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Originally Posted by DanaC
Lookout, your first point I agree with. People have a natural tendency to seek likeness and fear difference and to use that as a basis for factionalism...
Your second point I take issue with. The problem isnt that people refuse to let go the wrongs and resentments of the past. the problem is that the wrongs and resentments are not a problem of the past they are a problem of the present. The point is that racism *does* exist(for whatever reason) and as such demands a response. To hold ones hand up and say "That's it I will no longer bear a grudge against those who enslaved my great great grandparents " is all very well if the people who enslaved your great great grandparents werent still treating you as persona non grata and discriminating against you in a myriad different ways, some against the law and some not. If you had equal power in this new relationship that may allow you to let bygones be bygones but if you havent equal power within this modern relationship it quickly becomes apparent that the bygones havent in fact gone
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Thank you Dana. Various people, black and white, have said this in many ways over time, but people refuse to listen or at least, take it under account. It's so easy for some to say "just get over it" when it's not happening to them, directly or even indirectly. I just
will not use up what's left of my mental and emotional energy trying to convince people of anything anymore regarding racial/cultural issues.
Someone very clever once said:
**Don't tell people to get over the past when it's still haunting their
present. "Jeff"