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I assume many/most of us have friends/coworkers/acquaintances who are black/white (the opposite of whatever you are). I'm also going to guess that many of us here feel (you may or may not) that race relations have taken a backward step in the last few years.
Have your feelings on the macro state of race relations in the US impacted your more personal dealings with people of another race?
Do you care?
On the micro level, mine have not, but on the macro level, I've definitely become more cynical and negative towards hood rats, protesters and race baiters.
Let me guess when those "race relations" took a "backward step"? The minute President Obama was elected! I am sure you like the Quiet Negroes who all they do is "shuck & jive" for you?
Race relations in this country are a joke. As someone who is Brazilian-American and do no really fit into any of the pre-established ethnic categories defined by the US Government, sometimes I just have to laugh at some of the things I have experienced.
My parents speak Portuguese and I have given up on trying to explain to so many ignorant people that I don't speak Spanish and I come from a different culture, yet, I still get the "Hola, como estas?". People are so incredibly ignorant.
I live in Iowa, I like country music, drive a pick up truck, I am a staunch Conservative yet I people make the assumption that because I am "non-White", I must be a Lib or a Democrat.
I have lived in this country most of my life, I love it, would not want to live anywhere else but it is hard to feel comfortable here when you are surrounded by so much ignorance coming from all different races.
One thing in particular that I find ridiculous about race relations in this country is the fact that some people have been brainwashed to believe that they are "different", not "normal Americans", therefore everything they do must have an ethnic component to it.
Example: Guy considers himself a "Latino", whatever the hell that means, so he can't just watch regular news programs, he needs to watch Latino news. He can't just read a regular magazine, he needs to read the "Latino magazine". He can't just read the regular FOX News, he needs to watch FOX News Latino. He can't just watch the regular music awards, he must watch the Latino music awards.
I find this stuff so incredibly STUPID!
Some stupid lady from one of the Hispanic channels interviewing Charlie Sheen. All her questions were like "Are you ashamed of being a Latino?" Do you embrace your Latino heritage? Charlie was like "Well, I am a white guy from California" Haha
My parents immigrated here, they always encouraged us to assimilate and adapt and what that meant to me was to become an American, regardless of our ethnic background or race.
The problem with assimilation in America, presumably to the dominant culture, is that one assimilates the good as well as the bad. I met a guy from Namibia, black as me, who came immigrated to some small town in South Dakota before moving to a bigger city after 11 years in the small nearly all white town. He sounded like Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh. I mean, nearly everything or point he attempted to make sounded like a script from the right.
I think its human nature, for maximal survival, to take on the traits and characteristics of those who are dominating and in control. You take on their beliefs, their fears, their culture, their prejudices....etc. The reason basically is that one has a greater chance of being promoted by "them" if you take on their beliefs and doctrines, than if you do not. If you are not with "them" then you are a threat of being against "them" and hence promotion is more difficult.
This Namibian then started telling me how all the problems in the black community are the result of no fathers. I then asked then why the same level of problems do not happens to white kids without fathers and he had no answer. I then countered by asking him when problems are blamed on say...poverty, that the rebuttal is always to present evidence of people who lived in poverty, usually themselves or others, and who turned out successful in later life, hence, debunking the role of poverty as causation. Yet, this line of reasoning is never followed by the right in regards to fatherless homes. What about all the fatherless homes where the kids turned out good and even successful? Again, no answer. All he knew how to do was assimilate the right wing argument.....but did not know how to defend it...because the shows that are propaganda mediums for the right do not allow guest, as a general rule, that could defeat their propaganda in debate.
I concluded with him by saying that the black problem in America is either the result of interference or its intrinsic and he needed to pick which one.....because those are the two root possibilities and he needed to understand which side he was arguing on behalf of......as a black man, because he was arguing the latter.
One thing in particular that I find ridiculous about race relations in this country is the fact that some people have been brainwashed to believe that they are "different", not "normal Americans", therefore everything they do must have an ethnic component to it.
Example: Guy considers himself a "Latino", whatever the hell that means, so he can't just watch regular news programs, he needs to watch Latino news. He can't just read a regular magazine, he needs to read the "Latino magazine". He can't just read the regular FOX News, he needs to watch FOX News Latino. He can't just watch the regular music awards, he must watch the Latino music awards.
I find this stuff so incredibly STUPID!
Some stupid lady from one of the Hispanic channels interviewing Charlie Sheen. All her questions were like "Are you ashamed of being a Latino?" Do you embrace your Latino heritage? Charlie was like "Well, I am a white guy from California" Haha
My parents immigrated here, they always encouraged us to assimilate and adapt and what that meant to me was to become an American, regardless of our ethnic background or race.
