I don’t consider myself racist, but I do find myself discriminating against those with a certain attitude — which crosses all races. I watch a lot of Star Trek and Star Wars where human “race” divisions do not exist, and tend to treat any given person I meet IRL with not even a slightest hint of concern for racial dynamics, because that is none of my concern. It’s completely off the horizon.
As for attitudes, I tend not to get along well with people who have a “salesman” way of talking, or the type who seems incapable of deviating from sports-blabber, but also the kind who seems to insist that there *must* be a racism angle *forced* into a situation even if race has absolutely nothing to do with it.
A discussion on something completely irrelevant to race like which brand of saltwater taffy I prefer, will inevitably have “because you’re white” (*) injected in with brute force at even the teensiest pun-quality connection.
In my personal experience, the people I’ve encountered with this attitude of insisting that race must be shoe-horned into every topic have been blacks who are born in America, but some whites and Hispanics in my experience have done this also. A big thing to point out though, is that of the 25+ foreign blacks (Nigerians, Kenyans, and Caribbeans) I know on a personal level, there is very little to no racism at all, according to their angle, but rather, the insistence by many local blacks that there is, despite zero evidence.
Starting about 29:07 in this NPR/Fresh Air article, a Nigerian woman talks about her experiences dealing with American blacks and observations on how you’re supposed to act according to the locals, but also how she encounters whites who point her out as very different and treat her much differently than the locals.. which I think is because of her *attitude* about racism, rather than the actual presence of racism. She gets the impression she’s not allowed to think for herself about whether she’s personally offended about something like a watermelon reference, but in order to be black in America, you must be offended. Whites approach her easily and point out that she doesn’t seem “always angry” and is very different from locals and is highly personable.
I am completely convinced that it is precisely the attitude about racism itself, that perpetuates the insistence that racism exists today, rather than actual racism. An eye-opening and flabbergasting discovery I made recently is that many black parents have “the talk” with their children, and brainwash them into the belief that blacks are lower on the racial totem than others, so that their children will grow up with the same frustration they have. That is just as absurd as raping your daughters so that they will understand the low rank of women, or killing one of their siblings in front of them to demonstrate the frailty of human life — instead of letting them experience WHETHER OR NOT the world even has those kinds of stigmas in the first place. That is the removal of innocence, and to me, is emotional abuse plain and simple, and must come to an end.
The Zimmerman trial has brought those people, who insist that race matters, out of the woodwork. Despite having absolutely zero to do with race, those with this attitude (which span all perceived races) that race must be forced into every conceivable event, shout from the rooftops that white privilege abounds, regardless of whether any white people were actually involved. What these types fail to realize, however, is that Zimmerman was put on trial for a specific type of murder — not whether he was guilty or innocent of shooting Martin. It is clear he is guilty of shooting Zimmerman, no doubt about it. The prosecution, however, attempted to try Zimmerman on a specific charge that the jury did not find him guilty of.
If you stole some bubble gum from a shopping mall, and were put on trial for arson, you’d be found innocent of arson when what you actually did was theft. In the Zimmerman case, Zimmerman did shoot Martin, yes. But did he shoot him as a deranged person unconcerned with human life? No. That was the charged brought against him, of which he was found innocent. The outcome of the trial has ZERO to do with race, but with what specific charges were brought against Zimmerman by the prosecution, and whether the jury believed that charge applied to this situation.
The people upset with this verdict who force-inject race dynamics into this completely irrelevant case, are not concerned with the actual evidence or how the actual trial proceeded, but largely appear to be trying to rationalize their own inability to see any situation outside of race discrimination.
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(*) I’m an American, and I am technically mostly white, but have a tan and a Native American shaped face (and about 1/4th of Native blood) and often get asked if I am Native.
the ablestmage press 