For starters we could have a scholarship fund for descendents of slaves.

We could also see serious affirmative action legislation to end workforce and other forms of discrimination.

Apologies are only the start.

I don’t know you, and perhaps if we in the flesh, we never would have had this discussion. However, I’m glad we did.

I read in the paper today that the California legislature last July formulated an apology to the Chinese for the Chinese exclusion act of 1882.

Ok, people whose ancestors might not have been in the US before 1900, or in California before 1910 or even the 1930’s are apologizing to people who are long dead. Maybe the apology even extended to Chinese people in mainland China.

An apology doesn’t really matter to dead people. Particularly one from living people who are six to eight generations later.

It doesn’t affect the living either way in any real manner, regardless if one is a San Francisco descendant of 19th century coolies or a child of 1980’s Chinese immigrants.

Fairly recently the US Congress, one and a half centuries descended from a government which fought a bloody civil war to abolish slavery, likewise apologized for slavery in America. Did that put any money in your pocket? Did that vapid bit of political correctness sooth that chip on your shoulder?

No to either one.

So, what do you want? Every white person in America to personally plant their lips on your posterior? How about a dollar from every one of those people in America who are deemed certified subliminal racists for the exclusive reason that they have light colored skin and yours is dark?

Once again, I’m not available.

I’m not responsible for your angst, and it’s not my problem.

Respectfully,

Your allegation laced assumption concerning my statement is one of the ways the race card is played to negate a person’s dialog by resort to political correctness.

The next move in the race card dance is that I justify myself by saying something like “That would have been my belief regardless of the kid’s race”.

Subsequently, a repeat suggestion of racism is tossed out, and I either let you take complete charge of the discussion by defensively babbling my innocence or resort to political correctness by backing away.

In the meantime, the whole point of my discourse is overwhelmed and lost by use of the race card, which was played on one small statement.

Sort of a catch 22 diversion from the topic if one dances to the tune. However, it takes two to perform that dance, and I’m just not available.

The “racist” allegation drum has been beaten so long and so hard it’s losing the effect, and it doesn’t work on me anymore.

The race card often uses slander and defamation, such as the outrageous Nativo Lopez vs Overhill Farms stunt. Lopez put his proverbial mammary gland into the mangle on that one.

Lopez’ case is unusual due only to the fact that someone actually stood up against the race card. Google that one up, key words “Nativo Lopez” and “Defamation”.

I have no personal experience concerning those classes. All this stuff has come about since I left school. I have heard of the practice from one educator and three people who informed me through correspondence that they have had the experience in Washington and California, one in high school.

Most of the people I have personally spoken with either describe a benign experience or a foaming at the mouth instructor who rants non stop about the evil of the white man.

I have not heard of anyone taking recourse as you suggest, I’ll put that on my list of inquiry. My assumption is that if the complaint is submitted at the educational facility there would be no productive follow up with possible retribution directed towards the complainant. That would leave the courts as the venue of expediency.

Thank you for bringing out that point.

If those stories are true about students in classes being singled out, they had every responsibility to go to the administration to complain. There are many, many avenues for complaint and satisfaction. Did they? I doubt it.

I don’t really think that there is a total freedom and lack of fear, there is the fear of being unfavorably judged and ostracized as a result of “appearing” to be racist. That takes away the freedom to act as one would otherwise.

That is the racism of political correctness. The thought built up since the 60’s that only whites are capable of racism. I have heard of classes in college where the instructor picks out white kids and works on to making them feel ashamed of being white, harping on real, exaggerated, or even fabricated events hundreds of years in the past.

And it seems silly to even think of a white person suing over racial harassment, somehow it has the stigma of a guy filing a police report after being beaten up by a woman.

But reverse the roles, and the ACLU will be right on it.

The racism of political correctness leads to overlooking faults in one person and fixating on the perceived faults in another.

As a matter of fact, it just struck me that politically correct racism is probably the origin of Beholder’s premise concerning “color blind racism”.

