Hayabusa Rider
Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
People seem to think racism is as simple as black and white (pun intended). It isn't always so simple.
I was born in the South. We would go back every summer and stay with them. They didn't have much money themselves, and they lived close to some blacks who were miserably poor. I mean sitting on orange crate poor. About the age of six, my grandmother would give me a bag of food to take "to the awesome people down the road" and said to take it and play with the boys there. I did and we had a grand time. This happened a couple times a week, and we all had fun. For me that's what it was all about. Their poverty meant nothing to me. I was a kid who was having fun playing with other boys. I did this for the next several summers and as I got older I clued into things more. I asked my grandfather why he didn't just take the food to them. They certainly needed it. He answered "A man has his pride". He wasn't thinking about him lowering himself, but the pride of that "great person". He knew he would be accepting charity. To have food brought by a visiting child wasn't being degraded. Understand, there was no malice in that word. It was simply the only one he knew to call the other.
Meanwhile in the North, I lived to a woman who absolutely loved JFK. American flags all around. She had magazines that said all the right things about MLK. She told me she considered all Southern whites to be racist trash. Oh not in those words since my mother was born and raised in the south. The point was driven home though. She was the model progressive Northern white. Funny thing about her though. I overheard her saying to another neighbor that she was worried. A black couple (she would never have said great person) was looking at a home for sale, and if one came in more might and there goes the neighborhood. Not only that, I cannot recall a single act of kindness extended to a minority by her and her friends.
Now, who were the better people here? My grandparents who used the wrong words, or the one who spoke well?
My point is that racism isn't so much about how one talks about minorities as much as how they act and believe. Yes words are important. They can and are used as weapons. I don't approve of it. I posted the dread "N" word as the extreme example. Sometimes though it's just a simple statement, without inflammatory language. Sometimes people do have predjudices that are founded on things they themselves don't understand.
Maybe people should be encouraged to talk about what they feel and why and not get beaten over the head when they do. Maybe bring up questions to others and admit feeling certain ways and begin to deal with it in constructive ways rather than feeling that you must never admit to being less than the model citizen or whatever. This applies to all people, not just whites.
There will always people who love to hate, and they get the condemnation they deserve, but people who are otherwise reasonable and have questions or bring up points should be encouraged to discuss it without being bludgeoned. You can't make people feel or think a certain way, but maybe they can do it themselves if encouraged.
Anyway, might be something to consider.
I was born in the South. We would go back every summer and stay with them. They didn't have much money themselves, and they lived close to some blacks who were miserably poor. I mean sitting on orange crate poor. About the age of six, my grandmother would give me a bag of food to take "to the awesome people down the road" and said to take it and play with the boys there. I did and we had a grand time. This happened a couple times a week, and we all had fun. For me that's what it was all about. Their poverty meant nothing to me. I was a kid who was having fun playing with other boys. I did this for the next several summers and as I got older I clued into things more. I asked my grandfather why he didn't just take the food to them. They certainly needed it. He answered "A man has his pride". He wasn't thinking about him lowering himself, but the pride of that "great person". He knew he would be accepting charity. To have food brought by a visiting child wasn't being degraded. Understand, there was no malice in that word. It was simply the only one he knew to call the other.
Meanwhile in the North, I lived to a woman who absolutely loved JFK. American flags all around. She had magazines that said all the right things about MLK. She told me she considered all Southern whites to be racist trash. Oh not in those words since my mother was born and raised in the south. The point was driven home though. She was the model progressive Northern white. Funny thing about her though. I overheard her saying to another neighbor that she was worried. A black couple (she would never have said great person) was looking at a home for sale, and if one came in more might and there goes the neighborhood. Not only that, I cannot recall a single act of kindness extended to a minority by her and her friends.
Now, who were the better people here? My grandparents who used the wrong words, or the one who spoke well?
My point is that racism isn't so much about how one talks about minorities as much as how they act and believe. Yes words are important. They can and are used as weapons. I don't approve of it. I posted the dread "N" word as the extreme example. Sometimes though it's just a simple statement, without inflammatory language. Sometimes people do have predjudices that are founded on things they themselves don't understand.
Maybe people should be encouraged to talk about what they feel and why and not get beaten over the head when they do. Maybe bring up questions to others and admit feeling certain ways and begin to deal with it in constructive ways rather than feeling that you must never admit to being less than the model citizen or whatever. This applies to all people, not just whites.
There will always people who love to hate, and they get the condemnation they deserve, but people who are otherwise reasonable and have questions or bring up points should be encouraged to discuss it without being bludgeoned. You can't make people feel or think a certain way, but maybe they can do it themselves if encouraged.
Anyway, might be something to consider.
