An older neighbor just told me that he hopes John McCain wins in November, in part because...

[Orrex]

Black men are trying to get our white women.

Not Obama himself, mind you, but other black men.


Don't worry; my neighbor assured me that he's not racist, and a "black fella" that he knew in NYC once assured him that he wouldn't trade his own black wife for ten white women. It's the other black men we have to watch out for.

Especially when Obama wins the GE.


I don't know which smiley to use, so pick whichever one you think is appropriate:
:banghead: :puke: :crazy: :tinfoilhat:

[KitchenWitch]

1. Oy vey!

:cry:

[Orrex]

2. That smiley might be the most appropriate of all

Alas.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. My dear Orrex!

How sick is THAT?

I cannot believe these people really think that way!

I surely hope these people are in the minority...

ICK

:P

[Orrex]

4. Sadly, my county went for Bush in 2004

I have since spoken with several people who sincerely considered moving after that.

We'll see how things go in five months!

[DarkTirade]

5. ... holy shit.

[johnnie]

6. Hey! Where's all the white women at?

[Robb]

28. Beat me to it. nt

[Radio_Lady]

58. Welcome to the Lounge... where have you been for the last two days?

I am SO grateful to be living in Portland, Oregon. However, there are islands of discontent, and when I dared to mention one, I got pissed and spat on pretty well.

All I see is trainwrecks in the DU: P forum.

In fact, I had two of them myself.

But I am (almost) unscathed.

Have a good Monday, everybody!

I am going to the horses instead of to the dogs!

Visit our equestrian recreational therapy group: www.forwardstride.org

[Flaxbee]

7. well, then don't let him know of the plans to paint the WHITE

House Black! Egads! Horrors! You never know what these people will do!

:sarcasm: (just in case no one noticed)

[graywarrior]

8. Someone I know actually thinks Obama will make white people slaves.

[Orrex]

9. As opposed to the corporations for which people work now?

They have nothing in mind except the importance of personal liberty and the prosperity of the individual, right?

I'll take my chances with Obama over any Republican from the past, say, fourteen decades or so.

[graywarrior]

11. Seriously....same here.

This person works for the state. Go figure.

[TroglodyteScholar]

12. I've actually heard that theory too...

...from someone who doesn't seem the least bit insane otherwise. Was very shocking to me.

[graywarrior]

14. Yeah, it's scarier when you've known the person for a while

Racism is insidious

[Orrex]

20. Forgive me for reposting a related tale that you might also remember

Driving back from lunch with a friend/coworker several years ago, we stopped at a local store to pick up some kind of wicker basket for her porch. Our cashier was Indian and spoke with an accent (to my shame, I admit to the low-grade prejudice of really liking the sound of certain accents).

Back in the car, my coworker expressed her discussed. "God I hate Indians," she said. "Sometimes I think I hate them even more than blacks."

I'd known her quite well for at least three years by that point, and she'd taken me into her confidence on a wide range of subjects. But now I was literally dumbstruck, to the point that I couldn't even speak for thirty seconds or more. Eventually I just said something like "well, I think I benefit from having a more positive exposure to a wider range of cultures."

Our friendship waned pretty quickly after that...

[graywarrior]

33. Gawd....

My own brother tells racial jokes. AND he knows I despise them but he does it anyhow. Here is a guy with an IQ of 150. No matter how many times I tell him he sounds like a moron telling jokes like that, he doesn't get it.

[Orrex]

41. The worst is when they tell a joke with a surprise racist ending

So that you're geared up to laugh and might actually do so before you realize what the jokester just said.

This has happened to me more than once, and I hate it each time.

[graywarrior]

46. That's my brother!

[Chan790]

65. My brother's two best friends...

take turns trying to out:puke: each other with humor. For simplicity sake, let's refer to them both as Idiot. It makes this story easy to understand.

