Posted on 08/28/2013 7:13:14 AM PDT by IChing
I grew up in a rural area of upstate New York that was overwhelmingly white, with almost no racial minorities around to speak of.
In school, and in books, magazines, and on TV, I was bombarded with messages and tales about the extent of horrors that whites had done to other races over the generations, especially to blacks.
For example, I was a tender lad of 13 or 14 when the wildly successful TV miniseries about slavery, Roots (based on the book of the same title by Alex Haley), dominated the airwaves and the national consciousness. Some of my schoolteachers during that year oriented much of their classroom time around discussion and study of the topic of Roots, and in my 7th-grade social studies class we spent weeks with specially developed materials designed to enlighten us about the anthropological dynamics of a certain tribe in Africa, the Egba Yoruba.
At that age, I was already a voracious reader, and became fascinated with the general subject of the black experience and race relations in our country. After watching Roots on TV, I got my hands on Alex Haley’s book, and read it cover to cover. I perused other books, such as The Me Nobody Knows: Children’s Voices from the Ghetto, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and Black Like Me.
Starting in the first grade, I had been completely indoctrinated in the socio-political sainthood of Dr. Martin Luther King, and I was very inspired by his legacy. For a class assignment, I wrote and made my own illustrated book about Dr. King, out of construction paper, staples, and magic markers.
Similarly, I was imbued with a reverential respect for Abraham Lincoln, and the legend of his having so courageously freed the slaves. On an 8th-grade field trip to Washington, D.C. I gazed up in awe at Lincoln’s memorial statue on the National Mall. Many years later, by moonlight on the reflecting pool in 2005, I proposed to my wife on the steps of that monument to Lincoln. But as a younger person, nobody, none of my teachers or parents or media figures ever told me what Lincoln had actually said regarding his prognosis for race relations in America once slavery was ended–I found out about that only in recent years.
Having very little actual experience with members of other races as a kid, I was nonetheless left with stereotyped impressions from various media, which in later years I found to be pretty accurate. While visiting my grandparents on the New England coast, I began to gain real-world experience: On one occasion, a young black man stole a ten-speed bicycle from my grandmother’s driveway. During another visit, at age 15, I was shoved to the ground by a much larger black guy when he and his friends didn’t like the idea that my friends and I were partying on their turf.
It wasn’t until just a few years ago that I found out that Alex Haley plagiarized much of Roots from a white author, and was successfully sued for it. Not only that, but that key aspects of Haley’s supposedly genealogically-researched story, and its depiction of slavery, were completely falsified.
I entered Air Force basic training at age 17, and that was when my firsthand experience with blacks really got underway. In the ranks, I found many of my black fellow servicemen to be perfectly wonderful brothers in arms. Some others, not so much. But mainly, the military ethos, discipline, and overall environment made racial differences not too important, it seemed.
It wasn’t until after I left the service and ventured into the cities of Buffalo, N.Y., Portland, Oregon, and Washington, D.C.(especially in black ghetto areas), mainly to do security and law enforcement work, that I became painfully aware, firsthand, of the shocking level of sheer depravity, chaos, racial hatred, crime, and mayhem that so many millions of black children are born into. After the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, and after having had numerous horrible experiences with hateful blacks on the streets and even in office workplace settings, I increasingly began to be concerned about what I sensed was an overall problem of a worsening racial situation in our country.
Whites and blacks all along throughout the years have been told that the problems of blacks are the responsibility of white people, for which whites should accept blame, and for which whites should come up with solutions, or at least bear the brunt of whatever remedies are declared, by whoever, to be in order. Simultaneously, outrageous levels of crime and violence done by blacks are to be publicly downplayed by the media and authorities, lest it be implied that black adults, parents, leaders, and so are to be held accountable.
The general approach has been that the overall condition of blacks in America is the result of the actions of whites, and therefore, whites must be the ones to make things better, and right.
Now, Barack Obama is in his second term as president, and has played a key role in aggravating and badly worsening the state of race relations throughout his occupation of that office. Obama entered the national scene fresh from two decades at the feet of Jeremiah Wright, and proceeded to hustle and con his way into the White House, appointing the blatantly race-oriented Eric Holder as his Attorney General.
With Obama’s shamefully divisive exploitation (for the purposes of rousing and rallying key blocs of his voting base) of local events such as the Henry Louis Gates incident and the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman debacle on the national stage, Obama has shown us all that poor leadership has disastrous consequences beyond implications for the overall economy and international intrigues/wars. Many Americans have to go about their daily lives concerned for their physical safety, while those in the highest offices of the land fan the flames of racial animosity and violence.
So what should white people think and do about it all?
If we assume that the races are intrinsically equal, we have to ask about, and expect a resolution to, the issue of whether and when blacks will, overall, ever assimilate to the standards of civilized society–because enough of them haven’t yet, so as to cause a grave alarm. So, what is it that whites must do, anyway? How many programs and apologies and decades of forbearance shall it take? If we are to operate in good faith, it should not be taboo to speculate in such a way.
