okie wrote:I agree with Finn.
Further, running with race or gender on one's sleeve can be in itself racist or biased. Constantly pointing out that you should vote for me because I am black or white, or woman, or whatever, is a turnoff. When can we start running and voting based on policy and character. Isn't that what MLK said, base things on the content of our character instead of the color of our skin.
Going back to the last election, Michael Steele was far more inspiring to me than Obama at the conventions. Obama's popularity seems to be based on his convention speech, and more importantly media hype following the speech, yet in my opinion, Michael Steele was far superior to him in substance of his speech, and I would enthusiastically vote for him, not because of his race, but because of the principles he spoke about and apparently believes in.
Snood, I am very weary of the people that continue to perpetuate race problems, that constantly frame every issue around race or gender, and frame an election as if we are voting for a woman or a black. Maybe you need to realize that some people have gotten over it and wish everyone would. Constantly picking at a scab only causes it to not heal over.
While you, Mysteryman, and Finn may not be racist and for that I am entirely thankful, the point is that it exists in America and it has and will be a factor in elections.
Being "weary" that someone points out the affects of racism effectively blames its victims.
Perhaps without experiencing racism it is difficult to recognize it, as my sig line would predict.
Walk in a man's shoes before being weary of his gait due to its burden. Or stand beside him when he gets tripped up by it.
I don't think a white person in America has much of an idea of the institutionalized racism blacks face every day.
My own experience has produced recognizable truths about racism in America. Within the last decade I have been stopped by a state trooper in Georgia with several black friends as passengers, the former who questioned me and admonished me why a white man was associating with them, I was not allowed to hire two outstanding black scientists because the president of a company I worked for didn't want blacks working anywhere but in the chemical plant and I was jeered by several people calling me a "n***** lover" while out on a dance floor with my African American girl friend.
Again, experience drives home truths unrecognizable without it.
BUT I do believe things are improving each day, our children play together and overt racism has become a social taboo, but covertly it will take another generation, or two to disappear.
Quote:The race problem in America has always been, in part, a class problem and it remains both a matter of economic deprivation and color prejudice.
Affirmative action has never been solely a race matter. It included gender and in schools it also included region. I believe the issue of class or economic status is important in regard to affirmative action alongside race, and gender, and region.
Dr. Cornel West
I hope you are who you say you are and will show your own personal reprobation towards racist remarks by friend or foe. America needs it, your own children, black, brown, or white need it. Make your world a place where your children will find it easier to be good, and content of character will usurp color of skin. America can be, as William Bradford wrote nearly four centuries ago, a city of light shining on a hill for all mankind.
We have come a long and at times bloody way since the Selma boycott and Greensboro sit-ins, but we are not there yet.
