[Motherhood IS a career]

Well, J, let me ask you this, all empirical tests set aside for a moment. Since you’re so objective, would you — who begged your daughter not to go to Mexico — advise her to go hang out in Harlem, with a group of her white friends, after the sun goes down? If she was inclined to do that, would you have any feelings about that whatsoever? Or are you just a tad afraid that as a white girl, she’d be slightly more prone to harassment than a black girl her age? Just askin’...

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

There was a Law and Order episode based on that premise. A couple of cops (one white, one black, iirc) decided to handle a snotty rich kid who was hassling them by dropping him off at Amsterdam Avenue and 115th Street late on a Saturday night. Needless to say, he didn't come home for breakfast the next day. The two cops were charged with manslaughter.

[jocon307]

I really don’t want to get into an argument with you, but I feel like you are not reading what I am posting.

I have not said that Derbyshire was wrong in any of his particulars. I have merely said that I felt the tone of his piece is counter-productive and I’ve also questioned some of the “instructions” he gives his kids. In particular the ones about not helping black people in distress and making friends for false reasons.

You read the part that I wrote about Mexico, so didn’t you see the part where I told my kid she was not to date any black guys until she was well into adulthood?

My kid actually never had any interest in non-white guys, so that turned out to be a moot point, but you never know.

Here’s another story - we lived in the NYC metro area in NJ. There is a bus that ran from our town into Jersey City, where you could get the PATH train to NYC. During rush hours this bus is OK, because it goes express and doesn’t stop in Jersey City until it gets to the train station (or very near the train station, I forget).

But during non-rush hours it goes through the worst of the black ghetto of Jersey City, stopping locally. (There’s a local at rush hour too, but that starts in JC.)

So the kid asked me once could she take the bus with her friends to get the PATH and go into the city. (Or for some reason, the details aren’t important.) And I thought about it and then I said NO. I had taken that bus after rush hour a few times and believe me all the passengers, blacks and spanish people too, had some tense moments at times. Nothing ever actually happened, but who knows?

I told her: I can’t really let you do something that made me nervous the few times I’ve done it. She took no for an answer and she understood why.

So yeah, Derb is right, we do tell our children these things. I have never said otherwise.