Berrymountain. You got balogna right, and I sometimes find myself in the position you describe, being from an old Yankee family with apparent abolitionist tendencies. We might even be related somehow, as emanates from your pseudonym. My abolitionist roots are apparent to me, that is. Not so apparent when others just see a balding grampa. My point is that obvious things get noticed and accounted quickly into an evaluation and a judgment. Race is pretty obvious, so it is rapidly spun through this process. If we make race, "red and yellow, black and white" the main axis of the judgement we make, it's racist, and it's a very big deal. We will continue struggling with it forever maybe, just as we do with lots of things. If you or I perceive others' actions as racist, it may well be that they are, but we can struggle against compounding it by our reaction ad infinitum. I think the best we can do is to learn to ad a question mark in our mental notes whenever we notice (if we are willing to notice) when too big a role is being made on race -- that there may be too many assumptions or possibilities at work somewhere in the calculus. It takes some real courage, and sometimes some tight lips. Maybe some deference and risk. But we are a brave people and able to work through the inevitable failures which occur along the way.
Courage in the Face of Adversity!
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!#1.10 - Fri Oct 23, 2009 11:47