"I, racist..."

is it better to light that one candle...or shall we remain cursed to the darkness?

A Facebook friend of mine posted a message with this comment of her own. I will reprint her initial comment as well as my reaction. (I stand by what I have told her.) This is in regard to the following link:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-metta/i-racist_b_7770652.html

"I know I'm going to get some hot replies from some, but this was important for me to read and I believe it is important to share. Like it or not. I remember being the only one in a multicultural counseling class to raise my hand when asked if anyone was racist. Two black women in the class nearly cheered. I explained that I am not admitting to hating, I'm admitting to having attitudes that absolutely are different when I am dealing with black people or white. That the issue of "privilege" was only recently clear to me is something I am ashamed of (I've always felt like an outsider being a woman, and earlier on a woman who didn't "work outside the home.") I saw a black man who was riding a bicycle cross country and I was afraid for him. I wanted to escort him through the countryside just in case.... I wouldn't have give a thought to a white bike rider out on his own."

my response was this: "Racism...am I guilty of it? Sadly... yes, I am guilty of it. I am guilty of it whenever I see that there has been a murder on the news. I look for the visage of the black person...and there it is. Whenever I hear of welfare abuse, I think of  black women with five kids, all by five different men..."baby daddies," we call them. Yup, and there they are. I cringe when I see a black man walking down my street. I ask myself, "now what the hell is HE doing there?" I fear for my safety, "Is he going to rob me or my house?" What is REALLY sad is that I do not feel this way about a person of Asian descent, or native American descent, Hispanics...or of any other heritage...but now with the news centering on the atrocities of ISIS, I look upon anyone in a hajib, chador, burka or turban the same way...what are THEY doing here? It is all in how the news media has spun it....and believe me, blacks ARE centered upon. We hear about the North side of Minneapolis, the South side of Chicago, of Baltimore or Detroit in general and tell ourselves how we wouldn't be caught dead there....but if we choose to be there, we take our chances and should something bad happen, well, it's our fault for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. When one black man is jumped by white cops, the whole world knows about it, but when one white man was jumped and beaten on the East side of St Paul, MN several years ago, beating him almost to death, did the news media point out that it was by 30 black teenagers and young adults...that this man was just in "the wrong place at the wrong time?" No! In fact, we didn't know the heritage of those attackers until the case came to trial many months later and even then, it was kept as sane as possible. 

We, you, them, they, all of us need to change our attitudes regarding race. Race basically comes down to skin color...what part of the world do you live in? The closer to the equator, the darker you will be. It was evolution, skin pigment and all.We need...I need...to realize that bad things happen...and they can happen any time...any where by any one. Good things also happen...and we need to focus on the good. We need to stop with this insane, obsessive desire to categorize people according to color and instead....congratulate them for being "one of us." Who is that "us?" We are all God's children."


I will also say this: I don't know how in life, throughout history, that "white" people..Caucasians, saw themselves as being better than those from whom they stole land from. Read through history...I mean...really read it. This past year, because I was working with my teenaged nephew on it as part of his home schooling, I, in my now mature age of 52, saw what I didn't see in high school...and what the teachers refused to teach; that is, that Caucasians would go explore vast new continents, immediately plant that flag on its soil for their country, turn its natives into slaves, and all as if it was just meant to be. You look at North America, look at how the natives today are still on the reservations the US government has told them they can "have." Land, in their minds, was not for the taking and most certainly, not for giving away...it was there for all, given by the Great Spirit. Caucasians foistered their religions on them.  We have denied them much and then, call them "lazy Indians" because they have nothing except poverty and alcoholism.

Our attitudes need to change. In my feeble mind, I can see no way out of this hole we have dug. Not by myself. I can preach it til a hundred years from now that what this world has been doing is wrong, but unless there are others who also have the desire to make it right...it just will never be so.