No one wants to be accused of racism. So, the allegation of racism where no actual racism is involved is a tool, a means to accomplishing an end, a method of winning a battle. And there is no such thing as a fair fight.

The race card in action.

Whenever someone is given or denied anything due to racial affiliation, it is racism either way. It doesn’t matter if the benefactor is the same race or not as the beneficiary, it is racism. Racial favor through political correctness is racism, just as racial rejection through antagonistic suppression is racism.

I go back to Beholder’s statement concerning opportunity. Perhaps some of that has to do with attitude.

I remember the time some years ago a black kid about 14 years old who stepped in the crosswalk, hat turned sideways. I stopped to let him pass. He took his sweet, long time, all the while mad dog staring at me and his body language daring me to run him over.

I never saw him before, I’ve never done anything to him. Why did he disrespect me like that? The little twerp was calling me out. And before he was out of my way, I really did want to run the little b*****d over. However, I believe that if I had actually done so, it would have been determined that I had committed a race based hate crime, instead of the kid getting what he was daring me to do.

Was the kid acting out from racial hatred? Oh, only white people are capable of negative race based activity.

Would the kid have done it to a black person? If he did, would the black person have got out and whipped his a**? Would the kid have pulled out a gun and shot the person for teaching him a lesson he needed? Can’t spin any of it as a hate crime there.

At the least, that kid wasn’t prospect for future employment. I believe he’s probably long dead from a violent cause.

I find myself constantly nodding my head when I read your comments, and this last one is no exception. I don’t think white people (like me) truly understand what it is to be white because we don’t know what it is (generally) to be marginalized. In other words, to appreciate the freedom and lack of fear we’re given as white people we’d have to know the opposite, but we don’t. So, I find it disingenuous for any white person to say that racism is dead or that others are pulling the race card when we don’t even know what those things mean.

However, I do think we can understand discrimination in other ways. I’ve been… hmmmm…. blessed? to be both able bodied and disabled in my life and, as a disabled person, am discriminated against daily. People are always surprised when I tell them that people laugh at me, call me names, purposely try to trip me, etc, but they do. So, I wonder if our human frailty will, at long last, be the thing that rids us of our made up prejudices.

Please re-post those statistics.

I believe that the industries which used to support black communities have been generally sent overseas or have been taken over by new comers.

I have heard that most gangs are formed of kids who have single mothers. There needs to be a father figure, regardless of the racial composition of the family.

When a kid has a choice to do without or make a thousand or so a day selling drugs and have all the flash, I have no doubt what choice will be made.

Movies glorify criminality and violence. Many educators are clueless, living in a parallel universe known as “teacher land”. Sometimes one has to do what he has to do to survive in a jungle.

Making bad choices leads to jail. Jail enforces racial enmity and is an apprenticeship for further criminality. Regardless of race, society has little forgiveness for a criminal record. The vicious cycle has ensued, and I understand the major cause of death for young black males is being murdered by another young black male.

I’ve never been called a “Nigger”, but I have been called a “Pinche guero”, which means “F****ng white guy”.

Forgive me, I’m much more familiar with the brown minority in all its variations than the black minority.

When I say Mexican, I speak of nationality, not race. And all the other words are general at best.

I’ve busted Mexicans kissing my posterior and being all so helpful because they have something to exploit from me, while talking disrespectful crap about me right in front of me, not knowing I understand what they’re saying among themselves in Spanish.

I’ve also been on a job where almost everyone was an illegal from Mexico, they thought I was there in my own country to take one of “their” jobs. They were planning to set me up so I’d look like crap to the boss, but it was an aborted effort. I have a skill and qualifications few Mexicans have, and if I weren’t there they wouldn’t have been be working.

When I first encountered Mexicans on the job over thirty years ago, they worked at getting along, learning English and all the rest. Now that they’ve crowded almost everyone else out of the trades, they tend to be a-holes.

And that saying that they do work that Americans (of all races) won’t in only half true: the American isn’t going to be hired if the Mexicans have anything to say about.

