"Andrea Richardson, hates white people"
Posted on 02/10/2014 7:52:30 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Last week, I was one of the many students who crowded the Alumni Memorial Building to hear the amazing Angela Davis speak.
She spoke about our country's history of slavery and slavery's modern incarnation: our nation's prison industrial complex.
"We should seriously question the fact that punishment can be profitable," Davis challenged. She was referring to the multi-billion dollar industry of privatized correctional facilities, one of our economy's fastest growing sectors.
The thing about capitalism is that in the right conditions, a profit can be made from just about anything — including the suffering of other people. Why do we pump billions of dollars and millions of citizens through our prisons but neglect the increasingly dysfunctional education and healthcare systems?
After I left the talk, this and many of her other points reverberated within my mind, but one stuck out to me the most.
She criticized the way race is broached as a topic of discourse in the U.S. by comparing it to South Africa.
We all (or at least, we should) know the tumultuous history of South Africa, of Nelson Mandela and his "long walk to freedom." In many respects, the violence and the unrest were much worse than that which occurred in the U.S.
Yet Davis claims that in South Africa, white and black people are better at having critical discussions about this history as well as the current situation than we in the U.S. are. I think she's right.
In the U.S., many people are often criticized — myself included — for talking about race-related issues. Davis added that many white people in our nation seem to be unable to talk about our country's racial history without feeling guilty in such a way that derails discussion.
We all need to learn how to have this conversation because it is an important one. Slavery and racism are, unfortunately, intricately weaved into our history and society. American capitalism was birthed on unpaid laborers, and it is maintained on the backs of inadequately paid workers.
Our country has engineered the plight of Native Americans, Latinos and Asians — and yet, we refuse to talk about it, because for some it is an uncomfortable topic?
Ignoring a disease does not cure it.
And as scared as people are of the disease of racism, they fear much more its public diagnosis. White America is more concerned with being called racists than it is about actually having constructive discussions of what we've inherited from our forefathers.
What did George W. Bush call "one of the most disgusting moments" of his presidency? Hint: It wasn't the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and it wasn't the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq.
It was during a telethon fundraiser for victims of Hurricane Katrina when Kanye West infamously said that the former president "doesn't care about black people."
Let me repeat: President George W. Bush perceived one of his lowest points to be a hip-hop celebrity calling him a racist.
(I'd just like to say, for the record, that there are worse things than being called racist. For example, you could be subjected to racism. But let me go on.)
There are many reasons that we need to be able to discuss race in America. For one, the prison industrial complex that I mentioned earlier disproportionately affects men and women of color. And contrary to popular belief, Trayvon Martin is not the only hate crime that has happened in the last five years.
Socioeconomically, there are still huge gaps in income and wealth that correlate with race and ethnicity. Pseudo-egomaniacal talk-show hosts like Bill O'Reilly exist.
We have work to do people.
Liberalism THRIVES on the specter of “racism”, pitting one group against another.
We need to realize they’re baiting us just as much as they are the AA community. They get us by stoking antipathy toward the “parasite class”, all while they stoke hatred of the producer class on the other side.
And I should trust your knowledge about "white America" because...... ?
There's no such thing as "white America".
Booker T. Washington called it, over a hundred years ago...
"I am afraid that there is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don't want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public."
And Ms. Davis has made a very good living by prolonging the disease.
Andrea Richardson is a sophomore in anthropology. She can be reached at aricha43@utk.edu.
Good point. We’re told all the time that we can’t understand, and more pointedly, can’t “judge”, black culture, attitudes and behavior because we aren’t black.
Wouldn’t that go both ways?
I guess not. Nothing on this issue ever goes both ways.
American capitalism was birthed on unpaid laborers, and it is maintained on the backs of inadequately paid workers.
I didn't need a picture to ID the race of the writer. Those two sentences alone did all the talking I needed. Why doesn't this whiny b**** go to South Africa and live there for 20 + years and then get back with her evidence that the citizens there are any better off without capitalism?
"Andrea Richardson, hates white people"
Angela Davis is still in demand as a speaker??? I submit this speaks ill of any university paying her to speak. As we all know, she is an admitted, an open hard-line Communist and anti-American activist from the 60’s, who properly lines the garbage bin of a sad history.
I missed all that fun, being without electricity and all, in Biloxi.
When I first started looking into Barak Hussein Obama, it became very obvious and evident to me that his being “elected” to the Office of the President would be a tremendous disaster for race relations in our country.
I have never been so disappointed in being right about something.
If she doesn't do these things, we'll know that she's just a hypocrite and a race hustler, and someone to be spurned.
Well ... I'll criticize her for talking about racism. "Racism" has been done to death in this country. It's long past time to quit talking about racism and get on with our lives. Talking about racism interferes with doing anything useful or constructive. Clearly, the black and hispanic people who make a living by talking obsessively about "racism" are either unable or unwilling to do anything useful or constructive. They are not rational, or reasonable, and they have no achievable goal. Dialogue with them is impossible and would be useless in any case; the only words I have for them are STFU.
“There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.”
― Booker T. Washington
That’s quite a plight Asian-Americans suffer.
Its a two way street missy, before you can point to the 300 years of slavery in this country let's understand the 2,000 years of slavery in Africa.
Let's talk about the hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of $$ expended to end slavery.
Let's discuss the Barbary pirates and the raids along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea gathering souls to be sold in the slave markets of N Africa.
But that's just history...
I'm willing to address the inadequacies of the US justice system, it really is atrocious, but the corollary is the crime ridden culture that feeds it.
We can discuss the sins of the "white man" and have ad infinitum, but at some point shouldn't blacks get on w/ their lives, and stop making excuses?
That's as far as I could get.....
That's as far as I got to understand EVERY thing about this article. When this country goes full blown communist, how do these victim class pundits think their world will change?
Do they think laws and their enforcement will disappear? Have they not heard of Pogroms and the lawless targeting of suspect groups in the old USSR? What a bunch of Lotus Eaters.
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