I'm stuck babysitting Sibling790 (He's 21 and sadly actually needs a babysitter still.) this week while my parents are in the UK and thus the Idiots are both here constantly with their entourage. Last night we were "entertained" by Idiot1 with a zombie-Hitler joke over dinner with the punchline "See...nobody gives a shit about 6-million Jews." Idiot2 goes on to demonstrate the "humor" of pegging his gf in the face with a football repeatedly over the course of the night and running around the backyard in a lightning storm carrying a metal flagpole.

I can't make them leave because mom told Sibling790 that he could have all the company he wanted. She even gave him permission to throw a party thinking I'd keep things from getting too out of hand. You have no idea how badly I want to punch these three in the face...but I'm an adult and Idiot1 is a minor (He's 17. How the $^$#% do you get to be a 17 year old rising sophomore in college?) so I'll go to prison.

Instead I have to feed them, take their keys away when they show up to my house drunk, listen to their inanity and make sure they don't kill themselves being stupid. It's not like I can leave or go in the other room...the last time I did that they decided to set off firecrackers in the house and literally scared the crap out of the cat. I'm contemplating the next time I'm at work calling the police. I hate being the responsible adult.

"Hell is other people" - Jean-Paul Sartre

Sartre - 1 Chan - 0

[LibDemAlways]

57. That actually makes me sad. My teenage daughter's best

friend is a girl whose family migrated to the US from India. They are really great people - kind, considerate, hard-working - truly among the finest people I know.

God, I hate ignorance and bigotry.

[yardwork]

31. Bit of a guilty conscience showing there.

Sounds like some white racists are suddenly aware of the way black people have been treated in this country, and they're all worried about payback.

[graywarrior]

34. That and ignorant paranoia

I just can't imagine having my mind stuck in that groove and not being able to change to another tune.

[MorningGlow]

39. That is exactly right

Some serious guilt underlies all those paranoid comments.

I remember many years ago, when I was a teenager, there was some sort of racial crime in our town--I can't recall what exactly happened--something at the lakeside amusement park, IIRC. What I do remember is seeing a lot of AA people gathering on the sidewalks, expecting some sort of trouble. Nothing happened, but that night, my otherwise mild-mannered dad who never said boo to anyone, let alone said a racist statement, had terrible nightmares of some AA men breaking into our house. He was shouting things like "Get away from here--!" in his sleep.

Guilt and fear, fear and guilt. Makes for some ugly choices.

[greenbriar]

35. my brother in law said the same thing last week

how can some be so ignorant

[khashka]

63. When Obama becomes prez...

He'll let all those evil black men steal our white women. Cuz that's all black men want to do. And then he'll make white people slaves. (But I'll give those evil black men KitchenWitch if in return I don't have to be a slave. Sorry KW, gotta look out for myself.)


How dumb can people be?

Khash.

[redqueen]

73. "How dumb can people be?"

I dunno if I want to know, honestly.

[khashka]

76. Old joke

Know how dumb the average guy is? Well, by definition half of them are dumber than that.

Khash.

[TZ]

10. ...

I'm so sorry. It really seems like you live in a wholly different world from where I live....:hug: :hug:
PS..and there are people who don't think that racism is alive and well in this country?:crazy:
According to my mom that kind of thing was commonly heard when we lived back in Cincinnati in the late 60's and early 70's...

[Orrex]

13. House of Kewpie's mom knows people who won't vote for Obama because he's, well, you know...

Perhaps you recall my earlier rant about my former coworker's "Chinese Impressions" after ordering lunch one day?

Shit. I don't even get involved in those discussions about "racism doesn't exist like that today," because it's so starkly in contrast with a reality that I see every day that I can't even conceive of how to open these people's eyes.

And if it's that obvious to your average dumb white guy like me, how much more obvious must it be to someone who actually deals with it first-hand?

[TZ]

15. Yeah I was thinking about your ex-coworkers

and I remember a flyer posted in your area that seemed to be racist too.
I've been fairly lucky..encountered on anti-semitic jackass who taught English at my HS (praised Hitler in front of the class..and definitely was biased agaisnt my sister who ended up transferring).
But I have not really encountered anything like what you see day to day. Its very eye opening to me.