And the Mexican American, stuck in the middle, tends not to have much better luck. If he is working and overhears them talking about someone’s brother or cousin coming over the border last night, he knows he is going to be handed his layoff checks the next morning.

But somehow all the above isn’t prejudice and racism, and the media and politicians carry on all that “they’re just here to feed their families”.

The ignorance that regular white people have concerning brown people is worked by both brown and white racists, building on the myth that fifth generation American Garcia is exactly the same person as Mexican citizen Garcia from Jalisco who crossed the border for the first time this morning.

I believe that unless someone’s family are arrivals within the last thirty years, the main support for illegal immigrants by Mexican American will be due to a worked up perception of white racism.

In 2006, the internet chatter on both sides of the immigration debate had about the same content, lots of racial slurs, lots of talk which would be considered racist and threatening.

Now that the economy is bad with nearly 15% unemployment in southern California efforts to legitimize illegal immigrants might not be in a politician’s future electoral interest, and the chatter on both sides seems to be relatively benign.

However, for equal content, the predominantly white message boards are condemned as racist, the brown boards are not.

And we get back to the premise of “driving gavachos and niggers out of ‘our’ barrios”

This is my general subjective observation concerning groups propelling demographic change, individuals vary and I’m not passing universal judgment on individuals:

When Mexicans move into a neighborhood, regardless if it’s a “good” neighborhood or not, as a group they will trash a neighborhood if it is in good condition. I’ve never known of the demographic change ever improving a neighborhood.

If it is a predominantly white neighborhood to begin with, the whites eventually move out.

If it’s predominantly a Black neighborhood, the percentage of American born descendants of Mexicans who join Hispanic gangs tend towards attempts to drive blacks out by violence and arson. Somehow these aren’t listed as hate crimes and it slips under the “hate watch” radar.

I will add that most of the Mexican Americans I have known over my lifetime are neither criminals nor racists. I have met few Hispanic people with the racial enmity and racial purpose which is endemic in Latino professors and other Latino advocates.

On the other hand, things have changed in both countries and it is my personal subjective belief that previous generations of migrants from Mexico as a group were a better class of people than those as a group who come here now.

As a personal feeling, it’s hard to be in the middle. A lot of times when I express a belief which I see as the truth, it is often interpreted on the one side as pro illegal immigrant commentary and as a racist view on the other. I get bashed both ways.

Your turn.

This is not at all an attempt to debase your views, which are well thought out and address many different layers of the issue.

I do think though that your friend’s observation on prejudice is correct and to say that any individual does not have prejudice because of their race or ethnicity, while others do, also because of their race and ethnicity, would be absurd and demeaning to the whole process of attempting to correct the effects of racism and bigotry.

The issue is not so much, in my mind at least, how to erase people’s perceptions of the other and supplant these ideas with some artificial construct — that is not what the civil rights movement is about nor is it what affirmative action seeks to do.

We need to distinguish, with a critical mind, the difference between how these assumptions and worldviews have harmed specific ethnicities or robbed them of their opportunity.

Nor is this to take away the very critical issue of personal motivation and achievement, and by the same token, one’s responsibility to self actualize. I don’t think anybody is asking for hand outs or special favors at an individual level.

I think what the issue is primarily, is to identify what opportunities have been denied due to racial or ethnic prejudice and bigotry, and put this in the context of the widest possible group of people. We may not be able to clearly identify why one individual will achieve more in life than another who apparently have the same opportunity or lack of it. But we can see that when you look at a group that seems to fare worse than another group, and you can see that certain characteristics remain present through generations, it becomes evident that the problem is continuing.

At that point, I say let’s do something about it.

