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Dealing With Issues Of Race In America
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Published: March 30, 2008
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It seems to be happening all the time now.
Politicians, radio hosts or sports commentators say something alluding to race that offends. They get lambasted for it. Their remarks swirl in a nonstop loop on YouTube.
Black, white, Asian and Hispanic leaders dissect them, blog them, then appear on nighttime cable news shows.
Soon, the person who spoke scrambles either to retract the statement or put it into more context.
Then … nothing. YouTube views fall. Attention wanes. And nothing has changed.
It may seem like a superficial measure of how successful race relations are in the United States. Especially considering that 40 years ago, when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, black and white societies were segregated. The divide then was tangible.
But the cycle illustrates much more than pop culture's treatment of race, experts and local leaders say. It illustrates how Americans treat one another and what we have — and haven't — learned in the past four decades about one another.
Most of all, it shows how deeply we still struggle to relate to people who don't look like ourselves.
It's not just sound bites that stir the melting pot.
Last week in Florida's Legislature, lawmakers approved a resolution expressing "profound regret" for slavery. At the same time, they are considering a bill that establishes a Confederate license plate. There's also a bill that would retire the state song — a tune known as "Swanee River" that is loved by some and considered a racist throwback by others.
Another bill prohibits hanging nooses to intimidate.
All of this is going on in a state Capitol that flew the Confederate flag until seven years ago, when former Gov. Jeb Bush quietly removed it and put it in a history museum a few blocks away.
And in Hillsborough County, the county commission declared 2007 the year of Robert E. Lee — on the same day it honored local civil rights activist James A. Hammond. In another twist, the same body last year refused to acknowledge Confederate Memorial Day, a Florida holiday since 1895.
Whether Floridians see any of these measures as race-biased, their existence at the same time in the same place illustrates how complex the issue of race still is today.
"If people think race relations are solved, they're not living in our world," said Tony Morejon, Hillsborough County's liaison with Hispanic residents.
It's not just lawmakers who are dealing with the conflicts.
Twenty thousand people went to tiny Jena, La., last year to protest charges against six black teenagers arrested in the beating of a white classmate. Race was at the center of the Duke lacrosse rape case fiasco, which made national news when white players were accused of raping a black woman.
Here, a Seminole Heights resident found a noose hanging in her neighborhood last month, prompting questions about who would hang it and why.
Five months ago, 700 protesters marched in Tallahassee after boot camp guards were acquitted in the death of a black teen. They wore T-shirts and carried signs that recalled the killing of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black boy who was killed in 1955 in Mississippi for whistling at a white woman.
They sang "We Shall Overcome."
A Distracted Focus
So why is there still so much conflict? Why does the cycle continue?
Even among the segments of the country that seem to want unity, accomplishing it sometimes looks like an impossible task.
We seem stuck.
Part of the problem, experts say, is Americans are not really listening to themselves.
They hear over and over an endless loop of sound bites on cable and Internet news sites: Don Imus' controversial remarks, Michael Richards' eruption at black hecklers, U.S. Sen. Joe Biden's backward compliment that Barack Obama is clean-cut, a Golf Channel anchor's use of the word "lynch" in a commentary on Tiger Woods.
As news pops and the clips roll, they spark conversation. But the exchanges are brief, and then talk of race relations dies down again.
In effect, the news bits are a distraction from real, substantive talk about race, said Aaron Thompson, a sociology professor at Eastern Kentucky University who specializes in race relations.
"We don't know how to have the discussion, so we let someone like Don Imus or Michael Richards focus our attention on race," Thompson said. "We should never be at that point in an educated America … where we let that be our focus on race relations."
If Americans were talking about race and making progress in improving race relations — with education and forums in schools and at work and in church — the sensational quote of the day would be just a blip, he said.
"We should have more discussions on how to move beyond that," Thompson said.
Even when Americans do talk about race, in the aftermath of news bits, the talk often falls short, said Katheryn Russell-Brown, director of the Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations at the University of Florida.
She calls it "chatter." People talk about how Geraldine Ferraro implied that Obama has gotten special privileges as a black candidate for president. But they talk about it in their own comfortable group of friends and family who hold familiar, similar opinions.
"We don't really have a conversation. People are talking to people like themselves and reinforcing what they already believe to be the truth," Russell-Brown said.
It becomes a lost opportunity for learning about races other than our own, she said.
In other words, Americans should already be talking about race before someone high-profile "says something dumb or misspeaks," Thompson said.
