Another blogger asked the question, “why is it always about race when a white person kills a black person? Why is it never about race when a black person kills a white person?”
For real? I really need to explain this to people? Here, watch a video:
Okay, you’re back? Good. Here’s why it’s about race: It’s about race because it’s about race.
As a white man, I have never had an organization dedicated to the proposition that I should be rounded up, uprooted from my home, and sent back to Europe where I belong.
As a white man, none of my ancestral relatives were ever lynched and hung from a poplar tree for the crime of Voting While White.
As a white man, I have never been pulled over for Driving While White.
As a white man, people do not cross the street when I am walking down the sidewalk because white men are just scary, y’know.
As a white man, I have never had a store detective follow me around a store because all those white men are criminals y’know.
As a white man, when travelling through a rural part of America I have never been ignored and failed to be seated by the waitresses in a restaurant with plenty of empty booths because they don’t like white men around those parts.
As a white man, I have never been steered to the used car side of the dealership when I walk in to buy a new car, and have never had a problem getting a test drive of whatever car I wished to drive.
As a white man, I have never had to fear that a racist vigilante might stalk me and kill me because white men are suspicious and don’t belong in this neighborhood.
None of that is true of my friends of color. Even those who dress well and drive nice cars are regularly pulled over for Driving While Brown, which is especially annoying to my Indian friends (I have a friend from India who looks like a nice Hispanic lady who is regularly pulled over, then let go just as swiftly as soon as the police officer notes the Indian name on her driver’s license). They’ve been refused service, they’ve been followed around in stores, they’ve had people cross the street to avoid them, … and it’s not because they dress shabby. They’re all professionals and dress professionally. The only explanation is the color of their skin — something that they can do nothing about.
There is no national history of black people lynching white people. There is no national history of black vigilantes racially profiling white people and stalking them. There is no history of major organizations of black people dedicated to the proposition that all white people should be rounded up and sent back to Europe. There have never been laws passed by black people to deny white people the vote. And the reality, as I pointed out earlier, is that white victims of black criminals are relatively rare. There’s no “there” there. That’s why white-on-black crime is often about race, and black-on-white crime isn’t — because, well, it often *is*, while the contrary is not true, there just is no national history of blacks targeting whites based on their race. The statistics say it just doesn’t happen. Of course that’s numbers, and math is hard, as wingnuts are wont to say. So it goes.
– Badtux the Race Penguin
“As a white man, people do not cross the street when I am walking down the sidewalk because white men are just scary, y’know.”
This one might change now, at least in Florida!
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That’s only true of USA.
South Africa, OTOH, during the last 20 years…
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Why is it, as a surbanite, that my black friends, when we go to restaurants, downtown, insist that we cross the street, to avoid the one that looks like a gangster?
Stereotypical? Safety? My being with them, an old fat white man? My hispanic friends, Jewish friends, etc, same reaction. I’m first generation american, I call bs, on america. Melting pot, means fitting in, what if you don’t want to fit in?
You see there are some people who take free will to the limit, and with our society, where they have encouraged laws that do not limit free will….the oblivious will rule.
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I’ve had this conversation with a roommate who was in his 40s and facing a bleak, bleak future of unemployment. He wasn’t naturally predisposed to be angry at all, but, in his frustration with his circumstances, he would go online where the sites he found most readily encouraged him to frame things racially. I was able to talk him around to seeing that however dire his misfortunes (or mine either) the hardships our black neighbors faced were magnitudes worse. That, plus the healing company of my wonderful dog, seemed to pull him back from the brink. Still, I think I can see the arc of the whole hamster wheel here, and everybody on it is hurting. At least in my little corner of our dysfunctional polity.
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Evil person that I am, I’ve been speculating about what would happen if President Obama had expressed the thought that we have racial equality in our great land and a government of laws and that young black men ought to show their appreciation by buying more handguns, getting concealed carry permits, joining the NRA, going to firing ranges frequently, and practicing practicing practicing … because you never can tell when you’ll run into some kind of nut.
My suspicion is that this’d dismay a bunch of people — not necessarily all of them gun rights advocates.
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Stu, I am of course talking about the United States.
Jim, my Indian friends do not dress like gangsters, do not act stereotypically black or Hispanic (because they’re not, duh) yet are racially profiled just as much as the people who *do* dress like gangsters. Which utterly baffled them the first few times it happened, I had to explain to them what was happening at which point a light bulb went on. They still don’t understand why so many Americans outside of the Bay Area are so hostile to them — the husband is very dark-complected and looks black, the wife is somewhat light-complected and looks Hispanic, and people seem to judge them as a mixed-race couple based on their skin color and treat them accordingly. Are you saying that to “fit in” they should change their skin color? Seriously?