We’re all familiar with that old saying, “you can’t keep a good man down.” It means, just as is found in the teachings of the ancient religions, that oppression is really only the test of character–and that if someone or something is keeping you down beyond a certain point, then you must not be a good man.
I would suggest that people start calling journalists racist to their face EVERY time they bring it up.
We have a problem with race in this country now NOT because of Obama, but because of the media.
It’s time to turn the tables on the media.
They don’t even know what “racism” is... other than a tool to divide our country.
The enemy is the media... not the black community.
If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.
I want to live in peace, and I believe love overlooks a multitude of sins, but I look at the phrase, as far as it depends on you and I look at my heart and know that I am more than willing to live fairly, and at peace, but it just doesn't seem to depend on me anymore. I honestly question if the Black community (on balance) wants peace or whether they are the ones filled with racial hatred that it prevents any reconciliation.
And to this end, I believe it would be better for the national race agitators to have a mill stone hung around their necks and thrown into the sea rather than face the judgment and wrath of God that they will most certainly face on judgment day.
Bingo!!
As some have said it is mainly a question of culture. I was born five days before D-Day ten miles from the site of the first secession meeting and I don’t recall a time when relations between black and white were anywhere near as bad as now. When I was a boy white people openly used racial slurs, sometimes only around whites but sometimes in the face of black people but my parents never disrespected anyone simply because they were of a different race and they certainly never tried to do anything to harm black people simply because they were black. I am not saying those things did not go on but I was not a witness to them and my parents did not do those things. I witnessed my parents trying to help black people and black people certainly helped my parents. I only wish race relations were as good as they were sixty years ago contrary to what some say. I never knew of a white person shooting a black person simply because they were black and I never knew of the reverse happening in those days. I only wish I could say now that there are no black people shooting white people simply because they are white.
Of course in those days an openly racist black man like Al Sharpton would not have been given a television show.
It is plain to see that there are people in this country who wish to incite trouble between races and the only white people who are participating in this race baiting are the left wing fruitcakes who act as if they are ashamed of being white. Go out among the real rednecks and you are likely to find them drinking beer in the back yard with their black friends and talking about fishing or hunting. Of course I am talking about the “Cradle of the Confederacy”, I don’t know what goes on in other areas.
There’s a lucrative career in big Obozo government just waiting for you, boy/girl/thing!
I thought that throughout the Zimmermann trial.
Losing your 17 year-old son is a terrible tragedy. And I wanted to feel bad for Trayvon’s parents. I really did.
But I could not get past the question of what the heck they were doing for all those years while he was getting in trouble at school and thuggin’ it up in the streets and learning how to make purple drank. If they loved their child wouldn’t they have intervened?
Cause if this incident had not occurred he was surely on the path to being dead by 30.
Instead they have chosen to cash-in on the tragedy and allow themselves to be used as political Sandra Flukes.
Yup.
I think I know you . . .
Mostly agree.
You nailed it.
That's nice. So many people these days have "issues".
Perhaps if whites opened public libraries,
Perhaps if whites gave their life blood to end slavery,
Perhaps if whites opened up public schools,
Perhaps if whites allowed anyone to go to public school,
Perhaps if whites created colleges of learning,
Perhaps if whites gave away scholoarships and grants,
Perhaps if whites created job opportunities,
Perhaps if whites forced all businesses to serve all races,
Perhaps if whites ......
Get back to church. Start taking seriously the admonitions in the Bible about how we are to treat one another.
________________________
BINGO!!!!!!!!!!
It’s difficult to help those who don’t want your help.
What a mouthful. It would be easier if it were acronymized, which would make you an LBDLHGIACTAUMLHIVPPPACD.
2. No favoritism for jobs, college admissions, loans, anything. Blacks do just fine if they have to follow the same rules as the rest of us.
3. There has to be an outcry against the trash that's passing as a culture in the US.
4. Stabilize the population of the US.
5. Stop the recreational warmongering. It's part of what's desnesitizing many people to violence.
Whites and blacks all along throughout the years have been told that the problems of blacks are the responsibility of white people, for which whites should accept blame, and for which whites should come up with solutions, or at least bear the brunt of whatever remedies are declared, by whoever, to be in order. Simultaneously, outrageous levels of crime and violence done by blacks are to be publicly downplayed by the media and authorities, lest it be implied that black adults, parents, leaders, and so are to be held accountable.
If we assume that the races are intrinsically equal, we have to ask about, and expect a resolution to, the issue of whether and when blacks will, overall, ever assimilate to the standards of civilized society–because enough of them haven’t yet, so as to cause a grave alarm. So, what is it that whites must do, anyway? How many programs and apologies and decades of forbearance shall it take? If we are to operate in good faith, it should not be taboo to speculate in such a way.
Time for blacks to be held accountable for their situations.
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