Quote:
sigholdaccountlost
Why did I use the term 'blacks' rather than black people? Well, simple. I was talking about bullies, IMHO, bullies don't deserve anything that points them out as humans. In my experience, it is mainly black people that tend to do that.
I meant it was maily black people/blacks that tend to use race as a way of getting off undisciplined. Of course, this is just my expierence.
You sir, I hate to say it, are a racist, whether you think you are or not. Skin color has nothing to do with any of that.
My experience, as a skinny whitebread suburban kid, is that if you approach any sort of person with no preconcieved notions their own personality comes through. If you approach them as a black person or white person, that shows up too. I honestly don't notice the color of the person I am talking to half the time, I bet you can't say that, can you?
It seems to me that the community in the US that is identified with Black people is a much more co-operative, friendly and community minded one than the upper middle class suburban one I came from. Generally well to do folks got there by stepping on people and stabbing them in the back. I have been in the corporate world, was raised in the country club world, and that is by and large what I saw.
In this world, You have lots of "friends" and you scratch their back, and they scratch yours. But the moment a whiff of scandal taints your life, they will evaporate and tell everyone they have always disliked you. Never happened to me but I have seen it happen.
After years of slavery, then separate but equal, then people with opinionsl like yours keeping them back with overt and hidden racism, black people in the United States have to depend on one another a lot more than you or I do. Without each other, they would have been in a hopeless situation, but with each other they could get by. For example, one slave song was directions on how to find the underground railroad, for more:
http://www2.lhric.org/pocantico/tubman/gourd.htm This song was sung by all so everyone could memorize the way to freedom. There was no advantage to any single person, all were stuck and singing the song gave them a taste of freedom and a satisfaction that the people watching them had no idea what they were saying. Poverty and opression can bond people better than most other glues, sadly.
Obviously criminals and hooligans of any colour are to be avoided, sadly that is the brush most white culture seems to tar black culture with, throwing them in jail at an alarming rate completely out of whack with any possible reality. We have the highest percentage of our poplulation in jail of any nation in the world, and that population is about 70% black. They aren't that criminal, we are just that racist. No way in heck 10% of the population does 70% of the crime, just not possible. The racism inherent in the system gives the white kid probation and the black kid hard time for the same damn thing, for no good reason other than they think the white kid is more likely to turn around and go straight.
In the end though, people are people. I tend to maybe go overboard to give people of color the benefit of the doubt as they have had a hard road in the USA and it hasn't improved in my neck of the woods all that much, as far as I can tell. It is lovely when I go abroad as no other country in the world that I have been to has the level of disregard for a race that we do. I suppose somalia, iraq etc are worse, but do we really want to argue over who is at the bottom of the barrel? Don't we want to be fighting for the top spot?
I live in the swankiest subdivision in a largely black & impoverished area, picture families walking dogs up and down the sidewalks in front of well kept stately 2000+ square foot homes on 1/3 acre, all made from stone & brick, with lots of stained glass & solid wood and you will get the picture. Not dangerous by a remote stretch of the imagination. Golf course on one side, catholic girls school on the other, and a college campus on the third & fourth side.
Even with this, because of my zip code and suroundings, I have called tree services about 10 times apiece and they won't come out to look at my ^%&*&^ tree. When I lived in a largely white area and called the same services, they were out within a day, and I am closer to them here AND my neighborhood is 10x nicer and safer. I am going to start patronizing local businesses, not because of their color, but because they don't treat me like crap because of who my neighbors are, as they are my neighbors.
Best thing about my neighborhood is being 60% caucasian and 40% black, I never have to worry about living next to a racist. People that would treat a human being with a family and friends and hopes and dreams different because of a SKIN PIGMENTATION DENSITY DIFFERENCE, are not anyone I want to live anywhere near. Thankfully they would never live here, so I am safe from their ilk for some time.
take care,
Jester
I disagree. In most cases, no. But in terms of behaviour, you can hardly claim someone's making this up because they are being racist if you're the same colour as them, now can you? Lots of black people/coloured people/blacks/coloureds/non-whites are lovely.
And last time I checked, yeh, things have happened in the past but that's just it- THE PAST.
What I object to is people deciding that just because their ancestors, note their ancestors, not them, were slaves, that gives them a free pass to behave however they like towards others and think that 'I can't do anything wrong. If someone tries to discipline me, I'll call them out as being racist'. If we say that slavery wasn't totally scrapped until the '60s as one WPer claims, that still means that no-one in complusory education today was a slave, is a slave, and it is highely unlikely they will be a slave.
28 Sep 2006, 4:57 am
