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Re: You know what's eating me up about Trayvon Martin right now?
Yep. Oppression Olympics aside, this thread made me want to cry. It also made me realize how [sheltered? Blind? Ignorant?] I am because I didn't really realize that minority families just automatically had these talks. And it makes my stomach turn.
20motherfucking12.
Jumping in here because HAB and Smo have covered my point on the the entire Jewish = Black debate, but again, of course white folks don't have this conversation. It's not one that you'd EVER think to have because it's not based on the set of experiences you face in this country.
One of my FB friends (who's an AA History Prof) posted a link to this post by Tim Wise. http://www.timwise.org/2012/03/trayvon-martin-white-denial-and-the-unacceptable-burden-of-blackness-in-america/
One of the best parts of his commentary was this ...
" Indeed, if you do not know that Martin?s race (and more to the point, Zimmerman?s racism) is central to the former?s death at the hands of the latter, it may well be that you are incapable of evercomprehending even the most obvious manifestations of this nation?s longstanding racial drama. Worse still, it may suggest that you are so bereft of empathy as to render you morally and emotionally dangerous to decent people.
And by empathy here, I don?t mean merely the ability to feel for the family of this murdered child. I?m guessing most all can manage that much. Rather, I refer to the kind of empathy too rarely attainable, by whites in particular, in the case of black folks who insist, based on their entire life experience and the insight gained from that experience, that their rights to life and liberty are too often subject to the capricious whims of those with less melanin than they, and for reasons owing explicitly to the color of their skin."
BASED ON THEIR ENTIRE LIFE EXPERIENCE.
Lynching. Emmett Till. Rodney King. Rosewood Massacre. Trayvon Martin. Driving While Black. Black folks didn't pull this shyt out of thin air. I remember in college there was a lot of debate around media stereotyping of black males. So here we are 15 years later watching that stereotype play out because each and every black male is automatically slangin' crack rock on your street corner.
Slight Tangent: Another thing I also find interesting was that the history of Sanford was that this city swallowed a nearby all black city whole. Just annexed a the all black city and destroyed everything that once was. (I'll come back and post the link.) Dismantled everything. Renamed streets named for black city founders. That broke my heart.
eta: has anyone heard the song Jasiri X did for Trayvon? http://theurbandaily.com/music/jonathanhaily/jasiri-x-raps-for-justice-in-trayvon-martin-murder-video/
Yes. I heard it Tuesday on Mark Thompson's show. *smh* Powerful right there.
First I want to send some huge hugs to all of you that have to deal with this. It is so sad.
However, FWIW I did not take MrDobalina's comments as a way to divert attention from black issues to Jewish issues. I completely took it as a way to show empathy..to show she cared in her own way. She has repeatedly said they are NOT the same. And I most certainly did not get the feeling that she was trying to say well, I have it bad too, so enough.
I agree in the sense that I think her intent was to empathize. I do think there is validity in what HAB is saying though. Things about religion, culture, race, sexual orientation, gender, etc. all have differing challenges and when we try to lump everyone's experience into something similar it gets watered down, versus giving each issue the attention and nuanced discussion it deserves.
Fair enough. I understand. Although understandable because emotions are high, I just think the reaction to MrD was unfair.
I just want to say that I am a true believer in good things coming out of bad ones and (although some may call me naive) I want to truly believe that this young man's death will change people...and if so, he didn't die in vain.
I sure hope so. My hope is that we can finally put this post-racial society BS to bed and have some honest conversation about race in this country. And to be fair, it's not just black people. We've all made comments about how divisive politically commentary has become. All Muslims are terrorists. All Hispanics are dropping anchor babies. All black women are welfare queens. All Women on contraception are sluts.
And maybe the media will examine themselves too. These are the images blasted from major media outlets. They have a role to play in this as well.
Yup. It's privilege. That's why MrD's comments are off; when you sympathize with personal experience, you're ignoring your privilege.
I think the most important thing that we can do as parents of white children is to make sure that they are aware of injustices as well as of privilege. I worry about this a lot because we live in Whitey McWhitersonville, aka The Bubble, and the lack of diversity worries me. I want to make sure that my kids are exposed to and aware of these issues.
Ahh the bubble. Yep, it's still as white as it was when I grew up there. Not that Seattle is all that much more diverse, but at least Sam has friends from daycare and elsewhere who are AA, Chinese, Indian, and from all corners of the globe in terms of background. That's one nice thing about the sciences - people from all over the world come to the US to train so we'll always be surrounded by people of all shades. I could not have said that about where I grew up. I hope it counts for something.
The challenge that I foresee is sort of what eclaires was getting at - it's not that I want him to actually SEE racism in action (because it's awful full stop), but I do want for him to have more than an intellectual understanding of the horror. And I don't know how to accomplish that. Maybe I can't. Maybe that's privilege.
I am a runner, knitter, scientist, DE-IVF veteran, and stage III colon cancer survivor.
I think you can at least try to expose your child to issues of prejudice through art, literature, music, etc. I couldn't find the column I referenced earlier, but I'm serious when I say that reading a newspaper column written by a black mother when I was 15 or 16 opened my eyes to what it's like to be a black male in this country. Not to the extent that I personally or internally understand what it's like to be a black man or raise a black boy, but at least to the point where I was aware of the prejudices and was able to recognize that black Americans have an experience that I don't. We read Their Eyes Were Watching God in high school, which gave me a new perspective on the struggles of black women throughout history. Maybe a year ago, I finally watched Do the Right Thing. Stuff like this has actually had a profound effect on me.
I wouldn't even pretend that reading a few books or watching a few movies will rid the world of racism or is a true substitute for interacting with a diverse group of people, but I think it's at least a start in trying to talk to your kids about these issues.
THis is what I absolutely want to do. I am just afraid it won't be enough. Seriously, one of my biggest fears as a parent-to-a-child-that-does-not-exist (ha!) is raising an as$hole, or worse, and ignorant as$hole.
I didn't read the invisible backpack of priveledge (my name for it since I can't think of the real one right now lol) until COLLEGE. Why is that? Why are we not exposed to more things like that in HS or even Jr. High? I think that the only book that really touched on race that we read in HS was To Kill a Mockingbird - and I was in the honors track. (We did read Twain in Jr. High though).
HAB (and others), I am so sorry for the fact that you have to have these kinds of worries and discussions with your children. It's sick and wrong that there are people out there who hate and discriminate so blindly. And it's made worse by the many, many people who claim racism no longer exists in this country, in this age.
This is shitty though because when you are being followed and chased your first thougt isn't to tell the aggressor I'm unarmed.
Good point. I could see this if you're being followed by a cop, but by a random guy on the street? The LAST thing I'm going to tell him is "I'm unarmed".