get the biggest, meanest, most aggressive snake EVER to impress my friends" deal) but that has nothing to do with race and everything to do with the guy as an individual... certainly there are a lot more white people I see pulling that crap at shows.

Tara and I were REALLY excited to see a black family exhibiting at the last Havre de Grace show. They were selling leopard geckos, fantastically beautiful leos, and appeared to be in their early 30's. Very cool!

Don't see many Hispanic's at shows here... but that population here is still new and relatively transient. Sometimes see Asians at the larger shows.
 
You know, now that I think about it, there are several regulars here of latino or hispanic history, a man from the south pacific (Philippines, I think), and at least one that is not foreign at all...that is, of american indian descent.
Isn't it interesting how when you get to know the individual you cease to perceive boundaries or distinctions. At least, for me that is true.

And I didn't forget to mention those regulars from Europe and Israel,...sometimes I feel more like them and more of a foreigner to the states, even.

I know, I know, I have wandered off topic.
 
I recently went to the New Hampshire show (hi PJ & Jay!). Mostly white, but so is New Hampshire. However, there were people of color mixed in of several races. Proportionately, it looked similar to what I think New Hampshire's demographics are.

I have to stop and think about this stuff, because my cultural baggage is a little weird. My parents did not comment on the race of people AT ALL so I didn't realize there was any difference that mattered between black and white until I started school. It took several years for me to realize that some people thought this was important. I also lived in a neighborhood where the kids were integrated (the houses weren't but we were on the edge of the "white" zone) and again, I didn't notice any important differences except that some people had built-in sunburn protection, which I did NOT have and was very envious of. Needless to say, this did not contribute to comprehension of many things in the culture around me!
 
Where I grew up, there was only one black kid in the whole world. His name was Jeff Murray, and he was very popular because he was the only black kid. There was also only one Indian kid, Harry Tatini, and one Hispanic girl, Sharon Rodriguez. Harry was smart/geeky, and Sharon was just one of the girls. One Chinese girl named Ann Chin, but I don't remember anything about her except her name, and vaguely what she looked like.
 
We had more minorities than that on my basketball team...

5 1/2 black guys and 1 Mexican. joke
l_6e5de7617db647e78c3272fc009b5d93.jpg

Me (#31) in the middle with sweet sideburns!
 
Betsy, you sound like you are in a very peaceful place.

I don't think my mother ever said an unkind word about anybody (outside the immediate and extended family). In other words, it was not in her nature to speak ill of people or strangers. She was an only child, and I don't think she knew much about black people to pass on.
My father was uniformly friendly or hateful, as the mood struck him. He did not discriminate. I think white-centric, but not really prejudiced or racist. I have heard him say the "N" word, once in my life. When I was about 14 or 15 and he was teaching me how to drive. When he said it, I turned and looked at him like he was a giant purple unicorn. And busted out laughing at him. Boy did I get an @$$-whooping that day.
 
It IS funny how circumstances in childhood affect your adult perspective...

When I was in about 3rd grade, my parents bought a tract house in a brand new subdivision in the vicinity of Gary, In. We were the only English speaking family on the block - everyone else was from Mexico. We got firsthand experience in being in the minority, although they were all very friendly, and we got to learn a little Spanish. My next door neighbor had a garden, and it was the first time in my life that I saw tomatoes growing on the vine - I was REALLY impressed, and have always remembered that. So I have always been rather partial to Spanish speaking people.

When I was in about 7th grade, we lived in Waukesha, Wi, and there was only one black family in our whole middle school, and later, high school. Their dad was a doctor, so they were pretty well off, and generally looked up to. They were really popular, since they were the only blacks, and seemed kind of "exotic", lol! The 2 girls were a little older than I was, so I never got to know them well.

I guess I had kind of a sheltered childhood as far as diversity goes. But it did make me appreciate it, rather than fear or dislike it. It seems we are all a product of our childhood experiences, to one extent or another.
 
My parents never mentioned anyone's race, either. I guess it wasn't much of an issue where I grew up, because there weren't really any people of any other race to be prejudiced against! I'm not sure if I heard of Martin Luther King before he was assasinated, but it was a big deal in school when he was.
 
Eric, my father hardly ever said anything bad about anyone, and never lost his temper that I can recall. My mother could sure be mean as anything at times, but it was never racial. She did anger & hatred at INDIVIDUALS not races, classes or anything elses. My father grew up in a town that seems to have had pretty good race relations since before the Civil War & my mom grew up in the NYC urban region, and neither one of them seemed to give a -bleep- about skin color or hair texture.
 
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