“That Conversation about Race” category archive
Plus ca Change 0
David Farmer has heard it before. A nugget:
It was echo of the stinging voice of Alabama Gov. George Wallace that I heard in Alabama last week.
The speaker was President Donald Trump, but his words carried themes from the not-so-distant and ugly past.
The Unmasking 0
Jenee Osterholt points out what was obvious to anyone who paid attention. An excerpt:
Donald Trump is the president America deserves.
He’s forcing the country to take the mask off, to confront its systemically oppressive ways, to deal with the fact that xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, able-ism, anti-Semitism, Islamaphobia and, yes, racism, are real. Say it with me: Racism is real.
(snip)
Perhaps this is what happens when a rich reality TV star who gets off on debasing and firing people storms into the White House. Or maybe we’re watching the institutional racism that has been remixed and masked in mass incarceration, mortgage discrimination, redlining and more stack together like Voltron and become a president.
Myth Makers 0
In my local rag, Roger Chesley looks at the text books used in Virginia schools around the beginning of the Twentieth Century and at how they promoted the lie of the “Lost Cause.”
Read it.
Plus ca Change 0
At the Boston Review, Kahlil Gibran Muhammad spots a pattern in the flickering light of tiki torches (emphasis added):
Follow the link for the complete article.
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
Leonard Pitts, Jr., marvels at the kerfuffle over Jemele Hill’s tweets pointing out–nothing new here–that Donald Trump is a white supremacist. A snippet:
Really? Well, if Hill deserves firing for calling Trump a white supremacist, then what does he get for actually being one?
Follow the link for his answer to that question.
Presumed Guilty 0
Shorter Will Bunch: “If you doubt force of racism in the U. S., meet me in St. Louis.”
All the News that Fits 0
Afterthought:
I’m a Southern Boy. I grew up under Jim Crow, I attended segregated schools, and I have my share of baggage.
I’ve known lots of racists and even more white folks who grew up with racism and did not realize that they had been trained to it from birth.
It’s the rare racist who will admit to being racist.
Which leads to the question: Who is more vile, the person who is proudly and avowedly racist or the person who is silently racist and unaware of or willfully blind to his or her racism?
Tell a Tale of Privilege 0
Richard G. Carlson tells one such tale in The Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
Excerpt or summary won’t do it justice. Just read it.
In (Selective) Rembrance 0
Justin Perry muses over the contrast between “Never forget” and “Get over it.” A snippet:
One thing you won’t hear is “Get over it!” And yet, that is what black Americans have heard repeatedly and casually over and over in regard to our home-grown terrors . . . .
urpme –auto-orphans<--How did that get in there? That’s a Mageia command for managing Magiea rpm packages. I was running Mageia updates earlier today, but, oh, well. I’m going to leave it in just for grins and giggles.
Follow the link for the rest.
“Uppity” 0
Leonard Pitts, Jr., points out that “uppity” is still a thing.
Profiled 0
A life-long Seattle resident tells the story of what happened when she pulled over (good on her, by the way) to answer a message on her cell phone. A nugget:
The driver left her car idling in the middle of the street and approached my window.
“Am I in your way? What’s going on?” I asked.
“Yes, you are. I live here.”
“I thought this was a public street? I could be waiting for my child.”
“Well, I have children, too. And I pay a shit ton of money to live here. You need to leave.”
I was shaken. I, too, live in this neighborhood. I lived on this very street. I learned to ride a bike here. My daughter plays at this playground. And yet, because I was a black woman, the other driver assumed I didn’t belong, and ordered me to leave.
Read it.