+100 On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 7:31 PM, Judah McAuley <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 4:10 PM, Jerry Barnes <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> "Race is a tricky thing to even define in America considering the amount of >> intermarrying." >> >> Exactly. That is why it race shouldn't be a determining factor in the >> fields we a discussing. Hell, Barrack is called black, but he's half >> white. Why is he called black? > > How do you determine your ethnicity? When the census form comes to > you, how do you go about figuring out what to put down? > > I'm white. I know this, in spite of my frequent protestations that I > was born a poor black child (which is one of my favorite movie lines > ever, I might add). My next door neighbor Linda is black. She seems > pretty confident in this and pretty comfortable with it. Are all of > her ancestors black? I don't know, never asked her. Are all of mine > white? Tough to say, honestly, we don't know anything about my > father's side of the family. I can still say pretty comfortably that > I'm white. I'm white because my family is white and when people see me > they think I'm white and they treat me like I'm white. This matters. > Know why? It is because my next door neighbor and I aren't necessarily > going to be treated the same way. > > I understand that you want to move beyond race. I'd love that. Race > shouldn't matter and I know there are a lot of people out there that > feel like if we just try and treat it like it doesn't matter then > maybe it won't matter. And a number of people want that time to be > now. I can empathize. But wanting something to be true doesn't make it > true. Race does still matter. There are still fundamental, systemic > inequalities at play and every study into the matter shows that that > is true. It sucks, but there it is. > > The reasons that programs like affirmative action were put into place > originally aren't gone yet. There have been gains, yes, but they are > tenuous at best. This isn't one of those situations where everything > is going to be all better in 10,20,30 years. These are issues that > span generations and generations take awhile. I know that people are > going to fight to have affirmative action entrenched. Everyone, white > or black, wants to see their advantages set in stone, no one likes to > lose them. But just because we don't want to see the system entrenched > does not inherently mean that it has outlived its usefulness. > > So think to yourself about what the goal was originally. Then ask how > you will know when its been achieved. Then ask yourself, honestly, if > we are there yet. I don't think you can find an honest answer that > says, yeah, we've made it. > > I want to see a bigger focus on economics, on class, on structural > inequalities in the system that aligns big business with big > government to the detriment of 90% of the country. I think that there > is more that we can find in common than that which may divide us. But > I think that it is a mistake to pretend that race isn't a real issue > anymore and that the attempt to try and take race out of the equation > ends up pushing away a bunch of people who otherwise ought to be right > there in the fight with you. > > Cheers, > Ju > >
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