When the Racism We Hate Comes From People We Love
by Connie Schultz
A special kind of anguish claws at us when someone we love is also someone who is racist.
It's one thing for a stranger to post a racial slur on a blog or forward a hateful e-mail. The vigilantes who used to hide under white hoods and sheets now cower behind the anonymity of the Internet. They are vile and they are vocal, but they are also easy to dismiss because all we really know about them is that their numbers are small, their beliefs are contemptible, and they are cowards.
...
( Back to Article )
Join the Discussion
|
2 Comments | Post Comment
|
Posted by: davd w pennington
Comment: #1
Sat Jul 26, 2008 11:04 PM
Ms. Schultz that was an excellent column, all the way to the last line. The issue you address was resolved in my family a generation earlier. My parents' experiences during WWII convinced them that racial prejudice must have no place in their lives or in our home. I was a teenager before I discovered that some of my relatives a generation back still harbored racist views. I don't know if my parents had told them to keep them to themselves around us, but they sure did. Bully for you girls to love your dad, but to keep after him on the issue of race. (Don't think for a moment that I somehow believe I have never had any prejudices of my own, because I have. That they were my own, and not inherited, made them all the more painful to discover.) Now, about that last line. "What matters most is that we try." It's not trying that's important. Where trying to make a difference is the measure, experience has shown, particularly in public policy, that the action taken usually results in a worse circumstance. The measure is to effect a positive change, even if the issue is not completely eliminated. That's what you and your sisters did. You didn't simply try, you kept saying the basic, unchanging truths, but you also abandoned approaches that bore no fruit, and invented new ones, until you found things that worked. Let me suggest this: "What matters most is that we never give up, while we also never stop loving."
|
Posted by: USMCMOE
Comment: #2
Sun Aug 3, 2008 8:24 PM
Ms.Schultz and Mr Pennington are prime examples of White folks so full of "White Guilt" that their thought processes are so fouled-up that they view any negative voiced towards a Black as racism. Wake up, deal with the truth, even if it differs from that which your liberal views wish were so. I recall the sixties after one particular Freedom March when I was working the crowds undercover, I was approached by a 'brother' who, not knowing I was a Police Officer, stated " Let's go find some of these White girls who want to prove just how liberal they are ". Same scenario today, Obama has talked crap and many Whites wanting to prove just how liberal they are seem to be eating it up. They overlook the fact that he has no credentials to offer. A vote for Obama is tantamount to allowing someone who claims to be a surgeon to operate on you or your loved ones even though he can offer no evidence of his ability. George Bush has protected this Country from attack after 9/11. That will "change" if Obama is elected.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
- 
- 
- 
