[Beestie]

Until you have heard a white person confide his racism to you its hard to understand what black folk have to put up with. I grew up in backwater Georgia and I've had things told to me "in confidence" that I really didn't need to hear. Things that were pretty shocking in terms of what they revealed is really going on out there.

What I'm hearing a lot of in this thread is many people who do not harbor racists viewpoints attempting to advance the argument that racism really isn't that prevalent anymore. An easy trap to fall into - I don't see it so it must be paranoia on the victim's part.

Its not the obvious James Byrd stuff. Its much more subtle and much more insidious than that. Sometimes I wonder if all Dr. King did was push racism underground. Again, until you have enountered a true racist you are not seeing the whole picture.

As Chris Rock said while onstage to a mostly white audience, "I'm black and I'm rich and not one of you mother-fuckers would even think of trading places with me." He got a big laugh but he also got a lot of people thinking.

The problem that victims of racism need to try their best to avoid is using it as an excuse. To do so is to be nailed twice - the first by chance and the second by choice.