Someofparts, when people are hurting they look for scapegoats. Or have scapegoats helpfully pointed out to them by the *real* people hurting them. Funny how that works, hmm?
Mike, yah, why isn’t the NRA pushing for higher gun ownership by black people? After all, black people have a lower rate of gun ownership than whites, and no long-standing culture of gun ownership. Surely that’s an opportunity for evangelism and an influx of fresh blood into a moribund organization, right? 😈
– Badtux the Easily Amused Penguin
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Right, perception is part of their problem. Same as education is part of the problem here. But bad laws are everyones problem. That law in florida dictated some-one is dead. Was the law enacted to save a community? No, to save a few tax dollars. When I was young, if you called for help, it was there within minutes. That takes tax dollars. Now how long does it take, just reading an article of one of my favorite towns, Detroit, 11 minutes minimum. Some one cut the tax base terribly. And look what happens, then you get laws like florida, which all tea partiers want to push, more guns in the neighborhoods. Should have let the mob take over, they at least protected their group. I’m not against guns, just the illegal guns, At least the mob owned their guns. And knew what they were for.
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BT,
Do you see the contradiction in your defense of blacks as being the only group persecuted in America on the basis of the way they appear?
Here’s your example:
“I have a friend from India who looks like a nice Hispanic lady who is regularly pulled over, then let go just as swiftly as soon as the police officer notes the Indian name on her driver’s license.”
She LOOKS Latina, so she is pulled over, but released once the officer sees she is Indian. Zimmerman LOOKS “Hispanic” — do you understand that you can defend neither Z. nor Mr. Martin, Jr., on the basis of the prejudice to which they have been subject?
Look — I am not arguing for a “post-racial” America; that is absurd. But your compassion seems awfully constricted. KKK members single out blacks AND Jews as their two biggies, but you ignore the latter. In fact, ISTM most “Good Liberals” are anti-Semitic. When you ask who has been subjected to “an organization dedicated to the proposition that I should be rounded up, uprooted from my home, and sent back to Europe where I belong”, I can think of many peoples besides blacks who have been subjected to this actual treatment, and yet they do not walk around with a chip on their shoulder; they move on, for that is the only hope for living a life outside of hatred.
The “problem” for us is our petty vested interests, our bigotry and our thought that we will have a pet group whom we will defend. Enlightenment doesn’t work that way. All are free or none are free.
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The difference is that I can’t tell that you’re Jewish by looking at you. Sure, you may have “Jewish features” whatever the f*** that is, but so do lots of non-Jews after so many centuries of mixing. So any bigotry I may have in my background against Jews is not triggered by merely looking at you — I have to actually interact with you and discover that you’re Jewish first.
Regarding ZImmerman looking Hispanic — not really. At first glance I wouldn’t have the slightest idea what race he is. Maybe Italian mixed with Anglo. So much mixing has gone on of the ethnicities that I can’t just look at him and know what race he claims to be. It makes a difference. I seriously doubt that he has been followed around in a store because all those people who look like him are criminals, or that he has ever been refused service in a small-town restaurant because of his skin color. Those are experiences that blacks experience every day. Even the Attorney General of the United States of America. A.G. Holder is mature enough to handle the racism. That does not necessarily apply to a teenager, especially a 16 year old who just turned 17.
Note that while the experience of blacks in America has been especially filled with racism, I’ve in other places on my blog noted racism against Hispanics. Arizona in particular has drawn my ire because they seem intent upon making Hispanics second-class citizens despite the fact that most of the Hispanics that I encounter are better Americans than most Americans — hard-working, family oriented, go to church every Sunday, etc. I have the same opinion of the “Patriots” who get together to “patrol” the border as I do of the KKK — i.e., that they’re little more than a bunch of good ole’ boys looking for someone to hate in order to avoid doing something about their own pathetic little lives of pointlessness and futility. But that was not the point of this post, so I did not go there in this post. You’ll have to read other posts on my blog for that.
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Pathetic attempt at race-baiting, BT; an embarrassment.
BTB — as w/ you, you have no idea what my religious or ethnic affiliation is.
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Uhm, the “you” was rhetorical. The point is that I cannot look at your face (which is in your picture, BTW) and tell whether you’re Jewish, Italian, German, English, or whatever. Nobody’s going to follow you around the store just by looking at your face. A black person has no choice as to the color of his face however — even a well dressed black person like Barack Obama may find himself followed around by store employees who “know” that all “those” people are thieves.
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