I'd have your kids read "Black Like Me". I read it in 6th grade and it really opened my eyes. It would a great experiment for those post racial people to try today. Walk around in some stores or drive around at night as would normally do and then report back.

but it appears you think you know more than experts.

Number 1 covers everything

in posts #10 and #16, if you'd like to read more. The problem is that racism is the default in our society. It isn't something we have to work to perpetuate.

Thank goodness - you got here just in time to set us all straight. So why do you think so many black people are being killed by cops?

Bryant

I guess this "colorblindness" means I must have screwed up somehow.

You could google "why it's important to talk to kids about race" if you ever wanted to read some of it.

The black kid and the white kid may not care about each other's race. But the cops and employers that they encounter will.

It does.

"Colorblind" implies that you treat everyone as though they are white.

It doesn't give room for people to be who they are, and different, with different backgrounds and different colors. It's possible that your children's friends are a lot like them, and not culturally different, so then it's easier.

I'm not saying that you screwed up, but see if your kids consider their friends "exceptional", but still look at other black kids as unacceptable because they behave differently.

And consider that it's possible that "colorblind" doesn't fit what your kids are doing.

A person who says that they are trying to be "colorblind" is not saying that they want to "erase a person's culture and heritage."

They are saying that they want to live the message of MLK who encouraged people to judge one another not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I am specifically taking issue, though, with the characterization used by the author of the OP.

She is claiming that a person who professes not "not see color" is, in doing so, ignoring or erasing a person's culture sand heritage. She goes ever further to associate this "pretending my blackness isn’t there in order to see my full humanity" - which she says makes someone definitely a racist.

I think this is a misreading of the "colorblind" idea. I think that people who say they try not to see color are not taking this approach because they can't see a person's full humanity without pretending their blackness isn't there, but rather they are attempting to live a life where they actively try not to make assumptions or judgments about a person based on their race.

I have observed people of different races taking this approach and believe it to be perfectly reasonable and does not make someone "definitely a racist".

I appreciate all the links - even though I don't necessarily agree with some of the conclusions. It's an interesting topic and I think it's worth discussing and contemplating, that's for sure.

I don't think it's helpful to eradicating racism.

If more people from a young age was exhorted to "not see color" maybe that could be helpful to at least alleviating some of the racism that currently exists.

I think there is significantly more racism among those who are very much "color aware" than among those who try not to be.

Would we not rather have police officers who were "colorblind" where every decision they made was based solely on people's actions and behavior with race not playing a factor at all?

The last generation to make a real difference in the level of racism between their generation and the one before it was the Baby Boomer generation, and they did a great deal of active work.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/04/07/white-millennials-are-just-about-as-racist-as-their-parents/

Here's a good article: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/white-millennials-products-failed-lesson-colorblindness/

Without question there have been significant improvements.

From 2010:

Blacks Upbeat about Black Progress, Prospects

Despite the bad economy, blacks’ assessments about the state of black progress in America have improved more dramatically during the past two years than at any time in the past quarter century, according to a comprehensive new nationwide Pew Research Center survey on race.

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2010/01/12/blacks-upbeat-about-black-progress-prospects/

Or look at views on inter-racial marriage and how they have evolved.

In U.S., 87% Approve of Black-White Marriage, vs. 4% in 1958

http://www.gallup.com/poll/163697/approve-marriage-blacks-whites.aspx

The one change is interracial marriage, but if you look at the article in the previous post, and read the questions and answers, you can see that the level of racism is about the same overall.

Honestly, depending on the measure one wants to use to signify improvement in this area, one can find studies that support the fact that positive change has occurred, such as with respect to interracial marriage.

The Pew Study that I provided a link to, for example, illustrates that point.

Almost All Millennials Accept Interracial Dating and Marriage

his is part of a Pew Research Center series of reports exploring the behaviors, values and opinions of the teens and twenty-somethings that make up the Millennial Generation

Over the last several decades, the American public has grown increasingly accepting of interracial dating and marriage. This shift in opinion has been driven both by attitude change among individuals generally and by the fact that over the period, successive generations have reached adulthood with more racially liberal views than earlier generations. Millennials are no exception to this trend: Large majorities of 18-to-29 year olds express support for interracial marriage within their families, and the level of acceptance in this generation is greater than in other generations.

http://www.pewresearch.org/2010/02/01/almost-all-millennials-accept-interracial-dating-and-marriage/

But not otherwise, as shown in that article. They show the questions and answers.

