Sipping lattes, we call it racism.
Michael,
Livonia, MI
It strikes me over and over again that we confuse the problems of being poor with racism. Dr. Martin Luther King understood the problem isn’t race: it’s economic.
The reason we see a deepening divide, and a growing sense of racial tension, is because more and more middle-class white folks — the factory workers — are being disenfranchised by neo-liberalism. The jobs they used to have — the ones that paid for the snow-mobiles, jet skis and little camps up north — have been shipped overseas. Now, these poor white folks have nothing to do but get hooked on opioids and listen to their proto-fascist leader tell them it’s the government’s fault they don’t have work. And all the while he bloviates, their leader works with the rest of the bourgeoisie to make sure their pockets grow fatter.
These same poor white folks are the ones lighting tiki torches and blaming the black folks for their problems. To fuel the feedback loop, university professors write papers and books about our screwed-up criminal justice system and conclude it is racist cops who are to blame. And in the poorest parts of our cities, children can’t read, or write, yet cling tenaciously to the hope of “becoming somebody” by playing basketball or football. Meanwhile, the rest of us worry about whether our skinny lattes will be warm enough and that the kids won’t be late for soccer practice, and every once in a while, we’ll give a few scraps from our excess to help-out the poor kids in the city.
We would do well to remember why Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol.
The reparations will never end now
John,
England
Before I had any sense of nuance, I looked at race relations across the pond and here in the UK, the way the media had intended for me to see it. Whites are the aggressors, blacks are the victims. Granted it wasn’t always so – I’m old enough to recall various newspapers getting away with snide to blatant racism a couple of decades ago. But today is a very different world – where despite the obvious advances in equality, 1 incident too many derails everything. A black man is killed in police custody in America, by a white man. Yet another horrific statistic, and yet the numbers don’t point to a racist society at all. It’s easy to say that nobody should be dying in police custody, it’s not so easy to proclaim that white people are worse off in this area – for fear of being labelled a racist. Have nuance, play devil’s advocate – it doesn’t matter, if you’re in a discussion with the current political mindset, you are a bigot, you are a white supremacist.
Suddenly, my entire country is racist, our statues of well know philanthropists are torn down because they owned a slave or ‘had racist thoughts’ centuries ago, our memorials of war are desecrated, flags burned and previous leaders through the country’s toughest moments, are vandalized – all in the angry name of the race. Every day, our publicly funded-via a television tax- ‘independent’ broadcaster, the BBC has several more stories race-baiting, articles about how we are all racist towards black people, regardless of any circumstance or counterclaim – you have ‘unconscious bias’.
Yesterday, the BBC claimed that football commentators had a racial bias in that they were 3-6 times more likely to praise a black players ‘speed or power’ but 60% of comments about ‘intelligence and work ethic’ were towards white players. Today, black players have been ‘urged to form a coalition’. Race relations are dead according to the media. The most privileged, extortionately well paid black men in the UK, need to protect themselves from such a vile country apparently.
Forget what percentages mean. Forget the fact that the country is majority white. Forget that ‘speed and power’ are positives in the game. Forget the definition of Racism. The new one? ‘Privilege + Power = Racism.’ This of course means, black people cannot be racist. It’s a phrase that is trotted out in colleges and universities all over the west – Something I’m sure, the rest of the world looks on in bemusement. It feels like a war is coming, one that’ll be fabricated by the media, only making things worse. One moron will commit some heinous crime and it will be seen as ‘proof’ that the whole country is awash in racist sentiment. May the silent majority, black and white, stay sane.
I get called Mexican a lot.
Alex Weitz,
Lakeland, FL.
It is because I play soccer (that’s also six words)
Love soccer; not because I’m Mexican.
Mina Perez
Holland, MI
A lot of people think that “soccer” is just for Mexicans. But in reality soccer is for anyone to play, it doesn’t matter what color of your skin you are. People shouldn’t get judged because of their skin, because anyone who’s any color can play soccer. People don’t understand the fact that “ANYONE” can play any sport. Theirs lots of racism when people play sports. For example African Americans play basketball and people think that just that race can play but it doesn’t matter what color anyone can be better than anyone even if their not the same race. But I just want to let everyone know that if you love a sport go for it, it doesn’t matter what color or your skin.
“But you have to play soccer”
Joanna Pedraza,
8th Grade Holland New Tech High School,
Holland, MI.
There are a lot of people who ask me if I play soccer, and I do. But when I say I don’t play soccer they usually say “But you’re Mexican you have to play soccer” and I don’t like that, just because i’m Mexican doesn’t mean I HAVE to play it. Soccer isn’t just a mexican sport, Mexicans mostly play soccer but there are other sports that us Mexicans can play.
#hnt
#HollandNewTech
