Quote:
Originally Posted by DAVES
The race card. I suggest to all that you use my simple yet difficult to actually do.
Simply in your mind reverse the skin color. If, that then reverses your view you have a problem. Sometimes we call that white guilt. I am white, I do not have white guilt.
The charge of racist is truly powerful. A big reason for that is it is impossible to prove you are not racist. Reality check. You meet someone. To claim you are not aware it is male, female, old, young, thin, fit, fat well dressed, black, white, hispanic, oriental etc etc etc. You are lying to others. More important, you are lying to yourself.
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That's one way I can see very plainly that someone has an obvious prejudice or bias. It isn't truly racism, but you don't have to be a racist to have a prejudice or bias toward or against "other."
When someone says "when I see this person, I don't see color. There are no races, we are all the same" they're lying. Either to everyone else, or to themselves. They're saying words, making sounds that they feel will prove that they're not exactly what they are: people who judge others based on how they appear.
There's no shame in having a bias. We all have them. No one is exempt. The shame is when you lie about it to prove a point that you can't prove, because the point is based on the lie.
In college, I hung out with homeless people. All colors, sizes, abilities/disabilities, backgrounds, ethnicities. And yet, when I see panhandlers here, I can feel my heart rate go up. I wonder if they'll try to reach into my open window of my car and take something. It's a bias that I'm not proud of, but I acknowledge it and accept it.
In high school, I dated a Puerto Rican, and I used to ride my bicycle in the summer to his house in a low-income neighborhood in the city to visit him. While I never felt nervous riding through that neighborhood, I DO feel nervous when I'm the only white woman an elevator of all Latino men.
Some of the homeless folks I hung out with were black. We shared a quart together on the banks of the Charles River, we played music together outside the Harvard Coop for money, we sat in Harvard Square til 3 in the morning after everything shut down, talking about life. I never felt uncomfortable with them, they welcomed me into their circle and I was blessed for it.
But you'd better believe if I saw a bunch of black guys coming toward me at night when I'm alone, I'd get nervous. I'm not proud of that. But I acknowledge and accept it.
Don't lie to yourselves, people who want to pretend that you believe we're all the same, just to prove your point. Don't lie to everyone else either. Unless you are blind and deaf, you WILL have a trigger reaction to anything you consider "other" than yourself.
Black folks have no problem recognizing this. I think their biggest issue, if you were to bring it to its absolute core, is that white folks recognize it, and will either a) deny the recognition or b) use it as an excuse to purposefully treat "other" differently.