[Orrex]

18. Wouldn't it be nice if the Union had won the Civil War?

I hate to say it, but I'm actually leery about public expression of my view on politics, civil rights, and religion, because my area is so creepily regressive that I fear actual reprisals. Not necessarily a burning cross on my lawn, but I don't want to have to deal with those condescending, disapproving glances when I take my boys for a walk in the evening.

So many people in my daily experience simply assume that everyone is a racist, hyper-religious conservative, as though that's the rational default position to take.

[TZ]

21. "Civil War"?

According to the signposts I saw when I vistited a friend in Georgia..Its the "War of Northern Aggression". Thank goodness she lives in the relatively liberal area of Athens, GA.

[Orrex]

23. Pretty sick

Hell, I see Confederate flag images emblazoned on vehicles every day of the week. And I live at 40° N, for god's sake! IIRC, by the time of the War of Northern Aggression, slavery didn't have too strong a foothold this far into Pennsylvania, so WTF are they doing with these damned racist banners now?

[graywarrior]

17. I remember when you posted that.

I heard a racist statement about Chinese today from someone I know who hates racism. He didn't even know he said it.

[MorningGlow]

16. That's what strikes fear in my heart regarding November

That deeply ingrained, supremely unreasonable, entirely illogical rabid racism of the "older generation". They always say "I'm not racist, but..." and always say things like "That nice BLACK lady..." when seeking adjectives to point out one particular person. I wonder if they'll even be physically capable of pulling the lever for "that black man". :scared:

Let's face it--this election is bigger than Repub vs. Dem, stupid vs. smart, fear vs. hope. It's a day of reckoning, to see just what this country is made of and how far we've come. I'm not exactly sure we're going to pass the "evolution" test. Hope so with all my heart, though.

[Orrex]

19. Excellent post!

I cringe every time I hear someone refer to "that black gentleman." I mean, why don't they just come out and use the word they're really thinking? Then, at least, we could dispense with the charade and really see where they're coming from!

[MorningGlow]

22. "...and SO well spoken!"

Yeah, I got a million of 'em, mainly because most members of my immediate family are in their 70s and 80s. Racism to them is like breathing--they don't even notice they're doing it. When you call them on it, the look genuinely surprised and say "...What? What did I say?" I still remember reading my mother the riot act when she said "That's mighty white of you" in front of me. She had NO idea what the problem was. She said she always perceived it as "white" being "good and nice" and "black" being the opposite, sort of how we refer to "white magic" and "black magic". But still...that was exactly the point, wasn't it?

But what scares me more than that generation are the idiots of my own generation, their kids, who have adopted that inherent racism even though they know better. I had a sort-of friend, a former coworker, who visited my city to interview for a job. I helped her get a room at a nice hotel, and when she arrived, I picked her up and took her out to dinner and drove her around the school district she was going to be interviewing at. Her one question: "Are there, you know, black people in this district?" She was in her late 20s when she said that. I doubt she's changed much in the past 17 years. Bet she's not voting for Obama. :grr: :grr: :grr:

[Orrex]

25. I can add a sad anecdote and a happy one

When I was in kindergarten, back in 75/76, I recall speaking with a boy named Danny who'd just been in a fistfight with some other boy, both of whom were white. Danny defended his actions to me, because his father had told him to beat up anyone who called him a nigger.

As far as I can recall, that was my first exposure to the word, and it made no sense to me then, either. But what I've realized in later years is that Danny had been instructed to attack anyone who called him "black," as though this was the ultimate put-down.

Of course, that was a long time ago, and I haven't seen Danny in about 20 years, so who knows how he might have grown up? One thing's for sure; his father sounds like an asshole.


And now the happy anecdote: House of Kewpie and I have been very careful to raise our boys (one is 4.5 years, one is 18 months) to be no more conscious of race than they are of eye or hair color. It's hard to know if we're succeeding, though I'm pleased to say that it seems to have worked with Matthew (Justin is a bit too small to comment on it, I think!)

Last year, a neighborhood boy was riding his bike up the street, and Matthew asked "is that Lexy's brother?" Well, Lexy is white, and the bike-rider is not. But it didn't even occur to Matthew to distinguish on this basis; his statement was as close to truly colorblind as I've ever personally witnessed.

