General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Is there anyway now that we can be considered not racist? [View all]Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)The tone is angry and provocative, but the person who wrote that has a right to that anger.
And there's a large and valid point that piece makes: even "liberal" and progressive whites often seem to feel(or to convey the impression)that we believe ourselves entitled to tell black and brown people what they can say and what tone they are allowed to say it in when trying to tell us white folks what they are actually going through and what they are trying to do about it.
About 90% of that piece could be summed up as black people saying to us "knock off the paternalism and the patronization. Listen to us and be willing to change. And don't tell us we have no right to be angry or that everything is now paradise for us just because we aren't riding home to the slave quarters in the back of the damn bus. And don't take all the credit for ending Jim Crow when we did most of the hard work and most of the marching and most of the dying. And if what happened to that Jordanian pilot reminds us of what white folks did to some of our ancestors, we have every right to say that".
So don't be hypersensitive and defensive. We white folks are not being persecuted here.