Attitudes toward Race in America
White privilege is white blindness
Some are taking a wrong and dangerous approach to the Chauvin conviction and the issue of police reform. It is an old story. They say it is causing us to ignore serious issues that affect our lives and future wellbeing. You will hear that racial issues are “a distraction” from these “real” issues. This is the worst kind of partisan nonsense. Racial attitudes have been central to our past, are inseparable from our present and will determine our future.
It is the iceberg toward which we are constantly sailing. It is the worst of wishful thinking to judge its size by what white people think they see above the water. Its presence beneath the surface and the toll it exacts affects our prosperity, health and morals. It is moronic to count any associated statistic (deaths from police violence, for example) as evidence of its size and therefore its comparative importance.
That the dominant population of this society is unable to see its full extent and nature testifies to a systemic blindness both protective of our national illusions and social privileges as well as an obstacle to the full realization of our potential.
Before we can make any real progress as a society, we need to acknowledge this simple fact.
Curious as to some opinions... I believe we all have a long way to go when it comes to equality, if that is even the the correct term. Maybe mutual respect is a better way to put it. What I really would like is another eye on something that is semi related. I have been diving deeply into my ancestry for the last 20 years. Ive noticed even marriages stay within ethnic groups and seldom were merging out in the 1800s and early 1900s. Historically speaking even within our color we had racism, more in the ethnic sense. In this field I think Americans though slow in pace, has come along way. Another thing that interested me was even the tone of our skin, I remember we had a foreign student from Thailand and she did everything in her power to not go out in the sun and wanted to keep her skin as light as possible even buying products that would help and she found it odd that here in America everyone liked to tan, to not have the pale skin. it just took me by surprise why anyone would want to do that. Even my mom told me in her generation tan was not "in" and people in town looked down a little bit from people who probably lived out on a farm and did work outdoors. ( the 40s) I guess we are impressionable as to what adults and our peers say. I grew up in a very liberal community of Oberlin which was a gift in disguise. It opened my eyes to wonderful people in all facets and to be quite honest I was very surprised when I came to Heidelberg not to see the diversity that I had experienced growing up in a college town myself. I truely believe that if parents would open kids eyes to cultural people and events and drill into them to treat all people as they would want to be treated ( but teach them also to recognize people who exploit them) and the value of working hard and that things arent handed to you, inch by inch it would bring us to a better place.
Thanks, John. I have also long argued that racism is America's Achilles Heel, its seriousness not to be minimized by any sort of wishful thinking to the contrary. Still, though, it is worth wondering what is responsible for this fact of the matter. There are probably various sources of the racism we face, and they have no doubt varied in importance through the years. I suspect, though, that at least in its current form, racism receives it oxygen from the wide disparity in the distribution of wealth and opportunity in the country. If the problem of the disparity of wealth and general prosperity could be mitigated, racism may well be starved, to mix metaphors a bit, of its nutrients. Hope springs eternal.