I feel that it reflects a major positive change.

I certainly take your point that there are studies that show a lack of progress, too. And this is not a topic that I have researched extensively so I don't know what other information is out there other than the links that come up via Google and whatnot.

I would be curious to dig deeper into specifically the attitudes of young adults today who were explicitly raised with the idea of "color blindness" being taught to them by their parents/guardians vs. young adults today who were explicitly raised with the sort of approach to race that the author of the OP is suggesting vs. young adults today who were raised without any specific instruction in this regard.

They include whether people think black people are lazier than white people, whether people think black people are less intelligent than white people, and whether black people are on average poorer because of a lack of motivation. Those are more illustrative, because anyone can exceptionalize one person of color and still be generally racist. Exceptionalizing one person of color you know does not stop someone from being racist.

The links and articles you provided were fascinating, and I already pointed out that I am interested in learning more on the topic.

I was just suggesting that there are different measures that indicate progress and while it may not show up in some, it may show up in others and that is worth acknowledging.

Please at least have the courtesy to respect that I am entering into this discussion in good faith.

I'm just suggesting that those who try to approach race with that maxim in mind are not necessarily automatically racist as the author of the OP seems to be suggesting.

Their good intentions could certainly end up with not the best of results, but I don't think her characterization is true in all or even most cases.

I'm certainly interested in learning and reading more on the topic and hearing from other folks on the subject.

What are your thoughts?

on "color blind."

When I went to school in the 70s I went to a school that was in Tennessee in a predominantly black neighborhood and the school was mostly black but there was maybe one quarter to one third white kids. This was after and during the time of bussing and that was a big deal in society but I didn't really know about it in a direct way. The school was walking distance to me in my neighborhood.

I didn't know it then but looking back and thinking about it we had a lot of good people as teachers, white teachers and black teachers, and they tried hard to be "color blind" and to teach us kids to be color blind. They would say things like "everyone is equal" and we are the same, and talk about fairness and I think they really tried. Looking back, the tried to treat all the kids the same. As I thought about it, I realized that this was probably the best thing they had. I bet that they were never taught about race or experienced working with race issues. I bet that some of them went to segregated schools and even taught at schools that were at least de facto segregated.

But there we were, a mix of black and white kids and black and white teachers, and I honestly believe in hind sight that they were good people who did the best they could. And there was probably some good of it, about learning to treat everyone with respect and fairness.

But the problem was that as much as we tried to be color blind in school we all still lived in a world outside that wasn't color blind.

Look, this sounds nuts, but I was basically a grown up before I realized that this one park in town had an actual name besides "Nword Park." Because as a kid the only name I ever heard it called by black or white people by anybody was "Nword park." I thought that was the name of it. That's how society was outside of school.

This was before the multicultural education approach where they tried to teach about the strengths of difference and the good things to be proud of in different cultures. Instead, the idea was "everybody is the same." Again, this wasn't bad for the time but it is why today people see it as denying other cultures. Instead of saying "look at what is special and wonderful about this culture" we were saying "there's not a culture there."

Today we should be moving past that too. The multicutural view sort of assumed that if we teach kids what is good about different cultures that would naturally learn to appreciate and value them. Today you are more likely to hear people talking about "anti-bias" approach that is more up front and says "look, there is inequality in the world out there, this is prejudice and bias, this is how to recognize it, this is what you can do when you see it." That's getting closer to what we should be doing. It is a long way from the "pretend there is no difference."

I'm not sure if I'm making sense, but what I am trying to see is that the color blind approach I know it had good intentions and probably some good things came out of it, but it doesn't go far enough and we should be passed that now. We are at a point where we can't pretend that there are no differences, where it should be OK to say there are differences and we can celebrate them, and even more that we won't accept bias because of them.

Why should I have to teach children that there's nothing wrong with black people? Is that something they are born believing, that there IS? Is it something they are quickly going to be taught?

I cannot ever recall being taught such a thing, nor even believing such a thing without knowing where that belief came from.

