10. Having white people say we’re exaggerating these issues. This isn’t so much a fear as a chronic and sometimes debilitating annoyance. It seems that no matter how much we can statistically demonstrate that racism is pervasive and damages us on many levels, there are white people who fight us tooth and nail with arguments that life is not as challenging for us as we say it is.

I’ve given up convincing white people about the harsh realities of my life as a black man. I’ll devote that energy to fighting for my black liberation in our very racist society.

Many of them already know and enjoy pretending not to b convinced. They like it. It makes some of them feel good to know that we get treated like shit and they never will. Makes them feel better than us.

Not disbelieving you - your comment (and the reality it reflects.) It's bad enough that people don't listen, are ignorant and dismissive. But to play the that game as you describe... pathetic.

*heavy sigh*

They'll end up with little brown grandkids and have to explain themselves one day when the kids find out. Facebook, ya know? I imagine people doing their family trees a hundred years from now and finding an asshole in the bunch, calling Obama a monkey or michelle a witch doctor, or denying obvious racism to scream about Al Sharpton, and just hating their ancestors. I wonder if these people know they will be a part of history, and on the wrong side too. They be so proud of their ignorance just like the segregationists. Sad.

and very generous.

Several decades ago I heard Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth speak. He was asked how he could speak about civil rights history (such as the bus bombings, and his church bombing) with so little hatred. He responded that he believed that the whites (included Bull Conners - who pulled him out of the bus before it was bombed) were also seriously harmed by the system - and it was just as important for them to be freed from Jim Crow.

I had to think about that for quite some time. When I visited the Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham and saw a life-size photo of a lynching, with a crowd of white people standing around as if at a party, it came to me. How much damage must harboring such great hate in the soul - find any degree of spirituality, or experience deep love for another human being. How could one (if one is religious) be right with God while harboring such vileness within oneself.

Your comment - albeit from a different angle - rekindled that memory. Thanks.

They end up paranoid and expecting the worst because they have done it first. Always expecting get back and retribution. I remember the smiling lynchers. Sick souls. Imagine their surprise if there is a god and they meet it. Won't go as expected.
I always remind myself that we won't be here long. History will not forget our deeds. We can lie to ourselves, we can bully the world, but the future will decide who we were. At least we have that. Until then, we fight. All we can do.

There's nothing in the white experience that compares to what African-Americans go through even in 2015. African-Americans can try to explain it to white people, but white people will never be able to fully understand what it's like.

I don't think this lack of awareness is ignorance itself; what separates the ignorant whites from the open-minded ones is that the open-minded whites will at least make an attempt to understand the black experience as best as possible but at the same time realize it's not possible for them to understand 100%.

The ignorant ones are those who downplay the struggle of African-Americans and pretend like the answer to all of life's problems is 'Go to school, get a job.' Your education and your job don't matter one bit when you're being pulled over by a racist cop.

This example perfectly illustrates what is wrong with that idea. “If you are going to wear ethnic clothing, you should alert people in advance that you will be wearing something ethnic,”

I would not be shocked if such a warning came from a generally well meaning yet clueless individual who wanted to warn other employees in hopes of avoiding conflict.
I think there is more of a willingness to respect a person's impulse to be rude and spew racist epithets than to respect the rights of African Americans to own and be proud of their heritage.

:/ unfortunately.