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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNobody walks away with Clean Hands vis-a-vis Racism. Nobody.
A few months back, at around this time of night, I was channel-surfing, and paused briefly on ESPN2. The program had just started, and they were featuring boxing, a sport I'm not into and, in fact, haven't seen in awhile.
In each corner, there was a young man I had never seen nor heard of before. Both boxers looked to be about the same height, same weight, similar builds, etc. One man was black. The other was white. And their win-loss records were not displayed in the brief time I watched before changing the channel.
But as I changed the channel, I remember chuckling inwardly, thinking to myself, "That white guy is toast!"
Why did my college-educated Irish-American ass automatically make that assumption?
Nobody
Warpy
(110,900 posts)in schools in the Jim Crow south, it was the only way to flavor the food. It would be impossible for me to have grown up without a certain amount of bigotry because it was so pervasive.
So yeah, I admit it's there, that I don't like it, and that I've tried to root it out all my life. I've made a lot of progress, especially since the first segregated school I went to was in sixth grade and was a joke because all colors of the human rainbow went there. The only colors missing originated on the African continent and some of those kids were whiter than the kids from approved backgrounds. I got the point although it wasn't the one they wanted me to get, I got the point that it was all bullshit.
Still, some of the stupidity persists. I'm delighted that it will likely die with me.
ETA: You probably had that knee jerk reaction because the black kid had so many more reasons to win that fight.
LloydS of New London
(355 posts)A sentence in your second paragraph reminded me. Holt, the weekend anchor for NBC Nightly News, is classified as a black man. A good friend of mine is Joe, who is third-generation Sicilian-American. He is classified as a white man. Yet his skin is darker than Mr. Holt's.
Quite the country we live in, isn't it?
tblue37
(64,979 posts)Italians were not classified as "white" during the first 1/3 or so of the 20th century--nor were the Irish.
Restaurants, stores, and inns would still display "No blacks, Italians, or Irish" signs--and often they would display ones with the ugliest terms for those three groups.
"White" is very much a social construct, but unlike most Europeans, including those who used to fit into "unacceptable" categories, a person who has skin that is noticeably darker than European white is marked for discrimination in a way that European Caucasians are not. That is why many people of Italian and Irish ancestry eventually were able to access true status and power in this country, but people of color generally have not, and even those who do are still treated disrespectfully by those who are actually of lower socioeconomic status. Remember how that stupid cop treated prominent scholar and Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates when he arrested him for trying to get into his own home after returning from a trip? No white professor would ever be treated that way, or mistaken for a burglar in the first place! Even when ablack man reaches the highest office in the land, he is still disrespected and treated as though he should not be allowed to enter the White House through the front door.
JFK's Irish Catholic heritage still provoked virulent bigotry that he had to address in order to run successfully for president, but ultimately he was treated as though he belonged in the office because he was white enough. Now no one even blinks at the idea of an Irish-American or an Italian-American (e.g., Giuliani) running for president, but there was a time when many people would have been upset about it.
LloydS of New London
(355 posts)That was more of a 19th-century thing, though.
tblue37
(64,979 posts)as non-white far into the 20th century. One reason why so many bright Jewish students became optometrists was that they were not alloed into medical schools for so long.
Warpy
(110,900 posts)and gave us some really bizarre "black" people with pale skin, green eyes, and red hair.
I should mention that one of my friends in that school had a mother who was what used to be called "high yellow." Her rich white daddy used to be the one to come down to that school if there was a problem and that's why she didn't have to travel across town to the other side of the segregation line. I knew her mother. I liked her mother. Even at 11 I knew to keep my big trap shut.
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)Weird.
wyldwolf
(43,865 posts)... there's a belief that white boxers took up the sport for fun, in suburban high schools or private colleges. And there's a belief that black boxers learned to fight to survive on the streets, were beaten by their fathers if he was ever around, etc. etc.. Whether true in all cases or not, the belief persists. This gives way to the belief that black boxers are more savage than white boxers.
redqueen
(115,096 posts)Others will have prejudices to keep in check, but it's only white people who are in a societal position to wield racism.