Capitol Hill Blue Forums Life and Moral Issues Morality & Society Of National Lies and Racial Amnesia

When you say "us", do you mean 'us of all races' or 'us whites'? If the latter, although I'm sure it could be useful, I think it would be more useful to be a discussion between all races. How many non-whites are on this board? Is it representative of the population? If not, why not?

As for this post you just wrote, you may be talking about me or people I know. Feel free to critique my other post I just wrote; if there's something I am not seeing I would appreciate anyone pointing it out.

By the way, I just spoke with a friend (white) who had a black foster mother; I asked him his impressions of Wright and all the points being raised here, and it was virtually word for word the same as my experience I just related. He too had a mistaken impression of the Tuskogee Study (he thought it had to do with the Tuskogee airmen and I think was getting conflated with the nuclear radiation exposure tests done on soldiers by the military in the 40s). When I told him what it really was, he too was shocked, especially that it continued up to 1972 (even though he wasn't even alive at that time).

us could be anyone. i suspect it's a matter of the shoe fitting. i am not here to judge, only to point out that we are all suceptable to (misspelling words like drunken irishmen) and to our own shortcomings in general. i don't know and would not make a judgement on your personality or your shortcomings whatever they may be. however, i am saying that we must look to ourselves and our base nature as human beings before we can begin to defend any position as volitile as racial bias. please see the thread "stuff white people hate," for more.

Gee, I really miss the black people I used to work with and the young black adults I used to teach. Often I was frustrated as hell in that job, but I wouldn't erase those 12 years of my life for anything.

Guess that's off-topic, but tough.

Newsweek is running an interesting article on Obama's position on race. The following quote interested me because I think it suggests something regarding the topic at hand:

Newsweek

While I suggest every person has some preconceived notion of other people based upon physical appearance, race being merely one such appearance, much of what is called racism is intertwined with other "isms", such as class.

agreed.

As a black middle-aged woman, what I appreciate most about the comments on this site is that nearly everyone who has contributed a comment recognizes a possibility of a reality outside their own sphere of experience. This is certainly more encouraging than what I usually have to hear. There is evidence that what the average black person experiences is much different from whites, but I don’t necessarily think every black person perceives these differences.

My own teenage child, for instance, raised protected, nurtured and overwhelmingly sheltered, has no idea what I am talking about when I try to teach or impart the significant challenges that blacks endured and experienced throughout American history. How can he? He has been taught a standardized curriculum by people who have only the most cursory understanding of that history themselves. And he hasn’t had intimate and long enduring experience with the experiences that would illustrate the subtleties of racism.

In my youth, I don’t remember a single unkind word spoken in our home about white people and we entertained many white friends. I grew up in the ‘burbs and attended a white protestant church. What I have that my son doesn’t have is first hand knowledge of the struggles of my own parents and grandparents who were intelligent, educated people clearly short-changed and limited in what they could attain in society. I personally saw their struggles, heard their stories and visited their once Jim Crowed homesteads. I was given an opportunity to glimpse history in the immediacy of their personal experiences.

They never had to lecture me on what it means to be black, I saw it first hand and therefore had some concept of the great injustice that is served by ignorance. I have lived a few years now and my experience as a black person has borne out an insidious racism that is not necessarily overt, though that has been the case at times. People should understand that this baby boomer generation is truly appreciative of the people who loved us, guided us and enlightened us, and died for our right to be considered full fledged human beings. As our knowledge base and personal experiences have highlighted the truth of our experiences, we have arrived at the same conclusions a “rabble rouser” like the Rev. Wright so ardently expouses. Without a sense of history and perspective, my son will eventually find his own way to many of the same conclusions, and nothing will invalidate that experience.
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A man only becomes wise when he begins to calculate the approximate depth of his ignorance.” Gian Carlo Menotti

Queen Diva, welcome to Reader Rant and thanks for joining this particular conversation.

differences are learned

I'll echo Phil's welcome...and alert you that we tend to shorten names around here, so you may end up being "Queen D!"

Reality Bytes, I'm sorry, I was away all afternoon. When I said 'Let's stop talking about "them" and start talking about "us"' I think I was trying to make the point that the problems originated within the dominant culture. Saying we can't do much of anything without minorities in the conversation is wrong, I think, because we each bring different experiences to the table, and I know that people with wider experience than mine have something to teach me, can make me aware of some of my own blindess.

Sorry. I'm tired and it's been an intense day, and I'm not really sure what I'm saying anymore. Maybe I'll regenerate some braincells tonight...

s'all right... I agree we all can learn from each other, even if we are the same race( !), but that it would be even more fortunate to have some interracial discussions as well, both in 'real life' and on RR (actually, I find RR to be more real?!)), and so I too am happy to welcome Queen Diva!

By the way, here's an article " Americans conflicted on how to discuss race" I just read that addresses so many of these points discussed here, and in so many complex and interrelated ways... one of the best treatments I think I've seen of any issue... and yet it only scratches the surface. But, I think it's made a good start at capturing all the nuances of the issue, as well as some of the ways to begin (again) this 'dialog'.