that was hilarious but I gotta say my interactions with a lot of white people has come down to this. Everyone feels like they are being persecuted for one thing or another whether it be gender appearance or class and talking about/caring about race is the last thing on their mind. They get to pretend it doesn't exist since it doesn't exist for them but to be honest I really can't even fault them because how many of us actually care and are willing to do anything about other injustices going on in the world. How many are willing demand better conditions for workers over seas that make or cheap goods? The older I get the more I see that people are selfish fearful creatures and there is little that will change that.
you hit it on the head. yeah there is a conflict of doing the right thing and self. I think it was raider who was telling us that the bus driver should have helped the kid from getting beat up but we were discussing the fact he was scared himself being a 67 year old man obeying school district. he was scared.....what is the right thing.... same here people look out for themselves despite what is right due to fear. the right thing differs from the right thing sometimes. or is righteousness different from doing what is right?
Dark King,when it comes to race you know the right wingers will justify their racist thoughts while diverting attention of using black on black against the civil rights movement. When Bush was in the chair they did not give a rat's butt.
From my experience most white people have a difficult time discussing race and racial issues, even with the most learned and articulated black persons. They, out of curiosity, tread carefully act in the interest of diplomacy(or their own physical safety) when discussing issues or they steer clear of it altogether.
I would love to see a White right winger sweating profusely in discussion of Trayvon Martin and racism while trying to deny it.
This is a very interesting conversation. Yes, they have trouble talking about it. And you know what? Black people have a whole lot of trouble listening to them talk about it. I could talk for a week steady without repeating myself about race in America, spending at least half that time in raptures about what I see in y'all, but it's more likely than not I'll get three minutes into it before the person I'm talking to has interpreted what I say 180 degrees from where I'm coming from, in other words, won't be hearing me, but will be hearing my skin color, which after 40 years of such, hits my hot buttons and the conversation spirals quickly downhill. On the way down it's likely I'll hear some input to the effect that I'm not seen as having any right to say anything on the subject. In other words, there will be an attempt to put me in my (white) place, which is basically, in this equation, someone whose opinion is in no way trusted or welcome.
Very deep, and you see reality, hardly anybody cares about anyone else. I was the oddball, the throwback Serb who knew nothing about Serbs, or even that I was one, who latched first onto the rhetoric of the 'Serbs' over here, and then made them my home and family. So, I've spent 40 years ostensibly caring about these 'others' (though they really weren't that for me) and now I know about the original Serbs, the holocaust victims I'm from, and it's hard to get even four minutes of airtime on the subject without it being dismissed. A typical response I just got from a very old friend who thinks he loves me: who am I to claim to be a holocaust victim (speaking in total ignorance of the facts)? That just pisses off the REAL victims. Oh, and it's just coincidental the REAL victims are definitely not white Christians.
This is the most intelligent statement I read thus far on the internet. What you had stated is the reality of the whole entire world at large, everyone selfishly look out for their own interest, which is sad, if you ask me.
We have to work at identifying with each other. Identifications are powerful. My immediate family was supposed to have been paper genocided 100 years ago, but within 50 we were starting to revert back, because of an identification.
technology is destroying the desire and necessity for people to interact therefore killing identification. I really hope I'm wrong but it doesn't seem like most people are interested in identifying with others.
Technology is why we're sitting here talking to each other this Sunday afternoon, several states away. If we're open to identify with others, rather than waiting for them to identify with us, then the power is in our hands.
