”But this new scheme someone came up with—where we prove we’re not racist by acting as casually racist as possible? Not our best, white people. Not our best.”
http://jezebel.com/5905291/a-complete-guide-to-hipster-racism
“Other things being equal, people who trust their fellow citizens volunteer more often, contribute more to charity, participate more often in politics and community organizations, serve more readily on juries, give blood more frequently, comply more fully with their tax obligations, are more tolerant of minority views, and display many other forms of civic virtue.”
—Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone
#p2
Black people are SCARY and dangerous - particularly in mostly white neighborhoods. And especially when they are carrying skittles and an ice tea. We have to protect ourselves with deadly force from this menace. Shoot first and then claim self defense!
(I can’t help but resort to extreme sarcasm here because I am at a complete loss for words. Emily Bazelon from Slate.com does a better job of describing why George Zimmerman hasn’t been prosecuted.)
My favorite quotes:
“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
“America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.”
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
“Many of the ugly pages of American history have been obscured and forgotten. A society is always eager to cover misdeeds with a cloak of forgetfulness, but no society can fully repress an ugly past when the ravages persist into the present. America owes a debt of justice, which it has only begun to pay. If it loses the will to finish or slackens in its determination, history will recall its crimes and the country that would be great will lack the most indispensable element of greatness — justice.”
“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.”
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. The chain reaction of evil – hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars – must be broken or we shall be plunged into the darkness of annihilation.”
—MLK
Do you recognize the United States anymore? What happened to us? Do only blood, conflict, death and destruction unite us anymore? We have so few manufacturing jobs left in this country so we can’t really be proud of the things we make. Can anyone take pride in the fact that Mubarak used weapons we made against the people of Egypt? We’re the ones selling the “weapons of mass destruction.” Do we take pride that our financial system is basically a big casino run by addicts jonesing for their next fix.
I know so many people who are “tired” of politics so they just stop paying attention. I would love to do the same but my fear is that when intelligent people stop paying attention, the (ignorant) radicals take over. This seems to be what is happening to the republican party now. Their chickens are coming home to roost. Where are the “real” candidates? And by “real” I mean old school conservative republicans who don’t play on people’s fear of gays/women/blacks, etc.
I feel like our country is so divided and we can’t even have coherent discussions anymore because people are trained to only know talking points and when you push them on anything they get mad and start name-calling: You’re a crazy bleeding heart liberal. You’re a rabid ignorant republican, and then we all walk away angry.
I know we need to change the system, but I also know that is a slow process (and I’m an impatient person). Unfortunately things seem to be getting worse. I think we’ve forgotten how to love and know only how to hate. But we really want love. Corporations know this and play on our fears and needs. We’re told we’ll find happiness and love in “things.” If you work hard you can make tons of money. For what? That will not make you happy. We’ve become so obsessed with wanting things, we forgot to stop and ask why we want them? What does owning 3 different video consoles give us? What does having the best car do for us? How much do we have to “own” to make us happy? Does it ever stop? How far removed from actual food does what we consume have to become before we start objecting? How many children have to become obese and get Type II diabetes before we realize that junk food isn’t food. How many men and women of our military have to die before we start looking for alternative energy and meaningfully invest in it and make it widely available?
Do we really need televisions the size of an entire wall? Are we watching so much television that owning a gigantic tv sounds reasonable? I have a sociological eye and it has ruined television for me. I see the subtle racism and sexism in all of the shows on tv. I see how our kids are trained to become robots with no imagination. I watch as our schools look more and more like prisons and less like fun places to learn. When your eye and mind are trained to see the problems, it’s so hard to look past them, to ignore them. I wish everyone saw it this way.
So today I vow to give out more hugs, to visit a neighbor, and spend more time with friends in person (rather than on-line). Tomorrow I’ll start sorting my “things” and try to get rid of as much junk as possible. What will you do? My new motto: Live simply. Love more.
“Treasure your relationships, not your possessions.” - Anthony J. D’Angelo
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. The chain reaction of evil – hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars – must be broken or we shall be plunged into the darkness of annihilation.
—MLK
We are all racist.
We are all sexist.
We are all homophobic.
We are all selfish and sometimes greedy.
