Most of the time I am a lurker on this list. Often though, I've wanted to point out to all sides that the discussion here only reflects the institutional racism that we live with in the US.
Our US definitions of race, besides confusing ethnicity and ancestral geography, are fallacy. Look to science, look to biology. There is really only one race: human. I understand how ludicrous our racist system is for I have given birth to two children who are not considered my race. Nor are they considered their father's race. Sometimes they are "Other," on the street they are "mixed," sometimes they are "part" and in my son's case, his official "race" was changed a couple of times by the federal government before he was 20 years old! Yet, "race" as we call it in the US, is a genetic characteristic. A child must certainly inherit race from a birthmother . . . and a birthfather. It's the only way we get "race." Of course, my children inherited their "race" from their parents and logically, that would make their parents the same race as their children. Only in the US, with its illogical racism, this is not so! Go figure. Ethnicity is another matter entirely. I have French/Irish-American cousins while I am mostly Irish. My cousins and I were never considered a separate race (but both the voyageurs and the Irish were called a 'different' race in the 18th century). My son is Irish/African/Panamanian - he can't help but to reflect a bit of these cultures but mostly, he is an American from the Midwest. My daughter is Irish/African/Finnish. And our extended family is so blended there are too many ethnicities and religions and political affiliations to list! We are proud of all the rich cultures in our family. First and foremost, my children are themselves - unique individuals . . . as we all are. ***I challenge everyone on this list to spend one week trying to purge our institutional racism from your lives.*** You no longer get to identify yourself as black, white, native american, asian, hispanic, mixed, whatever. Not even on forms. And ponder who you are if you can't use this label to describe yourself. Ethnicity is welcome! Regionalism is welcome! Localism is welcome! And please get the point - each individual is unique. I challenge you to purge our racist language from your speech patterns - you can't say "a black guy" or "a white guy," etc. Find other words, real words to describe the person you are describing. For one week, don't ask others to use the racist categories that we, in the US, take all for granted. I imagine this will be impossible for the public officials and employees, elected officials, profit and non-profit government contractors, and journalists on the list. Your jobs seem to require reinforcing our institutional racism. And some of you have the power to coerce others of us to go along with that. And finally, during this week, consider the measures we might used, not based on fallacious institutional racism, but based in reality, with assurances of dignity and privacy, to measure injustice, discrimination and disparity. Comments are welcome - but I urge you to take my challenge for just one week before doing so. I sincerely believe that we will not be able to deal with our urban problems and our societal problems until we get past our institutional racism. Take my challenge and let us know how you make out. Best regards, Shawne FitzGerald Powderhorn Eduardo Parra wrote: > Anyone who has been subjected to > racists comments, directly or indirectly are no less offended whether the > comments are "sustained", episodic, occasional, etc. When it hurts, it hurts > and when offended, one doesn't check to see oneself to determine "well, that > was offensive, perhaps I should wait until it happens again to see if I'm > still offended". Polite explanations explaining your inability to monitor > postings on this listserv while understandable, in no way make life easier > for those who are targets of racism. TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.) ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