However, this person seems to be implying that there is nothing wrong with ANY black person. Am I supposed to, for example, feel that there is nothing wrong with these two alleged murderers http://fox4kc.com/2014/11/12/police-say-arrests-of-3-men-following-chase-are-related-to-angel-hoopers-death/

That they are just victims, lashing out against a racist system, or something?

As for never trusting the M$M, well that is good advice on any topic. However, parts of the M$M were the ones trying to push the nonsense (just like the author of this article does) that "the media was trying to humanize this mass murderer in Charleston".

Or am I wrong about that because I read too much Daily Howler and not enough Black Commentator? Somerby, after all, is white (I think), even if it was his suggestion that I read "Stride Toward Freedom", he's still 'white like me.'

The media uses words like "thug" and "animal" and "monster" when referring to African Americans. Kids start to pick this stuff up if no one explicitly tells them it's wrong and that the media is not to be trusted (which is another of her points.)

Edit: Kids also hear things from other kids and adults as they grow up, sometimes even adults in positions of authority. They need a kind of innoculation against taking in these messages, and we can give it to them by talking to them. Not talking to them about race can turn race into the Voldemort of personal traits - that which can't be named - and that's not a positive or neutral thing.

She says to say that there's nothing wrong with black people as a group, not that there isn't anything wrong with some individuals of any color.

Were things better then, race-wise?

The media uses words like 'thug' when referring to African Americans who do thuggish things, like kill six year old girls. Animal and monster would not be inappropriate in that regard either.

Television these days goes out of their way to be multi-cultural. If you watch NCIS, for example, you will see a black person, Director Vance, at the very top.

Again, it was not my experience growing up, that kids or other adults were saying anything derogatory about black people, or native Americans. These days, more than ever, there can be consequences for saying such things. I am also seeing a world now where more and more white people have family members who are non-white.

I am not saying that there are not localities where the default setting is racist and people would need to swim against that current, but it was not my experience and I do not think that is the default setting for the country as a whole.

The baby boomers were the last group to actively try to change things.

But I suspect a person of color from the 1970s would remember the media differently than you do.

I am talking about nation-wide, not just small areas here and there. Racism is the default.

As for the word "thug" - when the media call African American killers "thugs" but search for mental illness and home instability for white killers, that is an example of racism. It's how one group is treated compared to the other.

In my own (limited) experience, racism is NOT the default.

That's kind of all any of us have - our own limited experience. We can speculate about what a person of color would say from the 1970s, but this person of color today is talking to white people as if she knows what white people experience or have experienced. How does she know that? I am saying that my own experience contradicts that, and that things have gotten even better since the 1970s in that regard.

Is a mental illness supposed to be a compliment? Personally I think I would rather be called a thug than called crazy. Here's what I read about how Ruth was treated. http://dailyhowler.blogspot.com/2015/06/red-and-blue-together-whats-in-word.html

and we can find out what a person of color would say from the 1970s.

“I also know that while I am black I am a human being, and therefore I have the right to go into any public place. White people didn’t know that. Every time I tried to go into a place they stopped me.”

“I knew that I could vote and that that wasn’t a privilege; it was my right. Every time I tried I was shot, killed or jailed, beaten or economically deprived.”

“Seems to me that the institutions that function in this country are clearly racist, and that they’re built upon racism.”

- Stokely Carmichael

And mental illness as an excuse for killing someone, or being considered a monster or thug? I have to think you're being disingenuous.

They can share THEIR experience and you read about it. Yet I share my experience and you challenge it instead of accepting it.

You quote Stokely Carmichael saying that he was beaten and shot for trying to vote, and you say that says something about the 1970s. Well, I can find that in the 1960s, Carl Stokes was already a mayor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Stokes In some parts of the country, black people were not only voting, they were holding the highest elected office in the city. In Cleveland - a major US city.

Then I read about Stokely himself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stokely_Carmichael

"He attended the elite, selective Bronx High School of Science in New York, with entrance based on academic performance."

That doesn't really sound like a life of hardship in the 1960s. Neither does this

"Carmichael's apartment on Euclid Street was a gathering place for his activist classmates.[4] He graduated in 1964 with a degree in philosophy.[2] Carmichael was offered a full graduate scholarship to Harvard University, but turned it down.[9]"

So our racist institutions, founded on racism, offered this black man a full graduate scholarship to Harvard, futhermucking HARVARD in 1964. Boy, I'd hate to walk a mile in those shoes.