You mention Bill Cosby and I have no great love for the man, but he did accomplish good things for himself. His show was essential for helping to modernize thinking of the wider public about black families being perfectly normal, but the unfortunate thing is that Cosby’s TV personality has nothing to do with the real issues of race in America. We did not see Theo pushed into a sports career because that is where the opportunity is. We did not see issues of single parenthood, sexual orientation, substance abuse, or hate crimes. We did not see marital violence, and we did not see any evidence of how these TV people felt when one day at school the topic of slavery came up. And the white people looking around at the black people, and the black people looking around at white people.

If you have never been called a nigger or any other racial epithet (moderators please forgive me), how could you possibly know what racism feels like? To see a stereotypical vision of human beauty that excludes you, and to see your own peers kill themselves over Nike shoes because some athlete managed to get above the gang life because the white man pays well for entertainment.
These are very powerful moments in anyone’s life.

So when doors don;t seem to open, or when you can’t get a job because maybe you don’t have the same skills because your parents didn’t have them and their parents didn’t have them because their parents were slaves, it is hard to say that racism does not still exist in America.

I do believe there are excesses, but I also believe that we cannot as a people, and I mean America, suddenly proclaim that racism is dead simply because we have a black man in the bubble now. It is a starting point for massive social change. Black youths see themselves differently, they can reject their own stereotypes as well as society’s. But that does not mean there will be the same opportunity, or that generations of injustice have been erased and suddenly all the black families are as prosperous as the Huckstables simply because it is not possible to be so.

I think you would feel very differently about race in America if you represented a group that had been hauled in chains, called an ape and an animal, or had jokes made about your skin color. Even if you have heard epithets hurled at you, the weight of history is not behind them and you can laugh them off. And a lot can be laughed off.

But look at those statistics I mentioned earlier and tell me if it can all be about not wanting to get an education, like Cosby said. An education is needed, yes, but so is a lot more.

I don’t take any offense.

The reply had everything to do with race.

Go tell someone from the Mexica movement that the government considers them white. Leave the motor running and keep the transmission in gear while you do it.

Or have a look at the The Plan of Aztlan (note that The Mexica movement repudiates Chicanismo). Any further doubts, read “Cholo Style” by Reynaldo Berrios.

Here is the short version of an odd one I got a month or so ago from a middle school teacher who would describe herself as a Chicana:

White is a race, Black and Hispanic are cultures.

However, it seems you want to discuss white and black race relations, you want me to give a specific answer, and any answer but that very answer will be graded as wrong.

The closest I can get to that answer is one time I was having a moment of self doubt, and I asked my long term girl friend / housemate (A Mexican American woman who grew up in pre 1960 America) If I (a white guy) were prejudiced or racist or whatever.

Her answer was that I’m not a racist but that I am prejudiced. She added that she herself is prejudiced, that everyone is prejudiced about one thing or another.

That’s an honest answer. It’s part of the human condition, and its what we do with it that counts.

Black entertainer Bill Cosby said something to the effect that it’s time for the black man to quit whining about the white man and get an education.

Black columnist Larry Meek said something to the effect that the problem with the Black “community” is that an awful lot of black children need a father in the family.

My perspective is that the last person to have been a black slave in America died in 1948 at the age of 105.

Rosa Parks did an incredibly brave thing, Martin Luther King looked for the day when his children lived in a world where people were judged on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. .

Then some practicing the Hippie life style introduced drugs in the neighborhoods they could best afford, which were black; Lyndon Johnson introduced his well meaning Great society program, which provided easy money while discouraging fathers from staying with their families; and ethnic nationalism in the form of Chicanismo hijacked the civil rights movement.

So, forty to fifty years later and three generations of black children being raised by their grandmothers, I might have some welfare queen black woman with a gang banging, drug dealing black boyfriend who’s not the father of her children tell me that I am a racist who owes her because of black slavery in America. And the statement will be thrown into the rant somewhere that her great grandmother breast fed my great great father.

In spite of my understanding of how it all came about, I have a hard time getting it.

Not trying to be nasty or anything but I don’t see what your reply has to do with race.

The issues about being a Mexican immigrant relate to national origin, whereas the issues related to being Latino(a) relate to ethnicity. In neither case is race involved.