Until we start real conversation, the tidbits that rise to the surface of news become more than just headlines on a ticker. They're not superficial.
They become both a chronicle of events and a prophecy because they end up being the only time Americans deal with racial issues. Which causes it all to start over again.
Asking Hard Questions
Why are race and ethnicity so hard to talk about?
It is for many people an ultra-uncomfortable conversation. The discrimination that minorities have faced — going back to the enslavement of a race — sometimes is difficult for Americans to acknowledge, Russell-Brown said.
"The history — a lot of it is ugly. A lot of it is eye-opening. But it's our history, and not talking about it doesn't do us any favors," she said.
There are few questions more personal than asking someone's viewpoint as a black person, white person or Asian person. Or as someone who is Hispanic. It's a vocabulary we don't have, experts said. We don't even know how to have that conversation.
For Americans to move forward and have better, deep conversations about race, they have to drop some of their innate defenses, said Thompson, who runs a graduate course that teaches leaders how to make their own staffs more aware of different cultures.
"African-Americans are really going to have to get to the point where they find a way to have discussions without feeling like they're being stepped on or that someone is coming after them," he said. "Whites are going to have to get to the point where they're not worrying about being called racist."
It's difficult, he said, to move beyond the "classic process of making each other feel bad."
Just ask any native U.S. citizen who is Asian or Hispanic and hears strangers tell them "Your English is good." Or Tampa Councilman Tom Scott, who still hears people compliment him in chambers on how "articulate" he is.
But be willing to ask questions, Thompson said. And if you're approached with a question that tends to raise hackles, keep an open mind and don't shut down.
He gives an example: If someone approaches you and says, "Why do white people feel this way all the time?" and you call that person a racist, neither of you has made any progress. You haven't learned anything about the person, and don't have any new answers.
It's not easy because it means letting go of so many personal defenses, he said.
"The tough part is to forget about what we're carrying in order to understand what other people are carrying."
Otis Anthony, host of Tampa's Sunday Forum on WMNF, 88.5 FM, is used to frank discussions on race. A civil rights advocate educated in segregated Tampa schools, he doesn't apologize for advocating causes that concern blacks.
But he acknowledges how difficult it is to keep race conversations moving forward.
"We're all pointing a finger and arguing about who is oppressed the most, and it gets us nowhere," he said.
Sometimes the defenses keep Americans from seeing that excluding each other — socially, economically — doesn't improve anyone's quality of life, Anthony said.
Obama's speech on race relations in Philadelphia this month drew mixed reactions — from those who thought he should have done more to disavow the racially divisive remarks of his former pastor and those who thought it was an honest entreaty toward a frank conversation on race in this country.
But most pundits agreed that Obama did try to point out common concerns of different races and to unite their cause.
Some think the speech itself will be a new starting point for a discussion of race.
But whether the conversations continue — or the speech just becomes old news — remains to be seen.
Easy Way Out
If Americans do manage to continue talking about race and lower their defenses, they have to avoid the other pitfall:
Making nice.
We're too afraid of hurting each other's feelings, said Jetie B. Wilds Jr., a civil rights advocate who hosts a local talk show Saturday mornings on WTMP, 96.1 FM and 1150 AM.
"It is easier to paper over how we feel and to maintain good feelings about each other," he said. "We have more people who are simply interested in getting along."
That's because how people feel about race runs so deep, it's too painful to question those feelings and consider how to change them, Wilds said.
The problem with that is it keeps us from getting to the real problems that keep us from seeing eye to eye. Until we understand the viewpoints of people of different races, we will always have some fear of one another. Or — at the least — misunderstandings that continue to accumulate.
Councilman Scott calls it a cancer. "If you don't address that issue, it grows. The root of the issue is never dealt with."
The conversations that happen when news breaks are an example of the mostly superficial way Americans deal with race, Thompson said.
Because we don't talk about race in a deep, concrete way, it's easier to be politically correct and "cover it over and make it smell good," he said.
Hope For Change
Morejon, the county's Hispanic liaison, tries to stay upbeat even though part of his job is to listen to angry residents who call his office to yell at him and disparage all Hispanics.
He worries that it's human nature to judge each other based on race or ethnicity. Instinctively, we all have that bias, he said. We like our own kind.
He and others interviewed for this story said they're hopeful, though, that Americans can make progress in race relations by showing young people how their relationships with each other can be different from present generations and from the generations that came before Martin Luther King Jr.
