Professor Gates, Harvard's Pride

[Shawnee123]

Fuckboy is going to buy me a brand new car to replace the car with 599 miles on it. I finally am mad...he broke the law and I'm the one sitting here in the dark while the insurance companies play their little games.

Can't wait til that little fucker throws the race card, which is where he was headed last I heard (it's a conspiracy against me, he says.)

Yeah, he's black, and from a foreign country. Do I care? No, he threw that card into the ring and I won't put up with that shit.

We weren't around many black people when I was little. (My dad was a foreman on highway construction and we travelled around and lived in some very remote places until I was halfway through first grade.) Before I went to preschool, my mom says she told me "Your teacher, Mrs ____ is black, and you haven't seen a black person." My mom hasn't a racist bone in her body: she wanted me to understand and not be surprised. She said I shrugged and said "is she nice?" I didn't even care when I didn't even know what it meant. Incidentally, my mom thought she was wonderful and from what little I remember I thought so too. *shrugs*

So to have that shit thrown around, and especially at ME, doesn't sit well with me. I quit making excuses for fucking up my life and changed it: why do I now pay for people who won't take responsibility for their own mistakes?

Boohoo, I'm a victim. Yeah, well, so were my ancestors. Bite me. kthxbai.

[Elspode]

Flint hits the nail squarely on the head. White folks are *not* allowed to comment on race. Only people who are *not* white are so allowed, and they can bash away with all the forces of righteousness, without making the qualification that "assholes are assholes, not just white people", and it is not only acceptable, it is *encouraged*.

So I ask us all...which race is more racist? And how are we to have a dialogue towards easing tensions, righting wrongs and coming together if we cannot point out, honestly and openly, our cultural foibles that may work against us?

There are tests of this. Try throwing a White Heritage Festival and see how far you get. Then call for a Caucasian History Month in all schools. Have a White Film Festival, an Association for the Advancement of Caucasian People or a WET (White Entertainment Television - lots of reruns of Leave it to Beaver, I presume). You, the hypothetic organizer, would instantly become the most racist, bigoted person on the planet. Yet each and every one of the proposed entities I speculate above has it's African American counterpart. So how come it isn't racist in that context?

Racist is racist. Like being an asshole, it is not the province of a single color, religion or ethnicity. Racism is a two way street, period. The time has past for standing upon wrongs which cannot be undone, but which have been put as right as they can be at this point in time. Time to stop pointing fingers and to roll up the sleeves and get on with the hard work of getting on.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Elspode

Try throwing a White Heritage Festival and see how far you get. Then call for a Caucasian History Month in all schools.

Well, when I was growing up, pretty much every day was Caucasian History. The only African American figure I remember studying was George Washington Carver. Other than that, it was all dead European dudes, settlers and Indians (the phrase "Native American" hadn't been coined).

I learned about John Brown, Sojourner Truth, and W. E. B. DuBois on my own dime.

Of course, I also don't remember studying anything about Haym Solomon in public school, so it wasn't just African Americans who were left out.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Elspode

Flint hits the nail squarely on the head. White folks are *not* allowed to comment on race. Only people who are *not* white are so allowed, and they can bash away with all the forces of righteousness, without making the qualification that "assholes are assholes, not just white people", and it is not only acceptable, it is *encouraged*.

So I ask us all...which race is more racist? And how are we to have a dialogue towards easing tensions, righting wrongs and coming together if we cannot point out, honestly and openly, our cultural foibles that may work against us?

There are tests of this. Try throwing a White Heritage Festival and see how far you get. Then call for a Caucasian History Month in all schools. Have a White Film Festival, an Association for the Advancement of Caucasian People or a WET (White Entertainment Television - lots of reruns of Leave it to Beaver, I presume). You, the hypothetic organizer, would instantly become the most racist, bigoted person on the planet. Yet each and every one of the proposed entities I speculate above has it's African American counterpart. So how come it isn't racist in that context?

Racist is racist. Like being an asshole, it is not the province of a single color, religion or ethnicity. Racism is a two way street, period. The time has past for standing upon wrongs which cannot be undone, but which have been put as right as they can be at this point in time. Time to stop pointing fingers and to roll up the sleeves and get on with the hard work of getting on.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

why do I now pay for people who won't take responsibility for their own mistakes?

You may end up becoming a little more conservative after this experience. Just think, a whole life time of similar experiences and you change in the end.

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

You may end up becoming a little more conservative after this experience. Just think, a whole life time of similar experiences and you change in the end.

If we define conservative as "has lost faith in humankind and has given up on believing that hard work is what gets you ahead rather than lying cheating and stealing and playing victim" then yes, I suppose you're right.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

If we define conservative as "has lost faith in humankind and has given up on believing that hard work is what gets you ahead rather than lying cheating and stealing and playing victim" then yes, I suppose you're right.

That's it!!!!