Yeah, it's a small thing, but it made me feel proud that maybe we're doing something right...

[truedelphi]

32. Who-ah. That's amazing. Kids are so perfect in their own way

And you just can't improve on them.

They have to be taught prejudice. Now that our neighborhoods aren't as segregated, and many of us are happy with diversity, kids are able to live free from prejudice.

[MorningGlow]

37. That's some odd logic of Danny's father

Who would call a white kid the "N" word? Did he think the ultimate insult was to imply that a white person was black? Damn, that whole way of thinking is so foreign to me--not to mention reprehensible. :shrug:

Congrats on raising your boys right! :applause: I have every intention of doing the same with MG Jr. While we live in a rather white rural area, we do have some people of color, but I don't plan on pointing that out!

[skygazer]

42. Great story and I have another for you

I had the same goal bringing up my children - to impart respect for all people and to accentuate the similarities of all people rather than the differences.

My kids loved Sesame Street and one day, my older daughter approached me with a thoughtful expression on her face. She was about 5 at the time and she said to me, "Mom, I just noticed that Gordon is different from the other people on Sesame Street."

I cringed inside, thinking, "Oh, great - here comes the discussion about race," Gordon being a black man.

And she continued, "He doesn't have any hair." :rofl:

Racism, even the perception of race, is taught. Good on you for raising 'em right. :hug:

[Orrex]

47. We're trying! And thanks for the story!

In discussing this thread with House of Kewpie, she reminded me of another "race" incident with our older son.

Eight or ten months ago he and I were shopping, and on our way into one local store he asked "what's that black man doing?"

My heart sank, because I couldn't imagine how he'd even come up with that phrasing, and because (like you) I wasn't ready for "that" discussion.

I turned to see who he was talking about, and I saw that he was referring to a "Ped Xing" sign, with the stylized "black man" strutting across a stylized street.

It was a delightful moment of pride and guilt; pride once again at the purity of his question, and guilt at my own inability to think of his question in a non-racial context.


Sounds like you're doing (have done) a fine job with yours, too!

[ScreamingMeemie]

67. Or, in the words of my grandmother,"That 'colored' man..."

I always ask her when was the last time she heard that phrase actually used and she refuses to change. It irks me.

[MorningGlow]

69. Yeah, it doesn't sink in at all

My uncle (mother's brother), who died last year, was AWFUL when it came to race--any race. I don't even want to post this, but...(ugh)...he used to call black people "pygmies" for quite a while--and always giggled when he did--and then one day, mercifully, he abruptly stopped saying it. I wanted to say something to him, and to the other family members who spouted racial epithets, but my mother (who only occasionally says racist things) would never let me. She used the "respect your elders" excuse but also said it wouldn't help, because, you know, "old dogs, new tricks", so I had to hold my tongue and seethe in silence. I still don't know who slapped my uncle down to get him to stop saying "pygmies", but I'm grateful somebody did.

[TZ]

24. Thanks for sharing this..I'm thinking now

That I should post a thread in GD asking for personal experiences with racism. I think it would be interesting to hear..citing this thread as the inspiration if thats OK with you...

[Orrex]

26. I would be honored to help start such a conversation

Please feel free to do so!

[lifesbeautifulmagic]

27. this is going to be a hard nauseating election season, because the only

way they can win is to use the scary black man and scary brown people tactic. They can't win on the war, the economy, or any other issue, because they have screwed everything up so bad. For me, it will be a challenge, and maybe i will grow as a person because I plan to fight until death, this election is way too important.

I say it will be a challenge because I have never been comfortable confronting or debating people on emotional issues.

[applegrove]

29. Did you show him some disgust? I try to whenever someone crosses a line but

usually end up laughing nervously because I am a wimp.

[Orrex]

40. This guy frequently corners me on matters of politics and/or religion

Since he's crazy and lives just three houses down, I'm reluctant to make any statements that might come back to me in the form of a flaming gasoline can.