The start, they said, can be in school with more frank conversations about how we are all alike and how we are different. It's also important to understand the history of race relations and how it shapes the way Americans feel and think, Russell-Brown said.
So instead of confining the discussion to forums and political debates, young people could learn how to talk about race openly.
"With the millennial generation, we have a real opportunity to make that happen," Thompson said.
It's a mistake, though, to leave all the work to those who are growing up now, he said. We should actively pass on values that are better than the ones we hold.
Thompson points out to his students that they were likely trained to think like their parents. He asks them: "Have you gone beyond your prior generation in the way you look at people?"
It gets them thinking, he said, about how they might be able to change the thinking of the people they lead — their children, students or staff.
Morejon said it's his own 14-year-old son who gives him hope.
He remembers flipping channels past an old clip, a few years ago, of King delivering that famous speech. His son, American and Cuban both, recognized the black man on TV.
Go back, his son told him.
"That's somebody important."
Reporter Gretchen Parker can be reached at (813) 259-7562 or gparker@tampatrib.com.
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Reader Comments
Posted by ( RRR ) on March 30, 2008 at 6:45 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
Equality is paramount to a successful America. All races/ethnic backgrounds must embrace going forward a sense of unity of all types of backgrounds to achieve America's common goals. If you do not think of yourself as an American first then you missed the point. If you are unhappy about something that happened yesterday and are not focused on the future then you are indeed destined to always live in the past. Don't be disenfranchised as some people would have you to blame anyone for past issues, work hand in hand with all creeds to achieve great goals. Move forward and do not allow the vocal minority of haters to influence your future.
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Posted by ( NEDLY ) on March 30, 2008 at 6:46 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
Wow how one sided is this article? Only white people are racists? Is that what I really read? So many references of what white people said? Why can't we all just get along? You will never get rid of the problem and yes it is a problem. Not everyone is going to like another for some reason, whether it be race, whether your poor, whether your rich. Maybe you have a medicl condition. Its the same as not everyone like dogs or cats. There is to much jealousy in this world also. There is also going to be compitition of who is better just like in sports. Until everyone is modeled to be the same like robots it will never change. It may get better, it may get worst but never perfect.
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Posted by ( SKR ) on March 30, 2008 at 7:49 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
Nedley, You are correct! These articles are always one-sided. I have to wonder why the writer didn't show a picture of the six young white people in Wichita, Kansas, five were murdered and a sixth left for dead and in a snow covered field. This was a hate crime against white people... how do I know that? The one person that was left for dead, lived and told exactly what was said and what happened to her and her friends in December of 2000. Google the names of Jonathan and Reginald Carr and see what you find!
As I a racist? No! I don't look at someone's color to determine how I feel about them. However... I do get sick of this one-sided attack againt the white race and I am sick to death of black people playing the race card on every turn. When I see so many black men and women making mega bucks playing sports, (blacks far out number whites in most sports these days). One has to wonder... what do these people want? Florida said it was sorry about slavery... but then someone went on to say that we all had a long way to go to heal the old wounds. That tells me nothing anyone does will ever be enough. These people don't want to move on, why would they? Placing guilt on people, that had nothing to do with slavery, seems to be working. But how can they expect people to respect them when we are all tired of them using that worn out old race card that doesn't exist anymore!
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Posted by ( flarrfan ) on March 30, 2008 at 7:57 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
"Only white people are racists?"
Correct...you can not be "racist" unless you have power. Members of minority groups without power can be (and often are) "prejudiced," but they cannot by definition be "racist." For you sheeple, you may now ignore this factual statement and resume your Hannity and Limbaugh parroting on this issue, so you can continue rationalizing your political and social views based on your own prejudices.
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Posted by ( midClassMale ) on March 30, 2008 at 8:05 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
Wow SKR !!! I went to the www WichitaMassacre dot com site. If that had been 4 african dead, it would have been on the news for months!!!!
I believe that africans HATE non-africans, especially Caucasians. They also believe they are owed something from non-africans because of slavery. Guess what? I, as a proud Caucasian male of German descent, OWE YOU NOTHING !!! I WILL FIGHT AND GLADLY DIE BEFORE PAYING YOU ONE BLOODY PENNY !!!! Race "relations" will not improve until africans stop blaming others for their failure.
