Topic: Racism - Remnant of the Past or Alive Today?

[onan]

In a sense, Anagrammy, you, and our children and grandchildren are the (some say foretold) rainbow nation you describe.  I don't know why I fell in love with a young beauty from Pennsylvania 23 years ago, but we make handsome children.  They abide with people of every color and our lifestyle provides them with rich and varied cultural opportunities.  They go to rock concerts and tipi ceremonies, and pretty much everything in between- they are full on Americans.  They know what racism is but will not accept it in their minds.  I am not about mixing every color on the paint pallet, but I started brown and my wife's family now has a nice tan in their lineage is all.

It gives me a good feeling to hear your words.
 
It is funny you talk about your wife from PA, because I lived south of Pittsburgh for 4 years and in the city for 2. I found the town of Greensburg PA to be the most outright racist place I have ever been. Trust me, that is saying something.
 
I was born in a small town in Illinois and in 1962 we moved to Ca. I was just old enough to read some adult things. As we were leaving the city limits of Pekin, my father pointed to the sign that greets people as they entered the town. I remember it like yesterday. At the bottom of the sign it said "nigger dont let the sun set on ya here."
 
When MY wife and I moved to PA she had been offered a position of managing the counties largest women's health clinic. She was talking to one of the nurses there about the patient population and the nurse said to her: "we have a large black patient population, but none of them you would really call niggers."
 
So Imagine my surprise upon moving to NC and seeing a news article about the yearly KKK meeting in a nearby town. The comedy of this particular event was that the directions posted were very confusing and many people that were supposedly going to attend got lost... at least that is what I was told by one of my friends who was there to cover it.

[aldousburbank]

This from our Tucson news today- Ethnic studies supporters overtake TUSD meeting

I would be ashamed if my kids were involved in some racial protest like this- I mean I wouldn't stop them, but I think the whole brown power thing is a scam.

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/education/article_176f8aed-4b95-53fc-9b49-0959cd5a26e5.html

[aldousburbank]

I found the town of Greensburg PA to be the most outright racist place I have ever been. Trust me, that is saying something.

I lived and worked in Bucks County PA for a while.  Depending on I where I wandered, I noticed perceptible surprise at a brown dude who could talk white, so to speak, and was not landscaping or digging a ditch, looked like a damn indian warrior, and had a hot little Bucks County companion.  I enjoyed breaking the ice and kind of messing with people's minds in a good way.  I guess I've always had a penchant for that, especially across cultural/racial barriers.

[Do you think it was angels?]

Imagine what it's like to be followed in stores because you might steal.  Imagine what it's like to be a kid picking up a crayon that says "Flesh" and it's not the color of your skin. 

I fear you're being indoctrinated into worrying excessively about these things.

[anagrammy]

I fear you're being indoctrinated into worrying excessively about these things.

My appeal to find some imagination in you is not a worry.  Were you able at all to imagine yourself in a colored child's shoes?  Even briefly?

Anagrammy

[Do you think it was angels?]

My appeal to find some imagination in you is not a worry.  Were you able at all to imagine yourself in a colored child's shoes?  Even briefly?

Anagrammy

I grew up as a colored child. Now I'm a colored adult.

[EvB]

I grew up as a colored child. Now I'm a colored adult.

I had a very late night - and just got up.  This post gave me the funniest image of a child covered in finger paint - and then an adult - ALSO covered in finger paint.

It loses something n the translation - but I hope you "get the picture" 

[Bounder]

I wish "race," the word, could be blocked out of our vocabulary.  It perpetuates the idea of separation and segregation.  Hasn't mattered much, in my experience, whether the place I live is predominantly one skin-tone or a many-hued Jackson Pollock -- the basic sorting function of the human intellect pervades each type.  Even the utopias of tolerance -- San Francisco in the states, Scandinavia in Europe -- are full of their Russian Hills, Chinatowns and Little Elsewheres.  Communities, in the words of John Muir, "touching -- but separate."

India, where I've also lived, makes a cultural imperative of racism in the form of arranged marriages.  Which, I suspect, will be the ultimate measure of discrimination's health: the day you not only can't count the number of "mixed" couples you know vs. "non-mixed," but where you can't even think to form the question because it is meaningless to your perception of the world.

Viewed this way, we still have a very long way to go before racism is truly laid to rest.

[anagrammy]

I grew up as a colored child. Now I'm a colored adult.

Which proves that lack of empathy transcends race.

[The General]

Which proves that lack of empathy transcends race.

wtf?

[Michael Vandeven]

This thread:





"We're reeling 'em in!"

[Do you think it was angels?]

wtf?

 

This is getting rather surreal.

Whom am I not empathizing with?

[The General]

This is getting rather surreal.

Whom am I not empathizing with?

Seriously.  I don't know if I should laugh or cry.
Anagrammy, you can't be insisting that you empathize more with a black child than someone who was an ACTUAL BLACK CHILD?  Because you took a class?

[onan]

This is getting rather surreal.

Whom am I not empathizing with?

*sigh* you are not empathizing with yourself you heartless bastard.
 
sorry couldn't pass on the funny (to me its funny so back off)

[Michael Vandeven]

*sigh* you are not empathizing with yourself you heartless bastard.
 
sorry couldn't pass on the funny (to me its funny so back off)

lol

[anagrammy]

lol

EXACTLY*

Ana

*This is what George Noory said after Ian sleeptalked on his program.  The communication of some humor and irony just does not come across in typing.  I thought it was damn funny and expected LOL rather than WTF, oh well...General and Angels: you are my playmates in cyberspace, so relax--no insults intended.  I did take a class and it taught me how little I know.

[b_dubb]

people!!! that's why you have to use your <sarcasm> comment here </sarcasm> tags!!!!! eeeeaarrrrgghhhh!!!

that is all

b

[George sucks]

I fear you're being indoctrinated into worrying excessively about these things.

My appeal to find some imagination in you is not a worry.  Were you able at all to imagine yourself in a colored child's shoes?  Even briefly?

I grew up as a colored child. Now I'm a colored adult.

Which proves that lack of empathy transcends race.

wtf?

This is getting rather surreal.
Whom am I not empathizing with?

*sigh* you are not empathizing with yourself you heartless bastard.

Had to encapsulate this gem of banter, cream of the crop. Hilarious. 

[George sucks]

Were you able AT ALL to imagine yourself in a colored child's shoes?  EVEN BRIEFLY!?!?

I grew up as a colored child. Now I'm a colored adult.

*sigh* you heartless bastard.

Couldn't resist tweaking things a little. This is hilarious stuff.

[EvB]

this is great stuff!

thanks

[anagrammy]

people!!! that's why you have to use your <sarcasm> comment here </sarcasm> tags!!!!! eeeeaarrrrgghhhh!!!

that is all

b

I know I'm bad but I just can't help myself.  It's just more fun not to.

Ana the Naughty

(I thought I would be outed with "colored child"...but Angels slamdunked it beautifully...colored adult! LOL)