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Hime · 04-09-2007, 04:32 PM

I can't watch the videos because I'm posting from work, but based on the actual text posts, no, I don't consider that racist.

The black community in this country has suffered a lot over the years. Under slavery, families were separated and the formation of strong family units or families was heavily discouraged, often by violence. After the Civil War, a lot of thought went into planning out Reconstruction to create stable living conditions for African Americans... but the whole thing was abandoned as part of a political deal. Instead, segregation and racist violence became the norm. "Separate but equal" was a polite fiction -- African Americans simply did not have access to the same quality of education, and even today de facto segregation means that the most well-funded, well-run schools in the country are also some of the whitest.

Some people are racist, some selfish, and some just lazy. In my area, as in most, the African-American neighborhoods that are the most at-risk are the ones where you're the least likely to find a cop car. Maybe the police aren't racist, they just don't want to go somewhere where they think they'll get killed. But it doesn't matter why, the fact is that the residents of these neighborhoods pay taxes but do not see the benefits that residents of the "white" suburbs see, like quality public schools, access to help from police officers, regularly repaired roads, etc, etc.

Kids who went to my public high school in the suburbs got college scholarships for stuff like being stars on the Field Hockey team (I shit you not), or taking International Baccalaureate classes. One of my teachers nominated me for the National Counsel of Teachers of English writing competition, of which I was one of the winners. We all go to college and get good jobs, wheee! Except that kids growing up 15 minutes away in Southeast DC do not have those opportunities. I once visited High Point High School in Prince George's County, Maryland, to take an SAT. PG County is the most affluent majority African American county in the US. It was obvious just walking through the building that their equipment, even just stuff like TVs and VCRs, was in much worse condition than the equipment at my hs. A couple of years later, I saw a building I recognized on TV: there had been a stabbing on the playing field at High Point High School. When my fiance (an experienced teacher with a masters' degree) moved to DC, he was offered a job teaching middle school kids (12 and 13) in Northeast, one of the more troubled areas of the city. The school administrators, who were black, spent most of the interview talking about how he shouldn't be afraid of crime or violence -- obviously having lost other teachers to that bad reputation. My fiance, whose last job was teaching remedial writing at a community college in a struggling area in the South, passed up the job for a better offer in college administration; who knows who they eventually found to take it?

Commitment to the black family and the black community doesn't mean that anyone wants people of other races to do worse, or that black people are superior to other people. It means that over the years it has been a hard struggle for African Americans to keep their community together. Many have struggled to build strong families and afford housing in safe neighborhoods, or worked to make the neighborhoods where they grew up safer and stronger, only to see those who got rich and famous fast selling their children on a meaningless parade of luxury goods and violent dramas. Many have trusted leaders who seemed to genuinely care about helping them, until they decided that they were more interested in getting publicity and getting elected. To me, when people talk about a commitment to the black community and the black family, they are reacting against hundreds of threats to the continuation of those ideals.

It would be racist to say that black communities were better than white communities. The statement quoted in your post said only that black communities are worth fighting for, and in need of it. That isn't racist, it's just the truth.

04-09-2007, 04:32 PM	#18
Hime Extraordinary Machine Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Outside of Washington, DC Posts: 307	I can't watch the videos because I'm posting from work, but based on the actual text posts, no, I don't consider that racist. The black community in this country has suffered a lot over the years. Under slavery, families were separated and the formation of strong family units or families was heavily discouraged, often by violence. After the Civil War, a lot of thought went into planning out Reconstruction to create stable living conditions for African Americans... but the whole thing was abandoned as part of a political deal. Instead, segregation and racist violence became the norm. "Separate but equal" was a polite fiction -- African Americans simply did not have access to the same quality of education, and even today de facto segregation means that the most well-funded, well-run schools in the country are also some of the whitest. Some people are racist, some selfish, and some just lazy. In my area, as in most, the African-American neighborhoods that are the most at-risk are the ones where you're the least likely to find a cop car. Maybe the police aren't racist, they just don't want to go somewhere where they think they'll get killed. But it doesn't matter why, the fact is that the residents of these neighborhoods pay taxes but do not see the benefits that residents of the "white" suburbs see, like quality public schools, access to help from police officers, regularly repaired roads, etc, etc. Kids who went to my public high school in the suburbs got college scholarships for stuff like being stars on the Field Hockey team (I shit you not), or taking International Baccalaureate classes. One of my teachers nominated me for the National Counsel of Teachers of English writing competition, of which I was one of the winners. We all go to college and get good jobs, wheee! Except that kids growing up 15 minutes away in Southeast DC do not have those opportunities. I once visited High Point High School in Prince George's County, Maryland, to take an SAT. PG County is the most affluent majority African American county in the US. It was obvious just walking through the building that their equipment, even just stuff like TVs and VCRs, was in much worse condition than the equipment at my hs. A couple of years later, I saw a building I recognized on TV: there had been a stabbing on the playing field at High Point High School. When my fiance (an experienced teacher with a masters' degree) moved to DC, he was offered a job teaching middle school kids (12 and 13) in Northeast, one of the more troubled areas of the city. The school administrators, who were black, spent most of the interview talking about how he shouldn't be afraid of crime or violence -- obviously having lost other teachers to that bad reputation. My fiance, whose last job was teaching remedial writing at a community college in a struggling area in the South, passed up the job for a better offer in college administration; who knows who they eventually found to take it? Commitment to the black family and the black community doesn't mean that anyone wants people of other races to do worse, or that black people are superior to other people. It means that over the years it has been a hard struggle for African Americans to keep their community together. Many have struggled to build strong families and afford housing in safe neighborhoods, or worked to make the neighborhoods where they grew up safer and stronger, only to see those who got rich and famous fast selling their children on a meaningless parade of luxury goods and violent dramas. Many have trusted leaders who seemed to genuinely care about helping them, until they decided that they were more interested in getting publicity and getting elected. To me, when people talk about a commitment to the black community and the black family, they are reacting against hundreds of threats to the continuation of those ideals. It would be racist to say that black communities were better than white communities. The statement quoted in your post said only that black communities are worth fighting for, and in need of it. That isn't racist, it's just the truth.