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Posted by ( SKR ) on March 30, 2008 at 8:14 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
midClassMale: Right-on! It seems to be acceptable to be proud to be black, hispanic or any other race... but don't you dare be proud of your race if you are white! Until all races start to respect one another... (and that is a two way street), we are only spinning in circles. I wish for once, someone in the media would tell us the stats for black on white crime, vs white on black crimes. But that will never happen! Take the Jena Six for example, God help all of us white people had that been white people beating up a black person. Also I don't remember Je$$e or Al saying they are sorry for their remarks about the boys at Duke!
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Posted by ( JackNelsonSteward ) on March 30, 2008 at 8:26 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
And you can see must how quickly even a calm conversation about it spirals down into charges and counter charges about fairness and accountabiity for previous wrongs.
Racism, as I have said in other places, is racism (at the risk of being tedious) is racism. No one has a franchise on it. A black person can be just as racist as a white person as a yellow person as a GREEN person. If racists come into power, they use the power. It is possible to have whole governments with racist policies. We did.
Let's stop with the nonsense of shaving meanings. My racism is just like yours it just points at different people.
Discrimination?
You must discriminate to survive. If you don't discriminate between one kind of food and another, you die. Discrimination is not a word tied only to racial or ethnic or sexual or (whatever) meanings. We have come to use it in a very narrow and, subesquently, inaccurate way. There is no such thing as "reverse discrimination. If you are discriminating against someone because they are black, that's discrimination. If you are discriminating against someone because they are white, that's discrimination.
The "reverse" of discrimination is impartiality.
There is no conversation in this country more necessary than this one and no conversation in this country that is more difficult and upsetting. The feelings of rage and guilt and the defensiveness and the insistance have such huge emotional charges behind them that the smallest comment or gesture can spark an explosion.
Yet, we MUST find a way to have the conversation. It is like being in a family where a crime has been committed among the members and no one will talk about it.
There is little to add balance to the conversation. It isn't about determining who was the victim and who wasn't. Those historical facts aren't in question.
The question is: Will we ever have the courage to start, the compassion and determination to continue and the stamina to complete the conversation about this that heals it?
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Posted by ( RobKay ) on March 30, 2008 at 9:18 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
I believe the problem of racism, particularly in America is not so much a problem in it self as it is an indicator of a bigger problem in our human nature. Groups of people of the same race can live their lives in the same community and some of them will feel that they suffered at the hands of racism and some will think that racism is a thing of the past. The problem exists because of our own perception of how we were treated, not because of how we were treated. There are people who bend over backwards to be politically correct (to the point of being rediculous) and it serves no purpose because it does nothing to change the way individuals percieve the way they think they are being treated. Look at the previous posts complaining because they think as whites, they are being blamed for racism. The problem wasn't the way the article was written, it was the way they percieved it. Lets face it folks, as long as it is easier to blame someone else for our problems instead of owning up to them, everyone is going to use racism as an excuse rather than blaming themselves for their situation in life. There is absolutly no way to stop people from feeling sorry for themselves and blaming others for it. All you could concievabley do to prevent this from being called racism is to confront these people with the knowledge that they have no one to blame but themselves. These silly attempts at being politically correct only serve to strengthen their erronius position that somehow someone else is to blame for the way they feel about themselves. And this is not racist because people of every race are guilty of doing exactly the same thing. It is called human nature - and we are still letting it get the better of us.
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Posted by ( Bonsai ) on March 30, 2008 at 9:20 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
SKR - well said!
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Posted by ( catherwood ) on March 30, 2008 at 10:23 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
One of the huge disconnects associated with this whole idea of inclusion and racial harmony is that many white people and many black people want to live segregated lives. They don't necessarily have racial prejudices and have no desire to persecute or otherwise malign the other races by excluding them from society as a whole. But, many people do want to be left alone with folks of their own kind. For example, how many black people do you know who consider the The Reverend Jeremiah Wright to be a sapient leader who has a vision for the future which offers a better life?; how many white people do you know who consider the Reverend as divisive, dangerous and borderline insane? Herein lies the real problem. The two races have completely different and very conflicting views of what is good and what is bad. I don't think there is anything that can change that; it's the way it is. The more we try and force one side or the other to integrate, the more friction we create. People just want to be left alone to go their own way and run their lives the way they see fit. They don't want to be told what to do and with whom they should do it. If you don't believe there is some truth to this, go to any secondary public school and check out the cafeteria at lunch time. All the Asians sit with their Asian friends, all the blacks sit with their black friends and all the whites sit with their white friends. No one tells them to do that and the kids themselves see nothing wrong with their voluntary segregation. They like it that way and would resent anyone telling them to all mix together for the sake of political correctness and some vague perception about what should and should not be.
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Posted by ( Bonsai ) on March 30, 2008 at 10:24 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
So Robkay - if we whites "perceived" it that way it must be because that's what we're facing on a daily basis. It's always "whities" fault. Please let me remind our black brothers and sisters that as there were whites enslaving blacks there were blacks enslaving blacks. Good reference here" http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/9chapter2.shtml
My "people" never had slaves. I owe nothing to anyone. I needed help many years ago and applied for assistance "welfare". I had a child to raise and not many prospects for a good job (I was a waitress). I was told two things by the black woman who was running the county welfare office; 1. I made too much money ($35.00 a week plus tips) and 2. "you're not black". Yes folks, she said that to me. Ever since that day I hold NO pity for anyone of color who uses the "woe is me" attitude towards the rest of the country. I got myself together and I made it out of my predicament. I and my son did just fine. As for blacks, I hold no love for anyone of them that uses the race card to get what they want. I see it all too often. I've worked with blacks who use it all too often to get out of work. I'm sick of American history being re-written because a book or a song is offensive to one particular group. Too damned bad. Suwanee is part of Americana. Leave it alone. Uncle Tom's Cabin is part of Americana. Leave it alone. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is part of Americana. Leave it alone. The Color Purple for crying out loud. Alice Walker who wrote it is black. Do I sound bitter? I guess I do. I've had the politically correctness and black sympathy crap shoved down my throat all my life. This article asks if there can ever be unity. NO!
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Posted by ( dbrown34550 ) on March 30, 2008 at 10:48 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
Honest and open dialog is the only way to move past the race obstacle. Acquiring some friends who are not like yourself helps out too. Lower the defenses people - because when you truly here what someone else is saying, its usually not meant as an insult or attack. You can't let your pre-conceived notions tell you what you "think" you're hearing. That goes for everyone. Unity can be achieved if we stop pre-judging the motives of other people before actually hearing them out. This article hits the point, as did Obama's speech - that there will be no unity as long as there is no hard, out-in-the-open, and honest dialog between races. What we have done to this point, through a variety of political correctness methods - is drive a wedge of fear and intimidation between races to prevent the true communication needed to solve the problems and build bridges. I have more friends and acquaintances from other races than my own, and I welcome and enjoy this. Sometimes they say something dumb (without even realizing it) or I say something dumb (again without even realizing it) - but we've moved beyond the point where we judge each other's motives and we just move on. That's progress.
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Posted by ( jon_boy ) on March 30, 2008 at 10:51 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
The only thing any of your banter proves is that more white people read this than other races. You people don't recognize that the smart slaves were killed, and the more subservient, physically strong ones were BRED. That is what has led to centuries of "catching up" that blacks have had to endure in society. I can't wait for my generation to take over and get you bigots the heck out of here.
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Posted by ( FrankDell ) on March 30, 2008 at 11:49 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
here's the entire race problem summed up with an easy solution.
Some whites have a problem with blacks, but not all whites.
some blacks have a problem with whites, but not all blacks.
So here is the solution.
when you meet a person don't act like they are representative of there race. look at them like a person and judge them on who they are thats it. if they're jerk then they are the jerk not their race. if they are lazy and looking for the government to give them a hand out than its just them and not their race. if they are inbred and live in a trailer than it is just them and not their race. if they are stupid and uneducated than it is just them and not their race. If we just see people as individuals then race doesn't become a factor.
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Posted by ( Bonsai ) on March 30, 2008 at noon ( Suggest removal )
To Jon-boy - if there were "smart" slaves they wouldn't have let themselves be enslaved in the first place.
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Posted by ( zhonton ) on March 30, 2008 at 12:01 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Whoa! What a hot topic. I agree that racism will never go away. I also agree that all races need to become one human race, set aside our differences, learn from the mistakes of our forefathers and become united. Everyone is blaming someone else for less than better qualities of life. It is up to each and every one of us to make ourselves better and acheive what we want to acheive. A long time ago, my grandmother made a comment to me about "pulling myself up by my bootstraps". We all have bootstraps and need to to some serious tugging at them.
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Posted by ( JVWatts ) on March 30, 2008 at 12:04 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
White people will not talk about race for fear that anything they say that's negative about another race will have them labeled "racist"....White people figure it's better to just keep their mouthes shut and go on....
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Posted by ( tokin ) on March 30, 2008 at 12:04 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
are you serious!! you know its blacks that tend to forget that there chiefs of there tribes sold them, however this is a ridiculous display of kissing peoples butts, there hasn't been slavery for hundreds of years why od they have to apologize for it now its midly retarded
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Posted by ( truthseeker ) on March 30, 2008 at 1:46 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
flarrfan
Person A (racist) hits you over your head with a pipe.
Person B (prejudiced) hits you over the head with a pipe.
Which one hurts more?
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Posted by ( Scott ) on March 30, 2008 at 2:24 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
I have listened to many sound bites from Rev. Wright in Chicago and he is nothing more than a David Duke that is black. If a white church in Chicago had a preacher that said the same things against blacks that Wright said about whites, Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton would be all over it demanding the church be shut down. To think we have a presidential candidate that listened to that crap for 20 years or so is a Big Red Flag for me. As long as blacks continue to spew the hate towards whites, there will never be unity among the races. As long as black on white crime is 10 times higher than white on black crime( See Purse snatching article as a perfect example ), there will be no unity. As long as blacks get preference over more qualified whites for jobs, there will be no unity. As long as there are black colleges, black Ms. America, B.E.T., ect..., there will be no unity. If the black community wants unity, they need to clean out their garage first before blaming whites. It is not the whites responsibility to lower it's standards to meet blacks, it is up to the blacks to raise their standards to whites. This does not include all blacks as I know some that agree with what I'm saying. A large amount though that complain the most have the most garbage in their garage.
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Posted by ( Elijah ) on March 30, 2008 at 5:09 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Who Cares?!? Blacks will continue to blame whites for everything wrong with themselves. They will continue to shoot each other and sell drugs to one another. Continue to drop out of school and become thugs. And have it all glorified on BET.
It is sick and disgusting this is even a topic of discussion. I hate thugs of all color, unfortunately the majority come in the color black.
To black people: wake up, do something positive for yourselves and stop looking for excuses!! Excuses are like butt holes, everyone has one and they all stink!!
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Posted by ( Jen1897 ) on March 30, 2008 at 5:50 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
How right you are Elijah. Unfortunatly though I doubt they will change. And they really don't have to "look" for excuses. To alot of them, being black is the only excuse they need. Pulling the the race card has work for a very long time for them so why change? It makes me sick. They have all the opportunity in the world to become something, though they will tell you different. There is no excuse for the situation alot of blacks are in yet they remain in it. WHY?
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Posted by ( voxpopuli ) on March 30, 2008 at 6:47 p.m.
(This comment was removed by the site staff.)
Posted by ( JackNelsonSteward ) on March 30, 2008 at 6:50 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Compassion begins with imagination.
Use imagination to put yourself in the other person's place.
Once you can do that, you can begin to develop compassion.
Compassion isn't sympathy, and it isn't soft. It is the ability to put yourself in another person's experience with some honesty and power and willingess to be altered by doing so.
If you value your opinions and your biases more than you value the possiblity of healing the wound left in this country by slavery, you will not even attempt it.
Compassion isn't all warm and fuzzy. It can lead to some very uncomfortable experiences and some very difficult realizations.
If you would rather be right than have peace, you won't even think about it.
This is a tough conversation with some bitter episodes contained in it. At some time we will have to have it or we will continue to glare at each other across the line with distrust and anger and misunderstanding.
The racism lingering from slavery is an infected and festering wound that separates us and leaves us open to exploitation and manipulation.
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Posted by ( Elijah ) on March 30, 2008 at 8:10 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
catherwood....
very well said!
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Posted by ( SKR ) on March 30, 2008 at 8:12 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
JackNelsonSteward said: "The racism lingering from slavery is an infected and festering wound that separates us and leaves us open to exploitation and manipulation."
He needs to go back and read the comment by: Scott posted at 2:24 p.m.
The way people feel today has nothing what-so-ever to do with anything lingering from slavery! It has to do with many, (not all), but far too many black people trying to blame their problems on white people and expect to be handed everything while doing nothing to help themselves. It also has a lot to do with the crimes committed against white people by black people... just like the the Jena Six; and how on earth can so many black people leave their jobs to travel towards a town to protest, and why on earth did they think it was alright for a bunch of kids, (no matter what color), to jump one lone kid??? What do you think would have happened had that been white boys jumping one lone black boy? Where on earth are the black people who will stand against such crimes. Should you stand or defend someone who is wrong just because they are the same race as you??? NO YOU SHOULD NOT! Should you vote for a man just because he is black? NO YOU SHOULD NOT!
What I am saying there will never be peace between the races as long as things,as I have mentioned continue. Racism... on yes it still exist, and it is a two way street!
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Posted by ( abuela1942 ) on March 30, 2008 at 8:29 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
I thought this was a great, well-written article. I did not read it as saying that only whites are racist (or prejudiced, if you will). I thought it was balanced. The way I see it, prejudice exists on both sides. I am a very impartial person, and have been that way since I ws a child. Usually I am not afraid to talk to anyone on any subject, but I find myself holding back on the subject of race with people of another race. Yet there is so much I would like to know about them, but I'm afraid to ask for fear of being thought of as "racist". I agree with the person who said people of a like kind flock together. I have seen it so much. I am retired now, but at my last employer, it was like the United Nations. We had people from everywhere. We all worked together very well, but at lunch time, the black people would go into one of the conference rooms to eat and close the door. That's not the way to get to know each other. Our Asians did the same thing. We had a few Muslims, and they mixed with us a little more. I don't know the answer either, but it definitely isn't "hate" and exclusion. We are all children of God (or a Higher Poweer) as we understand Him. If a person's skin is removed, we all look alike. Why should skin be so important?? One thing that is going on that I disagree with is the removal (or re-writing) of history. I am referring to flags, state songs, etc. If we ignore and do not learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it.
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Posted by ( JackNelsonSteward ) on March 30, 2008 at 10:58 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
OK, I have read Scott's post.
I have a different viewpoint. I assert that there is NOTHING in the relations between black and white in this country today that is NOT directly traceable back to the institution of slavery.
In this country black and white first met as property and owner...cattle and rancher...horse and rider.
That specific relationship, with all it implies, was the foundation of the ONLY relationship between those races for some three hundred years or so. That's at least ten generations.
Along the way there were free blacks, and, even the free blacks were subject to kidnap IN THIS COUNTRY and transport to slave states.
Throughout the entire history of this country, from its founding until the mid sixties, racism was a legal FACT, literally written into law, some of which had been tested by no less an institution than the Supreme Court.
I assert that it is folly to assume that following that history, forty years of legal freedom and legal protection has erased all traces of that.
See, you can't talk to a fish about water. They say,"What water .... I don't see any water." and I say THAT is the condition in which we exist today regarding racism and the legacy of slavery in this country.
Think ... think ....
Talk to me ...
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Posted by ( voxpopuli ) on March 31, 2008 at 3:50 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Blacks take history back as far as it suits YOUR story. WRONG.
White slavery existed in America BEFORE black slavery but I'm sure this post won't be here for LONG. LOL TBO STAFF !!!
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Posted by ( voxpopuli ) on March 31, 2008 at 3:53 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
The legacy of slavery included WHITES. EUROPEAN WHITES before African and other black slaves ever were brought to this continent.
Seriously am I THE ONLY PERSON IN TAMPA WHO READS????? No wonder why I never fit in here. LOL
Above think think
I exhort you : READ READ.
Go back past the last 100 years. Surely if you read the Negro journals since you are all up on that ... LOL... you will find THE TRUTH.
TRUTH is what I'm sayin.
READ ........ READ ..........
REVEAL ....... REVEAL ..........
then check your black mason friends and their propaganda machine.
READ READ
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Posted by ( voxpopuli ) on March 31, 2008 at 4:14 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Yo, why was this comment deleted??
I did say shut up in it which I removed ..... let's try again and see if it still offends....
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Posted by ( voxpopuli ) on March 31, 2008 at 4:20 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Why don't we all dye ourselves a neutral color and then (deleted by author)??
That would be preferable to the Tampa Tribune attempting to create division in a city which blacks and whites have long conspired together criminally to DO over those not from the South.
yeah, let's get to the REAL issues.
LOL.
OR we can try to find out why people applaud a guy for running over a black dude, pity a chick for fleeing the scene of a hit and run, give an attorney's son a pass for murder and set up the son of the editor of the Tampa Tribune years back (mark) so that the Tampa Tribune could get away with the stuff it does.
Editorializing against folks using their own property the way they see fit, for instance. (black owners of central park)
Exhorting the population to vote for Pam Iorio's niece, Jessica Sierra, on American Idol. Oh, that's RIGHT, she's not her niece anymore.
LOL.
This little one cow town needsa get a life.
When you get the slaves of yesterday to stop criminalizing with THEIR OWNERS of yesterday I think that we can all agree that racism is alive and well.Also, the white slaves of white owners .... same difference. Course you have to READ to find that out. Read the negro journals. That's what they're called: Negro. Not my wording. READ THEM.
Until then, why I think the 'races' work together mighty well. I see them at it all the time. In and out of cop cars. L O L. In other words, some of them even did so much they earned badges for it .. and cop cars.
we just need the healing spirit of the first black president.
L O L.
Oprah and the Pampa Tribune.
For god's sake. Ya sneak this stuff in on sunday and what????
If we're such racists how did so many people come down on the side of the black chick that was messed with by kevin white ??? HUH???
AND, where did THAT story go???
AND, if we're such racists why is it that I see so many mixed EVERYTHING all around me??
We're only racists when it's convenient for the italian/goodolboy/powerstructureLOL /blackwhiteto promote some division.
Yet, when two black guys ran against the mayor and honestly proposed some changes the Tribune shouted them down.
What's UP Trib?
Who ARE the racists?
The racists are the ones whe PROMOTE the idea that racism exists.
Ask around and again ... (deleted)
This post was better with the acronymys but now there is NOTHING IN IT that the tribune could use as an excuse to delete.
Save the truth.
They does have a real racism against dat truth in Pampa.
Yes sir they do.
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Posted by ( voxpopuli ) on March 31, 2008 at 4:29 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Here's just ONE link:
JUST ONE.
How is it that the Tampa Tribune chose the bible toting thomas scott instead of any THOUSANDS OF BLACKS they could have interviewed???
HOW IS IT that the Pampa Tribune missed all these connections to and scholarly and historical accounts of WHITE SLAVERY in America??
Is there any coincidence that Obama and Oprah are driving this O TRAIN OF LIES???
Makes me SICK.
And, I agree, it raises some REAL RED FLAGS that he associated with a church who is such a repository of racism.
Oprah first, then obama. He could have been ANY BLACK MAN. Oprah wants to choose the next president. And, the Tampa Tribune would like to help her.
I'd like to see a photo of the author of this article and where she managed to find what she DID find and yet managed to miss voluminous accounts of WHITE SLAVERY in America.
http://multiracial.com/site/content/view/462/27/
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Posted by ( voxpopuli ) on March 31, 2008 at 4:33 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Here's just ONE link:
JUST ONE.
How is it that the Tampa Tribune chose the bible toting thomas scott instead of any THOUSANDS OF BLACKS they could have interviewed???
HOW IS IT that the Pampa Tribune missed all these connections to and scholarly and historical accounts of WHITE SLAVERY in America??
Is there any coincidence that Obama and Oprah are driving this O TRAIN OF LIES???
Makes me SICK.
And, I agree, it raises some REAL RED FLAGS that he associated with a church who is such a repository of racism.
Oprah first, then obama. He could have been ANY BLACK MAN. Oprah wants to choose the next president. And, the Tampa Tribune would like to help her.
I'd like to see a photo of the author of this article and where she managed to find what she DID find and yet managed to miss voluminous accounts of WHITE SLAVERY in America.
http://multiracial.com/site/content/view/462/27
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Posted by ( voxpopuli ) on March 31, 2008 at 5:15 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
jacknelsonsteward, Obviously, I beg to differ with you. Evoke all the sad images you like but you are pinning them to NOTHING.
You really MUST acquaint yourself with the TRUE history of America, sir.
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Posted by ( JackNelsonSteward ) on March 31, 2008 at 11:11 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
I am always a little suspicious when someone claims to know "The True" ANYthing. I have read, talked and listend for about forty years and this is the first time I have ever seen mention of such a thing as "white slaves."
Let's assume your information is accurate. After all, it came from the Internet. What was the number of "white slaves" and how did that compare to the number of African slaves?
The article you cite seems to be talking about interracial children of slaves and owners and that they could "pass" so you would consider them "white slaves."
Well, maybe. It is just as possible to conclude that these children, even though they appeared "white," were, nonetheless, children of slaves and, so, were considered to BE slaves. In other words, if you have black in you, you are a slave.
You take the existance of what you call "white slaves," which were actually only slaves because they were the children of black slaves, (“So long as the mother is a slave…the child is still a slave, his condition following that of his mother" according to a Philadelphia judge.) and you use that to leaven the circumstance of millions of people who were taken in their homeland and forceably transported across an ocean to become farm animals.
It's a strange argument.
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