What's the point of talking about it at all if we are unable to understand it? Isn't expecting us to achieve Buddha like "otherness" a little much to expect of most people? Particularly when people who struggle more than the people they see around them, it's hard for them to feel sympathy. And when they face the anger, and the use of the word over and over, they stop listening.
Reading articles like this is helpful, but not everyone will read this. Sorry to burst your bubble, there.
Besides which, lots of people see the inequities, but are either subject to some of it themselves, or haven't a clue what to do about it. Or they never see it because--for instance--they aren't going to deliberately drive into a bad neighborhood. I see homeless people, and I care that they are, but I haven't the vaguest notion of what to do to help. I can vote for the candidate who promises more affordable housing, but what about the white person who can't get a home, but sees a young black working mother get one, for instance? There is going to be resentment. Inequity means nothing when you are living in fear--regardless of your color.
Everyone has almost taken the power out of the word "racist," because when they say it to someone, they don't call "everyone" racist; they call that particular person a racist. Of course people take it personally!
I'm waiting for the first lawsuit from someone who experiences real damages from being labeled a racist, because, oh, I don't know, he was wearing a t-shirt someone objected to? On his own time? How about addressing things like that first in private? So we don't all become a mob of ravening, torch bearing villagers ruining lives because someone used a burrito recipe from Mexico to sell in the States?
The word was first associated with groups like the KKK, and suddenly all white people are expected to be conducive to being aligned with the KKK? You see the disconnect here, I hope.
At any rate, the more I read these articles, the less faith I have that anything will change except perhaps in the most important way--externally. We may still feel perplexed by it all, but at least there may be improvement. I don't know how you dovetail this with the white kids out there protesting. Is it like the white blues player who closes his eyes just for show? That's kind of insulting to those protestors.
We women have effected some change for ourselves as a group, but men will never know how it feels to be a woman. So are you all automatically sexist and misogynist because of that fact? I don't know.
I don't think men have the right to decide reproductive issues, but many men feel differently about that and have no trouble discussing it and legislating it.
If schooling is part of the issue, there are lots of black people here with more money than they can ever spend in a lifetime. Like Oprah. She builds a school in Africa and gets applause. Why not build them here? For black, disadvantaged students, staffed solely by black teachers? She has enough money to build schools all over the States. Not for me to decide how she should spend her money, but it makes sense to me.
Would that then be segregation? There are Catholic schools and Jewish schools.
I don't know the answer to all this. Who does?
