Quote:
Originally Posted by gammawolf
I read your link . . . did you see this quote:
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"Racism here is quite subtle," e-mailed CNN.com reader Blair William, originally from Trinidad, who now lives in Lexington, South Carolina. "I think that the issue is twofold. I believe that white America's perception of blacks is still generally negative based on their limited interaction with blacks, whether this is via the media or in person. ...
"On the other hand, black Americans need to stop devaluing themselves and their people," he added. "Another race can only respect you if you respect yourself and currently, I find that blacks still devalue and disgrace each other and themselves."
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I think this is a good point.
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yes i read it, and i completely agree with those two thoughts. i don't want to seem like i'm giving blacks and/or minorities a complete pass on this. i still think, however, that for each black guy or other minority who gets on tv, commits a crime, or does something ignorant, etc. there have to be a few hundred thousand white guys doing the same for it to get the same emphasis. case in point, how many white kids or white men have to shoot up schools, blow shit up, steal people's retirement, get us in wars we shouldn't be in, fuck around with underage, same-sex interns, SHOOT AND PHYSICALLY ABUSE INNOCENT MINORITIES FOR NO REASON, etc before someone says something? OJ, as disgusting of a human being he is, somehow gets more pub than everything I listed in the sentence above for writing a book about the disgusting shit he did? WHAT THE HELL??? that's not right....even as deplorable as OJ is.
minorities have to do twice as much to achieve as much as non-minorities, yet they only have to do a small fraction of the wrong a a non-minority to get twice the heat from society. why?
anyways, the two thoughts boil down to a couple of things for me. one, there needs to be dialogue between both sides. a lot of this is just ignorance . stereotypes, of both sides, need to be broken down, and that can only be done if they're discussed and diffused. two, black people, and other minorities, need not give whites reasons to continue to believe the stereotypes they do. they also need to respect themselves enough to want to chill with the ignorant violence, pants hanging off their ass, let's see how quick i can score an escalade with big wheels on it, i'm lucky if i survive 'till i'm 20 attitude. obviously, those are huge generalizations, but there is a huge amount of young, black males who follow this crap like it's the only thing they know.
unfortunately, a lot of this knowledge has to be taught by these kids' parents, not the ghetto, TV, friends at school, music, etc. sadly enough, there seems to be less and less time in the day left for teaching by parents 'cause of the need to work one's ass off to keep up with the mortgage, cars, kids, college expenses, etc. this crap is cyclical. without a wrench thrown in the cycle, it'll keep repeating itself. very sad.
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