Race/Ethnicity of AC Enlisted Force:
http://www.dod.mil/prhome/poprep98/h...ethnicity.html

Of course not. The blacks that I spoke of are NOT in the military.

I'm with wolf.

Eh, not really. I mean, I AM romatically involved with a white person, so...
And when did I say that I wasn't interested in anything but treating white people as the enemy? I was just saying that there are many blacks who DO feel that way. Unfortunate? Yes. Real? Yes. It is what it is.


*laughing* Interesting word choice in that last sentence...:haha:

How would you go about changing minds?

Mmm'kay everyone just calm down now. Nobody is saying that you should not be proud of who you are, where you came from, blah blah blah. It's not like you are going around yelling, "WHITE POWER!" and whatnot...I mean damn.
:cool:

But, if you want to be considered a racist...you said it, not I. *shrugs*

I have long wondered about people who say they are "proud" to be "who they are", in terms of race or geography. To me that's like saying you're proud of having two functioning legs, or you're proud that you're father's side of the family has a lot of drunks. It's the luck of the draw. We don't get to choose where we're born, or what family or race we're born into - it's not like something we earned or worked for. I'm sure we all have lots of things to be proud of, and there's no need to claim our heritage, whether racial or cultural, as one of them. It's something none of us has any control over.

There is a difference between proud and not ashamed. I couldn't give a damn where I come from but I don't expect to be made to feel responsable for some vague attachment to something that happened in the past.

On that, you and I agree.

I would say that we need to understand where we come from before we can relate honestly with folks from other backgrounds. It's about knowing what kind of crap those drunks dealt with and dealt to you. It is counter productive to obsess about race, but if you can figure out why your great grandfather hated blacks and put it into some kind of historical context, you might be able to avoid passing hate on to the next generation.

[edit] just to be clear I'm not saying you personally.

Jane as usual making a lot of sense

I gotcha.

It just seems that in 2004, it's irrelevent WHY anyone hated any other group of people three or four generations ago. Any thinking person should just plain ol' "know better". My dad found papers in his parents' house when his mom died, wills and things, which he saved for whatever historical value they might have. I found it completely shocking to read sentences like "I bequeath to my son John, Nigger Jim, a strapping buck of 26 years..." It just seemed completely foreign to me. I have no more connection to those people, or their lives, than I do to the Pope. What I'm saying is I was just as likely to be born to the family I have as I was to have been born into Russian royalty or a family of bushmen in Africa - I don't see any room for pride there; it's all accidental.

That said, I do enjoy reading those papers, but with no more interest than I would if it were someone else's ancestors. I don't feel pride that my dad's family owned slaves, or that my mother's family were German Nazis. I don't feel shame, either, because it had nothing to do with me. I could have as easily been Nigger Jim's daughter, or gassed in one of Hitler's tyrades.

Aww, Dana! You're so sweet. :blush:

I claim to not be a racist, but I suppose it's a matter of how someone define's it. I do, however, resent anyone treating me like the enemy when I've done nothing to them, indeed, I don't even know them. :(

Amen! Much the same that I resent anyone treating an entire group of people like the enemy when they're done nothing to us. When they do it only to you, it's Brucism. When we do it to a whole group of people, it's racism.

Do you absolutely, positively. cross your heart and hope to die, stick your finger in your eye, promise not to say, “Why didn’t they do more?” when the next one goes down? :cool: