Why is talking about race so divisive?

[sheshe2]

Or so it is said.

We can stop the divisive talk right now. No longer speak of your time at Starbucks. Do not barbecue. No sleeping in your dorm. Do not walk, talk or use a stroller to take your child out. Do not buy Skittles or ice tea. By no means ever speak of the black men, women and children that have died within a nanosecond of an encounter with a police/peace officer or your friendly neighborhood watchman that are there to save you from your white fears. Take no offence of be described as a thug, you are black after all. And the children...8-10 years old are considered an adult while black, whites are considered children. Yet take no offense. If you do you are being divisive.

Just stop! Some white people just don't want to hear what black people are saying. Point in fact, EffieBlack and I applaud this woman for her patience and even temperament addressing that which needs to be said. Listen, just listen and learn. I do and so should you.


There is a season...

[Anon-C]

1. I am very thankful for EffieBlack, Mr.Scorpio and you sheshe2!

You bring me great hope and encouragement!



Thank you!

[MrScorpio]

2. I'm going to take this as a cue to reiterate one of my favorite articles...

White America’s racial illiteracy: Why our national conversation is poisoned from the start

The author of “What Does It Mean to Be White?” examines the ways white people implode when they talk about race

DR. ROBIN DIANGELO

I am white. I have spent years studying what it means to be white in a society that proclaims race meaningless, yet is deeply divided by race. This is what I have learned: Any white person living in the United States will develop opinions about race simply by swimming in the water of our culture. But mainstream sources—schools, textbooks, media—don’t provide us with the multiple perspectives we need.

Yes, we will develop strong emotionally laden opinions, but they will not be informed opinions. Our socialization renders us racially illiterate. When you add a lack of humility to that illiteracy (because we don’t know what we don’t know), you get the break-down we so often see when trying to engage white people in meaningful conversations about race.

Mainstream dictionary definitions reduce racism to individual racial prejudice and the intentional actions that result. The people that commit these intentional acts are deemed bad, and those that don’t are good. If we are against racism and unaware of committing racist acts, we can’t be racist; racism and being a good person have become mutually exclusive. But this definition does little to explain how racial hierarchies are consistently reproduced.

Social scientists understand racism as a multidimensional and highly adaptive system—a system that ensures an unequal distribution of resources between racial groups. Because whites built and dominate all significant institutions, (often at the expense of and on the uncompensated labor of other groups), their interests are embedded in the foundation of U.S. society.

While individual whites may be against racism, they still benefit from the distribution of resources controlled by their group. Yes, an individual person of color can sit at the tables of power, but the overwhelming majority of decision-makers will be white. Yes, white people can have problems and face barriers, but systematic racism won’t be one of them. This distinction—between individual prejudice and a system of unequal institutionalized racial power—is fundamental. One cannot understand how racism functions in the U.S. today if one ignores group power relations.

https://www.salon.com/2015/04/10/white_americas_racial_illiteracy_why_our_national_conversation_is_poisoned_from_the_start_partner/

[sheshe2]

3. Hmmm

Suggesting that a white person’s viewpoint comes from a racialized frame of reference (challenge to objectivity);
People of color talking directly about their own racial perspectives (challenge to white taboos on talking openly about race);
People of color choosing not to protect the racial feelings of white people in regards to race (challenge to white racial expectations and need/entitlement to racial comfort);
People of color not being willing to tell their stories or answer questions about their racial experiences (challenge to the expectation that people of color will serve us);
A fellow white not providing agreement with one’s racial perspective (challenge to white solidarity);
Receiving feedback that one’s behavior had a racist impact (challenge to white racial innocence);
Suggesting that group membership is significant (challenge to individualism);
An acknowledgment that access is unequal between racial groups (challenge to meritocracy);
Being presented with a person of color in a position of leadership (challenge to white authority);
Being presented with information about other racial groups through, for example, movies in which people of color drive the action but are not in stereotypical roles, or multicultural education (challenge to white centrality).

