General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Why Reverse Racism Isn't Real [View all]Dustlawyer
(10,495 posts)poor people (code for blacks on Fox and other RW media). Because the majority of Americans are suffering more during these times, including whites, the RW media have given them a group to displace their anger and fear on. This insidious practice of blaming the poor, minorities, immigrants, and a "black" President for the situation we have found ourselves in, instead of the ones who created the situation; Wall Street, Big Business, and RW billionaires has ratcheted up the level of racism to levels not seen in 40-50 years.
The other thing that allows this to happen is that segregation is environmental. Groups tend to gravitate together making it rare for one group to really know what the other group has to deal with. Humans naturally want to segregate themselves and feel like their group is somehow better than any others. We separate ourselves by race, religion, and economic stratification to name a few, so we don't "walk a mile in the other's shoes" which would lead to better understanding.
When I entered the 6th grade our town supposedly desegregated. In reality, little changed except that I was one of a very few white kids required to go to school in an all black community. The "desegregated" school had been 100% black and was now 95% black, 3% white and 2% other. I learned that my name was "White Boy" and had the crap beat out of me several times. When a white kid at the end of my street was beaten so badly he was a "vegetable," we moved. My year there could have led me to go one of two ways. I could hate them for how they treated me, or I could learn that racism is so wrong no matter who it was being persecuted.
I made several friends at that school and learned that black kids wanted pretty much the same things that I did, but had much bigger hurdles. When I transferred to the mostly white Junior High in the same school district, with the same curriculum, I saw that I was about 10 chapters behind in every subject. The other very stark difference was that at the white school everything worked (projectors, lockers...) and was new or almost new. At the black school they didn't get shit except the hand-me-downs from the white school. The teachers wanted to be there while at the black school they got the teachers who sucked and didn't care.
I learned that racism is wrong and that I didn't like to be persecuted anymore than they did. I saw that they did not have the same opportunities as I did, first hand. The blacks wanted retribution for their treatment from us new white students, and while I certainly didn't like it, I understood it. If we would actually walk a mile in the other's shoes it would lead to a better understanding of the situation and the propaganda would not work. That's never going to happen, unfortunately.
There is one controversial thing I will say that must be said that I witnessed over and over at that school, and that my wife experienced all throughout school (she is black and has a Masters Degree in Cross Cultural Studies), many black kids at school would attack other black kids that did well in school, accusing them of "you trying to be white!" I saw kids who were beaten by their fathers for the crime of trying to be smarter than them. Many black kids would brag about how many F's they got on their report cards with no worry that their parents would be upset. These kids would still be in the minority, but not by a lot. In a seemingly hopeless situation, grades did not seem to matter. They did not know many black professionals and the area was one of extreme poverty so I will not say this behavior exists in all black schools, but it does in really poor ones. Poor smart white students don't face the same problem of other poor whites trying to drag them down.
While the black community needs to address this problem in their own community, by far the biggest problem facing them is institutional racism from whites who have no clue about the black community and form their opinions from the RW propaganda which is designed to make them angry and afraid. When I hear racists shit from other whites (happens all of the time here in S.E. Texas), I try to explain everything that I have laid out here (except for the paragraph immediately above this one). Sometimes they shut up, sometimes they double down, but I know they will remember what I have said and I hope it reduces their racists attitudes in the future.
Apologize for length, but this experience was a major turning point in my life and reinforced my living by the Golden Rule.