[quote]heavythrower wrote:
sort of. without getting too much into my personal life, lets me explain my situation. I work in California, and my two daughters 6 and 8, live with there mom in Alabama. their mom is African American, and they live in an all black neighborhood at this time. i go back at least once every 4-6 weeks and spend a week or two with them.
got up this morning to take them to school, while i was loading there bags in the car, i noticed that my 8 year old had picked up a newspaper that was in the lawn, rolled up wrapped in plastic. they get a morning paper sop i did not think too much about it, until i heard Sara reading form it out loud. “the white race down but not out…” i stopped and said to myself “wtf???” took the paper from her and saw that it was an Aryan racist publication. “the Aryan alternative” is what this piece of shit is called, and in it was some of the most vile characterizations of Jews and Arabs and blacks i have ever seen. articles like: “stay white, stay pure”, “the useless young male”, “infected invaders”, blah blah blah, you get the picture.
turns out after asking around, that everyone in this all black neighborhood got one of these rags. now i am not shocked that stuff like this exists, but that someone would go to the trouble of delivering it to this entire neighborhood is disturbing.
my conflicts with prof x and others are well documented on this site, but the the reason i often have conflicts with “militant” black people, is NOT because i do not realize that racism is alive and well in this country, but simply because being raised by a poor working class white man and a poor immigrant from communist Cuba has given me the perspective that black folks are not the ONLY people in this country who have gone through some hard times. [/quote]
Don’t let that bullshit get to you. I had the same thing happen to me in my neighboorhood. My first thought was “Obviously these idiots don’t know who lives here.” Then I just laughed it off as morons trying to stir up trouble. Ironically, it was some of my white neighboors that got more upset than I did. They called the police, the homeowner’s association and all of people in the neighboorhood to see if everyone received it. Despite possibly being labelled as one of the more “militant” blacks people on this board, I do truly believe that most regular people know right from wrong and in their hearts, they are good people.
I am well aware that there are other races, ethinic groups and religious groups in this country that have gone through hard times and have been treated poorly as well. The few that come to mind are: Native Americans, Asians, Latinos, Irish, Italians, Jews, Middle Easterners, people from slavic regions of Europe, Catholics etc. However, what I have always resented from people is that I am being asked to forget about the things that happen to my people that affect us to this day, whether anyone wants to admit it or not, because there are other groups of people that have hard times as well. None of these other groups are being asked to do this. No one is asking that Jew to forget about the Holocaust. No one is asking that Native American to forget about the attempted genocide by the USA. But my people are being told that we need to “get over it and move on”. This, to me, shows a serious lack of understanding the what, hows and whys the black community is in such a fractured state and what is being fed into the black community to keep this state going.
I am not saying that it is totally someone else’s fault that the black community is messed up. We do a great deal of pretty stupid shit all own our own as well. What I am saying is that there truly are some outside forces at work as well and if you are not part of the community (such as it is) it will be very difficult for you to understand. Much like me trying to understand what it is like to be white, latino, asian etc. I don’t have the insider’s perspective to truly understand. I can only empathize with them, accept our differences and move on. If I try to act like I know what their problems are and how to solve them, that would just make me an arrogant, ignorant SOB deserving of any abuse that I would get.
DISCLAIMER Although I attached this rant to heavythrower’s post, it is not directed at him as a personal attack. Please make that clear. These are just some thoughts that I am posting that was prompted by his last paragraph:
[quote]
my conflicts with prof x and others are well documented on this site, but the the reason i often have conflicts with “militant” black people, is NOT because i do not realize that racism is alive and well in this country, but simply because being raised by a poor working class white man and a poor immigrant from communist Cuba has given me the perspective that black folks are not the ONLY people in this country who have gone through some hard times. [/quote]
Again, I am letting everyone know that this is NOT, repeat, NOT a personal attack on heavythrower. So anyone that is trying to start issues with that, save that bullshit for someone else.