He chose instead to help other people - in the south - in the 1960s. Again, that is NOT the whole country, neither is it the mid to late 1970s, when I guess a lot of young white Americans were learning that there is something wrong with black people by watching Roots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roots_(miniseries)

then, do as THEY tell you

pretty easy to say there's no 'reverse-racism', when you make the rules on what that is

lets try reversing that

' ' if a white person calls a person of color a mean name (list omitted), that isn’t racism.'

tell me that wouldn't be called 'racism' either?

at some point, it's reasonable to ask 'do you wish to be a peer, or not? and if you do, you have to live under the same rules'

Our President is a great example on this. He is simply 'Mr President', and lives under the same rules that title has always meant

There is no such thing as reverse racism. When a member of the group in power says something like that to a member of an oppressed group, society's power is behind it. When a member of an oppressed group says something like that to a member of the group in power, society's power is not behind it.

oh wait - he did

and white people still hold the vast majority of power.

a white person may not know what it's like to be a person of color, but the majority of white persons know what it's like to be a lesser favored member of a group (even if to a much milder degree). and that person has zero chance of elevating themselves within the group if they demand that the rules be different for themselves than others - nobody will ever accept that. I believe that the same dynamics are in play within groups of persons of color

so perhaps you could demand that, and get it, but then, you'd actually be more powerful, than others, which would invalidate your argument

Can you put that in different words or present an example or something?

seems to be you stock in trade

It's clear as crystal. (Now that's an idiom.)

"the evidence" being a reference, to your own presumption

Or do you mean that my assumption that you don't know what the word means (since you misused it) is incorrect?

I suppose that's possible, but why would you demonstrably misuse the word, if you know what it means?

It also seems strange that you'd rather argue about arguing than actually address the issues raised in the thread. That's rather revealing, too.

is that i admittedly presume, that a valid argument to me will not contain a logical fallacy and if it does, that's where I start

Your inability to respond to either one notwithstanding.

(edited for thoroughness)

Their posts are here for everyone to read. Your inability to present a cogent counterpoint is also here for everyone to read.

and you're presuming that you've won, or will win, the audience

I don't

I don't give a shit what the "audience" thinks of our little discussion.

Both these posts are very good, and explain things very well. You don't understand what they're saying, or you're unable to articulate why you disagree. That's ok.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026996601#post29
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026996601#post38

...and just in case you missed it, gollygee didn't even dismiss your ridiulous mischaracterization of their post as a "paradox" - instead, they gave you the opportunity to clarify. I see you didn't.

I suppose you forgot the unpresedented calling out on the Senate floor Obama has had to endure.

You forgot about the noose on the effigy of Obama handing from the tree.

You forgot about the cartoon of killing the monkey, or the WH from lawn turned int Watermelon crops.

OMFG...and this was directed at POTUS

LBJ was critiqued about the Vietnam War.

GWB was lampooned for being stupid. Are rich, entitled, stupid people an oppressed minority?

You're just full of win today.

(And nobody said Obama was the first President to be disrepected. Now THAT'S a strawman. )

(although it was likely because of his species) but if the same person, did the same thing with Obama, how could you be sure that it was because of race, and not the same motivation that they did it to W (I'm no fan of W, possibly the worst president ever)

...or even a 10 second Google search.

Comparing Black People to Apes: It’s Worse Than You Thought

The Coon Caricature: Blacks as Monkeys

black people as monkeys

Obama has been compared to a monkey because he is BLACK.

Anything else?

"Ok: GWB was compared to a monkey because he is STUPID.

Obama has been compared to a monkey because he is BLACK. "

that bias is a factor in interpretation toward a conclusion, that may or may not be true

Do you actually think people compared Obama to a monkey because he's stupid?

Don't be ridiculous.

missing of the point, on your part

because my attention is needed elsewhere

live long and prosper, Spock

Using Wiki because it's convenient.

Comedians have a phrase to describe the sentiment that good jokes aren't made at the expense of disadvantaged people. The phrase is "don't punch down," and it means that you don't beat on people who, in general, have it worse.

