Don't tell me who is racist or not
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Anderson Cooper 360 Takes a Close Look at Children, Parents and Race
Thursday, 13 May 2010 01:24 Thursday, 13 May 2010 01:24
CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° teamed up with a renowned child development psychologist to measure children’s thoughts about race by recreating and updating the famous Doll Test of the 1940s. The original Doll Test explored how African -American children interpret race, discrimination and stigma. Sixty years later, AC 360° and a team of psychologists led by Professor Margaret Beale Spencer, designed and executed a pilot study to help us answer one major question: where are we today?
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http://www.newsonnews.net/...
I am sick and tired of people especially white folk telling me who is racist or not.
When someone says or does something racist I know what it feels like.
You do not walk in my skin so you have no idea what it feels like.
Unmasking 'racial micro aggressions'
Some racism is so subtle that neither victim nor perpetrator may entirely understand what is going on—which may be especially toxic for people of color.
By Tori DeAngelis
February 2009, Vol 40, No. 2
Two colleagues—one Asian-American, the other African-American—board a small plane. A flight attendant tells them they can sit anywhere, so they choose seats near the front of the plane and across the aisle from each another so they can talk.
At the last minute, three white men enter the plane and take the seats in front of them. Just before takeoff, the flight attendant, who is white, asks the two colleagues if they would mind moving to the back of the plane to better balance the plane's load. Both react with anger, sharing the same sense that they are being singled out to symbolically "sit at the back of the bus." When they express these feelings to the attendant, she indignantly denies the charge, saying she was merely trying to ensure the flight's safety and give the two some privacy.
Were the colleagues being overly sensitive, or was the flight attendant being racist?
For Teachers College, Columbia University psychologist Derald Wing Sue, PhD—the Asian-American colleague on the plane, incidentally—the onus falls on the flight attendant. In his view, she was guilty of a "racial microaggression"—one of the "everyday insults, indignities and demeaning messages sent to people of color by well-intentioned white people who are unaware of the hidden messages being sent to them," in Sue's definition.
In other words, she was acting with bias—she just didn't know it, he says.
Sue and his team are developing a theory and classification system to describe and measure the phenomenon to help people of color understand what is going on and perhaps to educate white people as well, Sue says...
Print version: page 42 http://www.apa.org/...
I am tired hearing white journalists and commentators saying on tv that this or that white person who did or said something racist is not. People like Joan Walsh and Chris Matthews among others are constantly telling me from their platform who is racist or not. What the hell do they know? huh?!!!
People do and say racist things all the time and when they are called out on it they say oh, I like black people or I have a black friend, or my brother or sister's brother's friend is married to a black person so how could I be racist.
Well, how many of you have invited a blcak person over to your house.
How many of you have taken the time to read stories about black children to your kids.
How many of you have spoken to your kids about race from the time the kids were in your womb and after they were born and for the rest of their lives.
Don't tell me who is racist or not because you do not walk or live in my damn skin and I know what it feels, looks and sounds like when someone is racist.
How many of you have been in a work place and had someone say to you
"well, I have never had a black boss before? hmmmm?
How many of you have had to hear your white boyfriend say to you that his parents said they do not want you sitting around their table because you were black?
How many of you have been called "jungle bunny" at the bus stop on your first day to kindergarten?
How many of you talk to your kids everyday about being black and about how to protect themselves against racist slurs when they happen?
How many of you have had your kid come home to tell you that kids were using the N word in the bus when your kid was the only black kid in the bus?
How many of you have had white folk saying how cute your black son is when he was four but then treating him like a criminal when he was 8?
I do not care that you are liberal or progressive sometimes progressives and liberals are even more racist that republicans. You might feel that because you are Democrats that this exempts you but it does not. I have had friends who are so-called progressives or liberals and have said or done the most racist things to me with a straight face. So do not think you are exempt from being racist because you have a D after your name. You are not.
I know that some folk might come after me and say well black folk can be racist too. Well guess what? Black folk are just trying to protect their backs before some racist thing is done or said to tthem and they put up a wall. I know because I have done it myself.
Most black folk do not have a problem with hanging out with white folk or bringing them into their home but we find that this does not extend to us most times with white folk so we build ourselves up by having only black friends. You know why because we know that the risk of having a white friend opens us up for redicule from one corner or the other. If that white person does not say something racist one of their family members might. It is always there and we know it.
How many of you have lived in a all white community and your kids never get asked to a birthday party, or playdate?
How many of you have had to decide if you should choose to be black or white because you have a skin color that "might pass"?
How many of you only get accepted into a white group because you are good at sports otherwise you are barely noticed?
How many of you feel invisible and people say things around you about a black sports person or minority person or black journalist etc because they do not even recognize your presence and just spout off racist shit?
You guys can get pissed all you want at what I am saying but spend a minute in my skin and tell me that people are not being racist when they say or do things that obviously are.
We black folk get it everyday once we leave our homes and sometimes it even intrudes into our home via the television or from neighbors. We cannot escape this crap but we carry on because we have to.
So I am sick and tired and tired and sick of white folk telling me what is racist or not. And I am sick of some black folk saying the same thing, especially on tv, in order to get along. Black folk who do this make me sick and only make it harder for people like me in the real world.
I am sick and tired.
So people can vent all they want at this diary and me for saying how I feel but I have had it up to the damn sky with this crap!
Do not tell me what to think or feel about people who are obviously racist. I am quite capapble of deciding and feeling for myself.
How many of you here can say your skin color always goes before you when you walk into a room every single time?
How many of you are even made conscious of your skin color at some point during any given day every day?
Walk a day in my skin and you will feel differently.
So don't tell me who is racist or not because you cannot know that if you are not standing where I stand or sitting where I sit.
Telling someone who is racist or not only makes you feel better but it negates a minority persons experience.
We do not need your help in explaining another person's racism or yours.
We know what it is when we see it so back the hell off!
Tim Wise on White Privilege (thanx to Adept2U in comments)
http://www.youtube.com/...
Thnx for all the supportive comments from folk who 'get it".