Officially by US standards at least (Customs and Immigration code) Latinos are considered White for demographic purposes. Of course I know a lot of Latinos who spent their whole lives considering themselves white and they found that in the US they were considered Afro descended. So a lot has to to with perception.

Remember we see with our mind, not with our eyes. What you and she perceive may be very different because you have a different world view and both will insist you are right.

For that reason, I like to look at racial and ethnic markers in areas that can be put in the realm of empirical fact: income, education, criminality (both indexes of who commits crime and how “justice” is dealt out depending on what race or ethnicity the offender is), who has access to health care, basic childhood nutrition, etc.

In these areas it is obvious that equality in America has not been achieved, or at very least, opportunities and social circumstances can be improved.

It is very easy for the beneficiaries of historical privilege to demand an “up by the bootstraps” (Booker T Washington) approach to social development. However, when you look at the history of power, authority and privilege in America, the transfer of wealth through generations, and the effects of segregation, you will see that white males have been the principal beneficiaries of opportunity.

Denying this, since you did not personally own slaves, is simply failing to recognize that on the wide scale our generation inherited certain demographic realities from the failures of the previous generation. But racism still exists.

Look at the rise of right wing extremism, predominately white middle class nativism, and the fact that up until the present Administration the highest level of achievement a black man in America could aspire to is to be an entertainer.

Look how people who claim they are not racist insist on stereotypes. Many who give lip service to civil rights are the first to bust out a racial epithet when someone cuts them off in traffic. How thin the veil of civility is in America.

The truth comes out when the teeth start to show — through the anger and the lies of a generation that denies its racist legacies and refuses to make good on its promise of equal opportunity for all, not just the white man.

I’m sick of the whole thing myself. All the race baiting and racism from every angle, from every race, from every nationality, racism alleged where there is no apparent racism, overt racism, and politically correct racism.

It’s all a crock of c***.

I knew a woman who was brought to the US as a child and grew up in a heavily Mexicanized area in California. Most white people would consider her to be Mexican, as she speaks English with what most English speakers would consider a heavy Mexican accent. On the other hand she speaks Spanish which would have an American accent to a Mexican and if she were to go to Mexico she has a good chance to be vilified for being Americanized, a pocha, not a “real” Mexican.

However, she graduated high school and studied at a University of California campus. Of course, she attended some of those “ethnic studies classes” where the racial notion of exploitation was stuffed into her head.

One day I was having a conversation with her about illegal immigration (I believe she is not legal, liking her, I don’t want to know) and what I have seen concerning illegal entrants beating down wages over the last thirty years. She became indignant, to her the reason for low wages in industries illegal Mexicans now dominate is because of “institutionalized racism”. I related to her what I had seen that very afternoon, a strawberry field being picketed by out of work Mexican national UFW members while that very field was filled full of bent over Mexican nationals picking strawberries.

She just couldn’t grasp the irony of it all.

For all the woman’s education, she waits tables in the poorest per capita income city in her county. I have no idea if she’s just doing it to make a little extra money for the family and is happy with what she does, or if she just doesn’t fit into the other world. From what I know of her it could go either way.

On the other hand, there were recently four self described “Latina” mid level educators at a local university. There was a big stink going on concerning their very vocal beliefs that they hadn’t been promoted as was their perceived due and that they were being discriminated against. Furthermore, according to them, they needed to be promoted in order to reflect the racial mix of the student body in the administration.

I don’t know any of the parties involved, but I do know there is a lot of politically correct pressure to advance minorities in the educational system.

I have no idea if the women were qualified for the positions, they claimed they were. However, reading between the lines, it is my opinion that those women hired on and stayed on their good behavior until they had enough tenure to become demanding, pushy, complaining, trouble making pains in the ass, no fear of being run off. They sounded as though they have a racial agenda and believed that they were racially entitled to the promotions.

It is my belief that for whatever reason they were held back, it was not due to institutionalized racism.