What's wrong with Fox News Latino if it's reporting the same news?
What's wrong with the Latin Music Awards? We compartmentalize things because there's a market for it.
You can roll with the punches and chalk it up to simple capitalism, or you can complain about it
The reason that many Latinos watch Latino news is because it is in Spanish. In fact, what "Latino" news program is there on television that is not presented in Spanish?
Other than the Spanish language broadcasts, Latinos watch the same English news channels as anyone else.
I concluded with him by saying that the black problem in America is either the result of interference or its intrinsic and he needed to pick which one.....because those are the two root possibilities and he needed to understand which side he was arguing on behalf of......as a black man, because he was arguing the latter.
You offer the false alternatives of 100% interference OR 100% intrinsic, when it could be a % of each.
As for the OP's question, I care about race relations more than I do about gas prices and teen pregnancy, less than I do about health care and when the snowplows will reach my street.
Maybe because black people constantly complain about white people? Even the President of the United States can barely make a statement without referencing our country's history of unequal treatment, racism, etc. It's constant.
You want to talk about race, let's talk about it.
FYI, you cannot talk about race in this country without referencing our country's history of unequal treatment, racism, etc. So if you don't want to hear about that, then you don't want to talk about it.
Our current race relations ARE based on our country's history, both as a nation and geographically by community.
I know, as a black person who is very interested and studied in both local history and black American history in general, it is odd, that when people ask me about my view on specific racial issues going on right now - like Ferguson, or out of wedlock births, or crime, or poverty and education as they relate to black people - many times the person asking, and not just whites mind you, want to dismiss the fact that our criminal justice system has a long record of unequal treatment of black people both as victims of crimes and as perpetuators of crimes. That black people have always had an OOW birth rate that is double than whites and that that is no different today. That crime rates in our country, especially in regards to arrests rates on FBI tables, which is something frequently used here on CD to prove some sort of super-criminality of black people, are based on arrest that are based on the historical unequal treatment of blacks under the law and how blacks have always been targeted as the perpetuators of crimes, many times, black people feel is unwarranted and is primarily race based. The questioner is usually upset also when I tell them FBI data is based on arrests, not clearances and that even if you took all the black people were were arrested in any given year, they don't even come out to 1% of the black population, so to say that blacks are pre-disposed to criminality is downright stupid. (I also tell them that I do know someone who was arrested for murder in 2009 and so he is on that arrest table. He had went out to a club and there was a shooting and about 12 black guys were arrested and charged with murder. At trial, all but 2 of them were acquitted - including my friend, so you could take 10 black "murders" off the list for 2009 and I'm sure there are other similar stories in regards to those statistics). In regards to poverty, many don't know that more than half of all black people in this country in the 1940s-1960s lived in poverty. That rate has steadily been dropping since the 1960s and has been cut in half since 1960 whereas 75% of black people do not live in poverty today. On education, people downplay the role of integration on black children, many blacks today and even back then did not support integration as in heavily racialized areas it put black children in psychological and educational harm and effects of that in many areas can be felt today.
Earlier in the thread, I mentioned the subtle racist attitudes that have longstanding effects on future generations. How people in my own family who were qualified to be supervisors at factory jobs, where they could make more money and live in nicer areas, were not allowed to do so because they were black. Black people in many areas could not live outside of the defined black area of town. In my city, that area was actually the center of many illnesses, especially tuberculosis and other harmful childhood illnesses as cities did not pick up trash as often in black neighborhoods or service those areas as much as white areas and children died as a result.
Our recent history, and it is always crazy to me that people like you MUTGR don't want to admit it, but me, as a Gen X am the first post Civil Rights black generation who has been afforded the opportunity all my life to live where I want to live and to achieve what I desire to achieve. Many of the subtle issues and especially education and redlining were still occuring in the 1970s and 1980s, of course these would have an effect or racial attitudes today, especially of black people.
Many people who question me about these things fail to realize that most black people aren't complaining about "slavery." Most of us know about slavery but we know that the time period following slavery and the soft racism of denial of opportunity is what has had the most effect on black "communities" today.
The reason that many Latinos watch Latino news is because it is in Spanish. In fact, what "Latino" news program is there on television that is not presented in Spanish
Wrong. Fox News Latino is 100% in English and their target is not recent immigrants from Central and South America. Their target is Hispanics born in this country. I don't really understand the need to have "Latino news" vs regular American news.
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