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Congratulations. That means they liked you...or at least didn't consider you threatening. Folks don't usually admit racial bias unless they feel comfortable in doing so.

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I dislike you sub4hire...one minute...and then like you the next....guess it all depends on if we are in agreement or not?

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ORIGINAL: JohnWarren

Side note: I was talking to the sociologist Michele Buchanan a while back and she made an interesting observation on the effect of housing desegregation in the north. When she was a child the "black areas" had thriving social and cultural opportunities. African Americans were forced to live their regardless of their education or employment. When desegregation arrived, many of the "upper class" blacks (the lawyers, professors, doctors and such) left. In her view this explains much of the problems that exist in those areas now.

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Pink is a lawyer and so conditioned to think in terms of blame. What Michele was pointing out was simply something that happened.

Not everything deserves a lawsuit

JohnWarren

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I agree with you... I know several people who say "I will not leave the Hood to prove I'm real, and I support my brothers in the struggle", but the hood is not as well protected as wealthy neighborhoods in terms of schooling, community activities/opportunities, and ACTUAL police protection, so that some of those black folk who can, do move to give our children a better chance; some places that chance is costlier, in terms of exposure to degrading treatment, than others.

It really becomes an enormous dilemma in terms of what to do to: safeguard one's emotional well being by staying around people who know you and look like you vs live with harassment hoping eventually the neighbors and cops know you well enough not to run the other way/toward you when they see you coming. M

BlkTallFullfig

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You know, I've been thinking about this for a few days, because it has bothered me, and I wasn't sure at first why. But now I think I know why. It's a little bit like blaming advances in medicine for the fact that cancer is a much greater killer now than ever before. Black lawyers, professors, and doctors should have the same freedom to live wherever they want as anyone else. Some people are nostalgic for the Good Old Days, when everyone lived where they were supposed to, and people made a local culture out of their community because they had no alternative. Yes, the increased freedoms have caused some social dislocation, but the old communities were maintained in the past only at the price of injustice. The challenge today is to figure out how to create a thriving new culture out of the new society, rather than to reminisce about the bygone cultures of an antiquated one.

Lordandmaster

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It's a little bit like blaming advances in medicine for the fact that cancer is a much greater killer now than ever before. Black lawyers, professors, and doctors should have the same freedom to live wherever they want as anyone else. Some people are nostalgic for the Good Old Days, when everyone lived where they were supposed to, and people made a local culture out of their community because they had no alternative. Yes, the increased freedoms have caused some social dislocation, but the old communities were maintained in the past only at the price of injustice.

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ORIGINAL: BlkTallFullfig
Lots of people would say to black middle/upper class "stop whining, haven't you achieved the dream/ability to buy the house with white picket fence, shut up already about oppression," because the ability to buy what one wants/needs should be satisfactory to the simple folk with only basic survival needs... M

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Still, I think it's mentioned as one of the reasons racism is currently being discussed front and center. Most poor blacks don't have decent homes, and computers to be here participating here. Lots of people would say to black middle/upper class "stop whining, haven't you achieved the dream/ability to buy the house with white picket fence, shut up already about oppression," because the ability to buy what one wants/needs should be satisfactory to the simple folk with only basic survival needs... Some posters here have even indicated that sentiment. M

BlkTallFullfig

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ORIGINAL: JohnWarren

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ORIGINAL: frenchpet

As it's often the case with fear / hatred feelings. I was completely homophobic when I was a teenager (I was just following others' ideas), until I realized one of my friends was homosexual.

This is why I urge people in the scene to be as out as possible about their interests. What people fear is the unknown, the different. The Right Wing preachers can get them all worked up about the "terrible perverts" but when they know one of those "terrible perverts" is Jay "The guy who loaned me his lawnmower" the lable loses a lot of its effect.

It's easy to invest the unknown with a terrible face. Remember the ancient maps with "here be monsters" on them?

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ORIGINAL: pinkpleasures

White parents do not fret when their kids take their expensive cars and drive them while dressed in rags...they do not worry their kids will be exposed to racsim in the schools; they do not fret about them not entering collage for the life it would doom them to...it is never the same...pinkpleasures

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Yes racism is alive and well and we should fight the fight but...

Little towns full of white people had the same complaints. Where is FEMA?
They just weren't as massed together to make compelling TV. I think the mess was a case of pure incompetence. Still is. Ignoring the hundreds of thousands of non black folk stuck in the same morass so you can make a false point is just another case of racism.

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He said those hit hardest by the hurricane were already impoverished because of years of discrimination.

"As we clear away the debris of a hurricane, let us also clear away the legacy of inequality," Mr Bush said at a memorial service in Washington.

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ORIGINAL: target

Yes racism is alive and well and we should fight the fight but...

Little towns full of white people had the same complaints. Where is FEMA?
They just weren't as massed together to make compelling TV. I think the mess was a case of pure incompetence. Still is. Ignoring the hundreds of thousands of non black folk stuck in the same morass so you can make a false point is just another case of racism.

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ORIGINAL: girl4you2

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ORIGINAL: pinkpleasures

White parents do not fret when their kids take their expensive cars and drive them while dressed in rags...they do not worry their kids will be exposed to racsim in the schools; they do not fret about them not entering collage for the life it would doom them to...it is never the same...pinkpleasures

while it's not the same, not all white parents send their kids off with any car at all, much less an expensive one. some of us actually teach tolerance such that they don't learn about racism (they see everyone equally) until older, and once they do see it, they fight against it. not all can afford to pay for college either.
it's not the same being black or white, but being poor can be very similar, and people can be taught tolerance, reasoning, and to work for equality. "just say no" might be changed to "just say no to accepting ignorance and intolerance."

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it's not the same being black or white, but being poor can be very similar, and people can be taught tolerance, reasoning, and to work for equality. "just say no" might be changed to "just say no to accepting ignorance and intolerance."

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ORIGINAL: BlkTallFullfig

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it's not the same being black or white, but being poor can be very similar, and people can be taught tolerance, reasoning, and to work for equality. "just say no" might be changed to "just say no to accepting ignorance and intolerance."

I agree that many problems can be traced to social status, but that is why we should avoid disproportionate comparisons. Ridding ourselves/society of ignorance and intolerance over differences, especially as it relates to presence/quantity of melanin, will go a long way in improving the social lot of a lot of people in my opinion.
I'm in no way suggesting this is something you need Girl4you2, as I've read and learned from your very informative posts.
Welcome to the boards. M

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I agree that many problems can be traced to social status, but that is why we should avoid disproportionate comparisons. Ridding ourselves/society of ignorance and intolerance over differences, especially as it relates to presence/quantity of melanin, will go a long way in improving the social lot of a lot of people in my opinion.