We are all privileged (some of us more a LOT more than others).
But, it’s what you do about those things that really matters.
Dr. Martin Luther King said the most important question you can ask yourself is…
WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO HELP OTHERS?
I hate the system that tells us we must all compete for what are basic human necessities.
I hate the system that makes it easy for men to ignore sexism, whites to ignore racism and heterosexuals to deny people equal rights.
I hate all of the distractions that make the aforementioned ignorance possible.
I hate the system that creates vast amounts of wealth and poverty.
I hate the system that perpetuates war for every other reason except humanity.
I hate the system that allows scholars to study inequality but then almost requires that they do nothing about it.
I hate the system that doesn’t provide an adequate education to most of its population.
I hate the system that lets people call other people “lazy” even though they know absolutely nothing about them.
I hate the system that allows people to twist the brilliant words of Dr. Martin Luther King to serve their own purpose.
I hate the system that creates hierarchies based on race, gender, class and sexual orientation.
I hate the system that allows inequality to be reproduced day in and day out.
I hate the system that allows privilege to be ignored and oppression to be achieved.
I hate the system because it is all around us yet most of us don’t even see it.
I hate the system because it saps my strength and weakens my resolve.
And most of all, I hate the system because it sometimes makes me hate the people.
The new recent Arizona law has stirred yet another round of debates about racism. I read comment after comment beneath news articles to see what “anonymous” people will say concerning the immigration debate. After reading an article about the teenage boy recently killed on the border by a border patrol agent, I was particularly disturbed by a few of the comments that said he got what he deserved and that we should open fire on anyone crossing the border illegally (whether they are threat or not). The courts are trying to figure out if, indeed, the agent was in immediate danger when he shot the boy, but regardless of the outcome, it has made me think of the racism that lives in all of us.
I recently went to check out volunteer opportunities at a place in downtown Baltimore. I had never been to this neighborhood and I knew that this place helped people who were jobless, homeless, undereducated, poor, etc. When I pulled up to the building and parked on the street, I saw a large group of African Americans gathered outside what I assumed would be the door I needed to walk through. My immediate spontaneous reaction was fear. Within a few seconds (or less) I dismissed the thought got out of my car and walked right through the crowd into the building. No problems. No hassles. No nothing, of course. But I can’t get over the initial second of fear. It was there. And, I am obviously still thinking about it. I study race. I know all about race and racism, so I know that this is just what we are taught in American society. My reaction wasn’t unusual and that’s what I wish more people would understand. Racism isn’t about a few racists. It’s about the racism in everything we think, do, and touch. Our “common sense” is usually racist common sense. When we think of people as “our kind of people,” that’s usually a racist thought. Segregation is racist and it’s the foundation upon which all of our cities and towns are built. Rationally, I know that I shouldn’t be scared of going into a non-profit organization on a beautiful sunny day with people all around me and I wasn’t… except for that one second. But that one second means so much. People use that one second to select neighborhoods to live in and schools to send their children to. Kids use that one second to decide who will be their friend and who will not. Bankers use that one second to deny loans or to offer loans with higher interest rates. Employers use that one second to make decisions about hiring, firing, and promotions. Arizona cops and citizens are going to be using that one second to assess “suspicious behavior.” Everything we do in life is based on what “feels right” to us, but what if those very feelings are racist? That’s the problem we aren’t addressing. That’s the problem so many of us aren’t willing to discuss. So, when people claim that we’re in a post-racist era or that racism and discrimination are just associated with a few racist individuals, what they don’t understand is that our entire culture is based on racism. No one can get around it. It lives and breathes and moves with us everywhere we go. It’s built into our laws. It’s in the curriculum we study in school. It’s how we evaluate students in the classrooms and employees in the boardrooms. It’s what juries use to convict criminals and what judges use to sentence them. It determines who gets selected to make our political decisions and who gets to criticize them. It decides who can make claims about racism and who cannot. It’s not about a few racist individuals. It’s about those few seconds adding up to minutes, adding up to hours, adding up to days, adding up to years. It crushes your soul and rips apart your humanity. It suppresses your sense of empathy. That’s the problem with racism we need to address, but as Eric Holder suggested, and with which I agree - we are all cowards when it comes to talking about things racial.