Something similar is at work here: using a racial epithet against a person of color is "punching down." It's also why African American people an use "the N-word" but white people, in most contexts, cannot.

When white people use "the N-word," it is--automatically--an insult by way of centuries of ugly racist subjugation. It might not be meant that way in a certain context, but that's both the connotation and denotation of the word by default. Sorry, but that's the way it is: it is inherently "punching down."

Assuming that you're a white person, there is simply no word that a person of color can use against you that has the same impact, history, and back-story as "the N-word." I defy you to identify such a word, because "cracker," "honky," "mayo," "white boy," etc. aren't even in the ballpark.

Complaining about this, and the fact that white people aren't as free to use the word, makes the complainer look like racist who's angry that he can't be as openly racist as he'd like--even if that's not actually the case.

'When white people use "the N-word,"

because generally they, and practically everyone you're preaching to in particular DONT

arguing against a person's supposed defense, of something they aren't doing in the first place


http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html

Description of Straw Man

The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of "reasoning" has the following pattern:

Person A has position X.
Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
Person B attacks position Y.
Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position simply does not constitute an attack on the position itself. One might as well expect an attack on a poor drawing of a person to hurt the person.
Examples of Straw Man

Prof. Jones: "The university just cut our yearly budget by $10,000."
Prof. Smith: "What are we going to do?"
Prof. Brown: "I think we should eliminate one of the teaching assistant positions. That would take care of it."
Prof. Jones: "We could reduce our scheduled raises instead."
Prof. Brown: " I can't understand why you want to bleed us dry like that, Jones."

"Senator Jones says that we should not fund the attack submarine program. I disagree entirely. I can't understand why he wants to leave us defenseless like that."

Bill and Jill are arguing about cleaning out their closets:
Jill: "We should clean out the closets. They are getting a bit messy."
Bill: "Why, we just went through those closets last year. Do we have to clean them out everyday?"
Jill: "I never said anything about cleaning them out every day. You just want too keep all your junk forever, which is just ridiculous."

so I'm one up, on you

but I guess being part of a group ganging up is you usual substitute

I allege that you don't know what a "strawman" is. The "evidence" is present in your very own post.

Care to try again?

The "comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable" principle of comedy.

There is one thing that I question though. For a young white person who has AA friends and spends the day singing along with artists who use the N-word constantly, that person's connection to the word is quite different.

Young people are also immersed in movies where the word is used in a positive rather than a negative way. We have very few movies where the word is used negatively, but an enormous number use it positively.

I believe that kids clearly understand the negative meaning of the word, but they are still connected to the word in a much different way as they sing it.

It is a pretty unique situation to have a word that is culturally forbidden to white people, and to have that same word so completely infused into popular music and movies in a positive way by some within the very group who find the word so objectionable.

I am not questioning the "punching down" premise....I just think that this is a strange experiment being conducted on young white brains.

Disclaimer: I'm your basic, boring white mutt claiming no authority to speak on this subject on behalf on anyone except myself.

they are so flippin cute together. She has lived a quiet, and unbeknown to her, a priviledged life in this not very diverse state. I tried to give her tools and knowledge of how others live and how society treats POC. But you know, in the end they are just words. She couldn't really internalize. She could be loving and kind to everyone, she can be responsible for her actions, but she didn't understand the full weight of what black people carry.

Loving and caring for someone who has experienced the underbelly of racism has made her heart hurt. She hurts for her boyfriend, she hurts that society accepts and coddles such cruelty, and she is embarassed about her naitivity. She had no idea.

The media (MSM and social) has played a huge role in making more of us priviledged persons aware of what we have been ignorning. All of these conversations educate and shine a light on what has been happening and how much of it has been brushed aside via complacancy.

I cant do anything about the past and who said what, who didn't say what, who did or didn't do something. What I really care about is that NOW, if we so desire, we can have our eyes fully and truly opened..that we don't allow ourselves to slip back into complacancy because this is someone elses problem. Our communities and how they treat everyone is of important concern. Our hearts and minds should realize that there is a segment of our society and community that deserve so much better than a nod and wink, as if we know what black people are going through. My daughters eyes have been opened, I doubt they will ever be closed again.