(no subject)

[novapsyche]

I know it's silly of me to continue to watch the thread over at MSNBC over the Imus controversy. It's degenerated even from where it was two days ago. I think I read it because like a train wreck it is so grotesque you can't look away.

There are people who chastise Black people for being "thin-skinned" and overly sensitive. "It's just a word! Get over it!" Or, "I haven't seen you chained and picking cotton lately." As greeneyedkzin said over in ginmar's journal, "Once again, we have a demonstration of how 'cancha take a joke' is asking less-privileged people to be complicit in their own denigration."

Then you have people who switch roles and claim victim status. Someone actually said, "It has become a social stigma to be a white person." Someone else stated that while Blacks are allowed to call each other the N-word, if a White person says something racial then "they" (Blacks) want to kill them. Kill them.

Remember, this controversy started out by a celebrity, who happens to be a Caucasian male, saying denigrating things about basketball players, who happen to be black and female. But somehow, the conversation (if you want to call it that) has drifted into Blacks wanting to kill Whites.

Then you have people who equate racism with a fad, like bellbottoms. "People of my generation have gotten over racism." "It's so 1990s."

I really fear for the future of my country.

Comments

[simianpower.livejournal.com]

Maybe being here in AA and before that Warren is skewing my perspective, but I don't see the -10. Maybe it's BECAUSE there is such a large minority population here. It's possible that the south is a lot different, but what I see here is black people being treated pretty much like whites, asians, greeks, indians, lesbians, geeks, and martians.

I also don't see someone coming FROM OVERSEAS as having less connections/money than someone from the working class. Maybe less expectations. My dad, putz though he may be, washed dishes for years just to get by. He wasn't even a citizen, so I don't think he was even eligible for wellfare. And he couldn't (and to be honest still can't) speak proper English, if by proper you mean unaccented. Sometimes even I have to ask him to repeat himself on the phone. Starting with no money is one thing, but starting with no money, connections, citizenship, etc is a lot harder... but it's harder still if you have high expectations. The so-called American dream is something that was handed to me, so I can't entirely see it from the other side, but it wasn't handed to him any more than it is to a working-class black.