Re: [Mpls] BOYCOTT MARKET BAR-B-QUE (The e-mail)

[Brobson34]

For the record, my post never accused Mr. Johnson of being a racist, which I define as discriminating against people on the basis of race. I did write that anyone who suggests that the patrons mistreated at the restaurant by the waitress and the manager should have taken their concerns to the owners is being naive and racially ignorant, and I stand by that statement, for the reasons given in my post.

The greater point I was trying to make is society cannot afford white people being indifferent to the myriad instances in which black people are regarded with fear, suspicion and dislike for no reason other than the color of their skin. The preponderance of posts from the list before I made my comments reflected that indifference. This "empathy gap" explains why many whites are angered and perplexed when someone like Al Sharpton, who made notoriously false accusations in the Tawana Brawley non-incident, can nevertheless retain enough credibility to raise his public profile and now run for President. It's because there are enough incidences where blacks are treated shabbily to have even false claims in that vein gain resonance with people.

It's interesting to hear Mr. Johnson now proclaim his total lack of interest in the matter, I guess as a means of "punishing" people who called him racist, or, in my case, racially ignorant. That he feels he can do this easily--that only the mistreated restaurant patrons and their supporters will be hurt by this recusal--proves my point. You can't engender genuine communication across racial lines without some attempt at empathy for what people endure. I'm genuinely sorry his feelings were hurt, and would ask him to go back and reread my post so he can understand what I said. But his petulant post in response helps no one, not even Mr. Johnson, beyond the small satisfaction he might have felt in writing it.
I'm gone for the next two days and so will not be able to respond to further posts on the topic.

Britt Robson
Lyndale