Still, I try to be abruptly dismissive of such conversations. If he infers from this that I just don't like discussing these topics, that's fine with me.

I'll never change his mind, so the best I can do is simply get through the conversation. More's the pity.

[sasquatch]

30. Basicly this is what he thinks will happen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJkHykGRXrw

[Fleshdancer]

36. Yep. When I registered on Obama's campaign website....

I had to sign a contract saying I would divorce my husband and marry one of those black men as soon as Obama won. :rofl:

[Orrex]

54. Well, every vote counts, after all

Bully for you for agreeing to do your part!

[KitchenWitch]

64. I am already married to a half Asian man...

Isn't that brown enough?

/sarcasm

[undeterred]

38. McCain is repulsive and Obama is hot.

I mean, one can't help but notice these things. White males should be worried.

[hedgehog]

43. What makes him think the white women belong to him or to anybody else?

This demands a smiley, but I have no idea what to use!

[TZ]

44. check out my latest journal entry

Its the racism thread I posted in GD. Got some very interesting responses.

[Orrex]

55. Good responses indeed

Except from a few apparent trolls. Otherwise it's an excellent discussion.

[LibDemAlways]

45. He's not alone. There are who knows how many

older white people who bought into racial stereotypes or fears when they were young and have never outgrown them. I know a couple of seniors, lifelong Dems, who can't believe Obama will be the nominee and could be elected President.

[Danger Mouse]

48. Oh, they're NEVER racist. And they always know this black friend.

[Dr. Strange]

49. Obama is only half black.

So he only wants half a white woman.

[Orrex]

51. Which half?

Left or right?

[Dr. Strange]

56. The front?

[Skittles]

60. naw, he wants 'em split in half vertically

yes INDEED

[fortyfeetunder]

50. And McCain is going to offer a solution?

Reinstitute miscegenation laws?

[Lorien]

52. "Our" white women?

So not only is this guy a racist, but also a sexist pig who believes that women are "owned" by men. :puke:

[Orrex]

53. Oh, that part didn't bother me.

:sarcasm:, of course.

See, part of me dismisses him as a septugenarian lunatic who'll talk about anything to anyone.

But then the other part of me is nervous about him because he's a septugenarian lunatic who'll talk about anything to anyone, and he votes.

:scared:

[QueenOfCalifornia]

59. here on MY IslanD

we have a few white women..


But we are all voting for Obama...

But we are scared of your neighbor!

[NewJeffCT]

66. Even Lovey is voting Obama?

Wow, that is a surprise to me.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

70. She used

to change McCain's diapers.

She has no use for him.m:rofl:

[Tuesday Afternoon]

61. I find that logic laughable ...so I chose this smilie --

:rofl:

thanks for the best laugh of the day for me :D

[amitten]

62. Wait...what??????! n/t

[La Lioness Priyanka]

68. sometimes i am so glad i live in nyc, where i dont speak to my neighbours.

:hi:

[Rabrrrrrr]

71. So he thinks white women are dumber than black men?

:crazy:

[redqueen]

72. ...

*sigh*

[Evoman]

74. It's not the blacks he has to worry about. It's us Latinos. We love stealing white women.

:eyes:

[NJmaverick]

75. Whenever people feel the need to offer that sort of disclaimer

They are not racist, they don't hate (fill in the blank) etc You can usually bet the bank, they are guilty of whatever they claim to innocent of.


At least that's been my experience.

[guitar man]

77. I would have said "good"

I've got one they can have, take my wife, pleeeeaase!!!

:D

:hide:

[nomorenomore08]

78. Sad, but funny in a twisted way. Looks like "Blazing Saddles" is as timely as ever.

nt

[edbermac]

79. If Hillary was Prez, would he worry about rampaging lesbians?

:wtf:

[nomorenomore08]

82. I'm sure he would be. Think of the "lesbian gangs" O'Reilly tried to warn us about, times 1000.

:evilgrin:

[KamaAina]

80. You forgot one

:nuke:

[meow2u3]

81. Tell'em....

to go burn a cross and lynch himself!