From your link.

Thank you MrScorpio.

[JustAnotherGen]

5. This times 1000000

[cyclonefence]

4. What-aboutism has crept into the discussion here at DU

and it makes me very sad. There is no question that ethnic groups other than African Americans have been persecuted, sometimes unto death, sometimes with the goal of wiping them from the face of the earth, and every instance of such unspeakable bigotry deserves our attention and our resolve to never let this happen again to anyone. That resolve is a large part of what I think it means to be a democrat.

Without disparaging or minimizing the truly ghastly suffering of other groups, I think it's important to remember the unique aspects of slavery--and when discussing other forms of bigotry, to remember the unique aspects of their suffering--particularly that part of slavery which removed people from another land based solely on the fact of skin color. What I'm trying to say is that Africans were treated as such commodity that captives who did not speak the same languages, whose religion and cultural habits were different, were tossed together into the hold of a ship, destroying family unity and tradition from the get-go.

Other ethnic groups--and I'm not sure we should call the Africans kidnapped into slavery an ethnic group because of the diversity of people stolen--have managed, over time, to preserve their heritage, their unique family relationships, their cultural traditions. Mistreatment of the most disgusting kind sometimes even strengthened these ties, as brave people fought hard to preserve what they treasured. African slaves never had this chance.

Once here, slave families--if they were "lucky" enough to have been taken together--were further disrupted in unspeakable ways, and we all are aware of the hell they were thrust into. I think the shattering of cultural groups when Africans were taken, right from the start, may be the greatest impediment of all for African Americans sold into slavery. It probably was not an intentional act; I believe nothing mattered to their kidnappers more than simply taking as many people as possible, and the fact that they were all thrown together was simply a by-product of the profit motive.

There is an exceptionalism to slavery, and we all know comparisons are invidious. There is an exceptionalism to the experience of all abused groups, and when we discuss them I would hope we could focus on what is being discussed, rather than creating distractions that tend to run to feelings that no one cares about someone else's suffering.

[JustAnotherGen]

6. This is one of the most beautiful things

I've read at DU in a long time.

[heaven05]

7. as I read it,

Last edited Thu May 31, 2018, 02:15 PM - Edit history (1)

it's divisive because there are those in the ruling class of this country who are standing in the middle of the room with their fingers in their ears screaming....na na nan ananann!!!!!!!!!!! When responding to questions about their ability to get along with the rest of the population, minorities especially. They feel they are getting along well while filling the lower federal courts with anti-abortion judges and given trumps background and words, racist judges. Let's VOTE, JUST VOTE. Democrats in our Congress can stop this tide.

America has always been fertile ground for white supremacy groups and religions I think, since just say, arbitrally, the 1st Civil War, 1861-65. These groups and religions are part of america, not ameriKKKa. Just have to work it out wypipo and not with pogroms and DeBoer era apartheid/genocide tactics on minority populations.

And when the dust settles there will be classification by race, culture, by color and origin, with the lighter skinned brown people(s) benefiting to a more ideal degree, with the "kaffir" classification reserved for predominantly AA population.

The blind spot is exactly as you state and being weaponized in the court system by trump to impose draconian laws on the population with restriction specifically used toward urban populations but not limited to that location.

Always loved this song.


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/30/donald-trump-judges-courts-justice-system.

[Eliot Rosewater]

8. Privilege means I as a white person do not have to care about how

my privilege affects you.

I dont have to know even, for that matter, that you WILL be arrested in situations where it is UNTHINKABLE that I would be.

Soon enough, with the racist fascist traitor in the WH, this WILL come to a head and shit will CHANGE.

You and other African American friends of mine here and elsewhere give me hope that someday this can all go away. They say in the future everything will be fluid, race, sex, etc. I wish I could go to sleep for a while and wake up then.

[marylandblue]

9. It's hard to talk about race because we are obsessed with race

But we are supposed to pretend like we aren't. It's like a drug talking honestly about his addiction.