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Originally Posted by DanaC
Funnily enough the very thing you point out as part of the reason for your skepticism is also the thing that suggests to me most strongly that the problem does exist as it's been stated.....to whit, the fact that it's usually black people who claim racism against themselves and their fellow blacks.....I hear that and it occurs to me that it's usually the white folks who are claiming racism as a nonissue. Perhaps that's because the life experience of a black man ( or woman) intorduces him to racism and bigotry at a very young age and in an intimate way.
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or maybe it is that many white people like me have been accused of racism by those who cry the loudest. these is an accusation that makes all thinking individuals step back in a moment of introspection. i have always come away from those moments acknowledging that if you think the world is out to get you, it is very easy to find examples of wrongs directed at you. i know, for myself, that i hold no racist ideologies. in fact, my lack of racism is often what causes the racist card thrown in my direction. i don't care what color a person is. for good or bad, i don't care. they will receive no special attention, positive or negative, due to skin color. i feel no obligation to provide ANY special consideration for skin pigmentation. i am responsible for my actions alone, i hold no historic guilt and will not be yoked by someone else's guilt. a person is just a person in my eyes.
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dana snuck in ahead of me: always look just beyond the numbers too. when i was in college, my minority relations professor (who hated me
) required that we look into a recent news story in the area. the largest fire department in the area had fewer than 10 black firefighters out of well over 100 total firefighters. everyone wrote papers about the obvious racist bent of the FD. i wrote mine on the fact that black firefighters hired vs compared to black firefighters applied was a much better ration than white firefighters hired vs white firefighters applied. his predictable response was that if my research was accurate that it only proved the FD was racist for not going out and finding more black applicants. this FD was very popular, they didn't do much in the way of recruiting - they would show up to the local highschools and colleges for the pre-graduation job fairs to hand out fliers, that is it.
but that goes to show that if you look hard enough, you can find a racist bent to anything.