General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAn anecdote while race matters and trumps class every single time...
I lost my home, my business,my savings, my investments and my car in The Great Recession. But prior to that I lived in an affluent gated community. One of my neighbors was an African American gentleman in his seventies but acted as if he was thirty years younger...He joined the Army when he was seventeen years old and was awarded Bronze Stars in Korea and Viet Nam. After retiring after twenty years in the military he worked in the civilian military sector for another twenty years. Along the way he made an investment in a black owned community bank that he parlayed into over one million dollars... He owned homes in Lake Mary, FL and Fayetteville, NC. When my gf and I visited him at his home in Fayetteville he told us that he wanted to build a home across the street but he couldn't because the owner wouldn't sell it to a black man...
Fast forward... I wanted to replace the door in my bathroom and asked him to help me so we went to the Loews in Sanford. While we were buying the material we needed we saw a woman and her husband and the woman had left her purse in the cart which was approximately three to four feet from her... As soon as she saw me and my friend she clutched her purse. She didn't even try to be discrete as not to insult us....
She didn't see a millionaire, a man with two homes, a man who served his nation in two wars and was awarded Bronze Stars in both. She just saw a black man.
Maraya1969
(22,497 posts)told me an awful story of going to a Denny's around St Luis and the fucking waitress would not even wait on her! Another waitress told her and said she would have to move to a different section.
I think I would have lost my mind and punch that bitch in the face.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)I have a friend who was born in NYC to a Kenyan mother who was a diplomat and a father who was an exec at American Tobacco and grew up in London. He told me of being profiled at a jewelry store so he asked the clerk to show him the most garish watches to jerk his chain. He also told me of being at a theater in London and a couple dropped the n word in his presence and his ten year old nephew's presence. He politely chastised him for his behavior.
BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)No speech or meme or current policy can fix it. DU is very confused on this issue.
malaise
(269,157 posts)The agents of socialization have done a fine job promoting institutional racism and fear of the African-American male.
Just saying!
BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)But it is racist people working in government, cops, teachers and preachers in the system who have perpetuated racism. We have seen more and more people being fired for racist comments or writings, and that is a good thing. But in the legal sense, we still don't have a way to entirely get rid of them from our government or our news.
I don't know what government can do to keep the woman in the story from clutching her purse around a person of color. Racism is handed down from generation to generation and is very concentrated in certain areas, but by no means gone from anywhere. How does the government stop this? How does the government stop churches from spreading racism, because they do. How about mothers and fathers?
What if tv/radio could somehow be purged of racists? Yes, Fox News. But because of 1A, it is usually public opinion which does the enforcement. And yet how have Fox and Limbaugh gotten away with it all these years?
The more important thing is to tackle what can be changed and firstly, that is cops. There needs to be standardized interview procedures and strict oversight of cops. They need to be fired immediately if it is found that they hold racist ideas because that means they are unfit for the job and dangerous. Any public employee we should basically say they are unfit for their job if they are racists. That is actual policy. But DU seems to want something more which is not possible, they want to somehow deal with everyday people who are racists. That is not possible. And I have yet to see a suggestion of what to do about it.
eridani
(51,907 posts)dreamnightwind
(4,775 posts)and thanks for sharing.
I am wondering if there is anything you think government should be doing to help solve these problems, what would you suggest? Has Obama been helpful in this regard, or not?
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)But I am sure as a black man who was born and raised in the Jim Crow South (Alabama) he saw a lot worse than that. I forgot to add when it happened he turned to me and said "I guess she doesn't trust us."
This is the same guy who saw a poor white woman with her kid, panhandling in front of Wal -Mart, and bought her $50.00 worth of groceries.
BTW, he liked to hunt...None of us are perfect...He told me went to someplace in the mountains of North Carolina to go hunting and checked in to some small motel... The owner was perfectly nice and told him he could stay there but the locals might not cotton to a black man with a hunting rifle. This is in the 80s...
Amazingly he was not bitter.
I doubt the gov't can do much to change peoples hearts.