What is your view on color blind racism? That is, the kind of racism where an individual, who may be white, but not necessarily, denies the existance of institutional racism and attempts to villify any effort to expose its existance as a mere card game rather than the meritorious pursuit of protecting fundamental civil liberties, vis-a-vis your comment about the “race card”.

Would you not say that those accusing others of playing the “race card” are indeed insisting upon their right to carry a kind of “white pass” and collect continued dividends from historical racism, or indeed that of the present day?

Brown racism is somewhat more sophisticated and generally spun off as cultural pride. The educated version concentrates on education as a means to take over the education system and government at all levels while out populating other races with unchecked immigration and higher birth rate. It is obsessed with promoting brown, and is biased towards hiring only Latinos, this can all be found in their copyrighted literature by the very few curious enough about the subject to actually research it. There is a lot of cooperation between their multitudinous organizations.

The brown gang banger version of racism is generally most concerned with hostility towards black people, although it generally agrees with the notion that the southwest United States is a Chicano homeland and whites need not apply.

Somehow brown racist activities aren’t generally considered hate motivated. I believe that has to do with the primary American obsession with ferreting out white racism, or the odd subliminal notion that only whites are capable of racism.

My perception of the Black version of racism is that it generally consists of throwing out the race card at every opportunity and blaming black on black violence on white people.

It amazes me that equally egregious behavior of those of all races who make their living by fomenting racial enmity, there is greatly unequal judgment and unequal condemnation.

And the SPLC is not the least offender concerning those unbalanced judgments.

The big difference between the Nation of Islam and white supremacist groups is that I have yet to hear of any NOI members going out and trying to shoot up white folks at a church or burn crosses on their lawns, or just threaten to kill them on sight. Meanwhile, while supremacists have actually DONE most of these horrible things—look at the crazy old white guy who killed a guard in the Holocaust Museum recently—he’s been in the white supremacist movement for years, and apparently he believed that Jews were taking over his so-called precious Aryan culture, or some ignorant BS like that.

Bottm line, is NOI mambers are more likely to be taking care of business in their communities, helping young black men out of prison find their places in life, and doing more positive things that any of these crazy white power psycho freaks have ever done in their screwed-up good-for-nothing lives!

on August 15th, 2009 at 1:42 am

you stand corrected the only terror was on 9-11-01.
————————–
Unless you happened to live in Iraq, or were in the custody of CIA and the military. Bush set US diplomacy back a hundred years. What stupidity to stand up before the eyes of the world and say the US would never accept any challenge to its hegemony for all of time. I don’t think the world has seen such hubris since Augustus Caesar. The Bush Doctrine is an invitation to terror attacks on our soil. I repudiate his Adminstration with vehemence.

saundra schoen

Imagine having to step in after George W Bush and then take the blame for trying to keep us from backsliding into the Third World. For crying out loud if you put a pomegranate in the Oval Office for eight years, our country would not have been in worse shape than it is after Bush’s reign of terror.

ty to your comment that we would have to build more prisons, so what. it would create jobs. with the job rate at fifteen million we need jobs. all of us can try to change people’s minds, but not everybody wants to change. we have to be strong,firm, and make no mistake hate groups are waiting for us to have a weak moment than that will be the begining of the end. all of us MUST change the world one person at a time. all of us have a long way to go but we have to stick together. now that i have seen a african-american as our president, now i want either a chinese,japanese,jewish, or latino, president now. when Dr. Martin Luther King was murdered i cried for days. i made a pack with God to let my prayers be answered, to have a african-american as our president. now i want these prayers before my eyes close. president obama is doing a great job, leave him alone and quit picking at everything he does. i don’t see anyone else going to D.C. to do it any different, or better. because it is a very hard job.

Saundra J. Schoen

Remember the majority of these hate gangs are the underachievers of our society- all of them have commited some criminal act- from deaths to poisonings.

these people once found must be tracked where and what they do for life. Especially if they become LEO’s or politicians!