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Op-Ed: Thomas Chatterton Williams: My black privilege
Los Angeles Times ^ | January 3, 2016 | Thomas Chatterton Williams

Posted on 01/03/2016 1:07:31 PM PST by EveningStar

A couple of years ago, I participated in an Aspen Institute symposium on the state of race. During the roundtable that followed the panels, as I spoke about my experiences growing up black in the 1990s, I was interrupted by a Latino sociologist and former gang member from UC Santa Barbara. People who care about people of color, the professor instructed me, ought to focus their energies on continued systemic racism and forget about anything so nebulous and untrustworthy as observation. Like it or not, I was the victim of greater social forces. It did not matter that I had come to see my life as something of my own making -- the evidence of my senses was useless...

While prejudice and inequality have proven tenacious, if we take the expression "black lives matter" seriously, we must also accept when black autonomy, equality and even privilege exist. To do otherwise is like overprescribing antibiotics: a valuable defensive tool grows impotent through overuse. Our reflexive indignation fosters a laziness of thought that, paradoxically, can reinforce some of the very anti-black biases it hopes to wipe out.

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: afroturf; astroturf; bellkkkurve; blackkk; blackliesmatter; blacklivesmatter; blackprivilege; california; oped; racism; redistribution; reparations; whiteprivilege
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To: Bodleian_Girl

I read his book, too. His father had him doing SAT prep and playing chess from the time he was a toddler, practically, and eventually he was (so to speak) just too smart to act stupid.


41 posted on 01/04/2016 2:18:36 AM PST by Tax-chick (Maximizing my cultural appropriation.)
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To: TexasFreeper2009
If you are an ugly fat and black... you blame the difference in treatment on racism.

That's exactly the problem. While racism does exist, black folks have been programmed by the media, and everyone around them, really, to view just about any slight as being racism, when it's just a fact that some people are rude, or situations happen for any number of reasons. However, if your only lens is 'racism', then that's what you see.

42 posted on 01/04/2016 7:58:39 AM PST by zeugma (Last time I was sober, man I felt bad. Worst hangover I've ever had.)
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To: Farmer Dean

Won’t argue with you there!

They have a mob mentality and beyond reason.


43 posted on 01/04/2016 2:11:36 PM PST by Tarasaramozart
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To: Bodleian_Girl

He is an interesting person. When my nieces were growing up, my sister and her husband lived in a predominantly middle-class black neighborhood.

People were gainfully employed. Their neighbors were community and family oriented. Their father was a successful small business person and their mother, my sister worked for a non-profit. Both stressed education and hard work as well as responsible behavior. They also enjoyed camping and hiking as well as horseback riding.

Your statement that the author had a slightly easier time with hardcore racism from whites is not clear to me. Kind of dense here. I think a big part is being in an environment that does not promote a victim mentality and does promote personal responsibility.


44 posted on 01/04/2016 2:39:57 PM PST by Tarasaramozart
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To: Bodleian_Girl

And I do not see where race has much to do with it.


45 posted on 01/04/2016 2:41:40 PM PST by Tarasaramozart
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To: Tarasaramozart

I guess I’m just speaking in general to some degree. It might be better said (by me) that the writer’s light skinned appearance inoculated him somewhat.


46 posted on 01/04/2016 4:39:44 PM PST by Bodleian_Girl (Hello world!)
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