M Smith wrote:
"If we (people of color) "played the race card" every time we had be violated, there would be someone talking every second of the day." That's my point exactly Mattheas. Someone, somewhere is playing racial politics with almost every incident concerning racial minorities. I'm not trying to deny that racism exists or intimate that it does not negatively effect minorities. But I am saying that it is not part of the formula in every single issue that negatively effect minorities, and to interject the notion that nothing bad would ever happen to people of color if racists did not exist is false and creates an atmosphere that perpetuates doubt. "I wonder whose standards those facts are being judged? I wonder whose reality we must deal with. The victim or those "looking" on and "judging", primarily those who are not of color." I wish I could answer that question Mattheas, but unfortunatly, the politics of racism won't even allow "we the people" to agree as to who the "victim" is. Allow me to use a hypothetical situation (that occurs in fact all too often) to illustrate what I'm talking about: A gang member walks up to a group of rival gang members of the same race, pulls out a gun and shoots them all. How many times have we read commentaries that accompany descriptions of these types of crimes that attempt to excuse them because of racial oppression? Do you think my "hypothetical" situation was caused by oppression? Oops, wait. Before you answer, I forgot to say I was speaking of La Cosa Nostra (the Italian Mafia). ===================================================== Would you honestly have answered the question the same way as you might have been ready to before I changed the race of the perpetrators? Some assuridly would not have, racism, unwitting or overt, cuts across racial boundries. In this case, I believe that the cops were wrong, but I don't think they acted because of the race of the guy that was killed. If we can agree that the police departments have, as an institution, taken up a far too militaristic attitude toward the public in general, we have a starting place to join in opposing and hopefully, changing it. TJSWIFT Saint Paul __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Try FREE Yahoo! Mail - the world's greatest free email! http://mail.yahoo.com/ _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
