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I think racism gets mistaken at times for tribalism. People (it seems) like especially in impoverished areas seem to live with their own.
As a child our Catholic family moved into a Jewish area of Brooklyn. We had planted a live Christmas tree which we lit with lights at Christmas. Some adult neighbor's poured gas on it and set a fire to the Christmas tree. My dad caught them and there was some fun.
Also in Brooklyn all the boys played and fought, except for the blacks who would try and kill or steal your stuff. Racism or cultural training? You tell me.
I was fired from a job at a church because the members found out my daughter is half black. They didn't hide the reason from me and threatened me if I made something of it.
When I was married his family wouldn't allow me to eat with the family during a meal after a funeral when his sister died. They literally grabbed the food away from me and threw me out of the all black church.
I've been thrown out of black churches for being white and thrown out of white churches because my daughter is half black.
My abusive ex was eventually given custody of my daughter because the therapist said she "needed to be in a black home to preserve her black culture" and they said I was emotionally abusing her by raising her in a white home. He had not had visitation with her since she was a baby and she was almost 15 at the time. He didn't want much of anything to do with her until they finally started making him pay child support (after I lost my job and went on food stamps/Medicaid, which triggered the action) when she was about 12/13, and then he wanted custody to put a stop to it. At the time they finally started garnishing his wages he had been ordered to pay $32/week since she was a baby but was around $20k in arrears. CSE not only went after him for the arrears, but they raised the ordered amount to reflect his real earnings. CSE seized his tax returns and bank accounts for the arrears. He was livid and wanted it to stop. It was never about his wanting to take care of her.
It was wrote up in the papers that she had cultural issues from being raised by me and they kept going on about how she didn't have black friends and didn't listen to enough black music, for example. She was into country music and liked Taylor Swift and they thought it was horrible. She told the therapist that she didn't like rap music because it had cussing in it and was demeaning to women, and her statement was used to prove the damage from being raised in a white culture. It was totally illogical. My complaining about their conclusions was proof of my racism. I could not win.
While my daughter was growing up, I'd be randomly approached by both white and black people and told that my daughter needed to be in a black home and that I should do the right thing and give her up for adoption. My blood relatives constantly pressured me to give her to her biological father so she could be raised in a black home. Before she was born though they pressured me to have an abortion but I refused. They ended up betraying me and helping him get custody of her away from me. So, everyone pretty much agreed that I just wasn't dark enough to raise my own child. To protect her from my culture I wasn't even allowed to talk to her on the phone. She was put into intensive therapy to deal with her "culture issues" where she was taught that I had abused her by not raising her like a black child.
When my daughter finally came back when she was almost 19 she had rotted teeth and multiple medical issues because her biological father couldn't be bothered to actually take care of her. She had rarely ever had a cavity when I had her and I always made sure she was taken care of. I had even paid nearly $6k for her to have braces. He turned her into an alcoholic and she hangs out with older people with drug issues so they will buy her booze. She never hung out with people like that when she was with me. She acted a lot more mature back then and was on the honor roll. She was completely ruined and we no longer have a relationship.
She is completely alienated from me. Everything I did to try and raise her properly was for nothing. The government took my girl who was a good student with a desire to go to college and popular with healthy friends and sent her away to be turned into a drunk who has no motivation to do anything with her life other than to party and hang out with drug junkies. Her father's family is filled with alcoholics and druggies and over three years of being constantly exposed to that undid everything I had done when I had her. I am completely pissed about what has become of her and completely powerless to do a thing about it.
Every bit of the decisions the court made concerning her was motivated by her race, but they insisted I was the racist for not raising her in her black culture.
While I was still raising my daughter, white men never wanted to date me after they found out about her. When black men saw me with her they'd be targeting me for sex, but they rarely bothered me if they didn't already know about her.
When my daughter was little the neighborhood black children would target her because she was bi-racial. She was beat up in the play area one day and I never let her play outside again unless I was there with her. I actually thought prior that they would be getting along since those kids were black. I never fathomed a black person would harm someone for being bi-racial. I felt bad for having let my guard down so easily.
I have both seen and experienced racism.
I hope people can ignore the Personal Bickering, Arguments of different definition of racism in this thread, and read your post.
To me, what you experienced have to be the examples of true racism.
My boyfriend's niece just gave birth to a biracial half black half white little girl. The baby daddy is a deadbeat, he also had one criminal conviction. Needless to say, my boyfriend's entire family are worrying about the niece and the newborn. The niece refused to listen to them and decided to stay with the deadbeat. He abused her and never financially supported her or the newborn, but still, she decided to stay with this abusive guy. The guy told everybody that his family are racists and the niece decided to listen to him instead.
To me, the wrong question to ask in this case is "Why does a white girl choose to make baby with a black guy." the right question to ask is "why do decent somewhat smart women decided to make babies with abusive men." (race is irrelevant in this case because men from ANY racial backgrounds can be abusive)
So often, the victim feels love for their abusive partner. They may have children with them and want to maintain their family. Abusive people can often be charming, especially at the beginning of a relationship, and the victim may hope that their partner will go back to being that person. They may only want the violence to stop, not for the relationship to end entirely.
A person may not know what a healthy relationship looks like, perhaps from growing up in an environment where abuse was common, and they may not recognize that their relationship is unhealthy.
My boyfriend's family is the least racists family you will ever meet, being accused of racism is certainly unfair to them.
All these being said,
My sister is engaged to be married to a black guy. My future brother in law graduated from UC Berkeley, and he is a very talented software engineer. I've heard from my guy friends of ALL racial backgrounds (except black) said something like "If she went black, we don't want her to come back." in a joking kind of way. I would not immediately unfriend them on facebook LOL or accuse them for being racists because I understand the motivation behind the remarks. To me, motive is everything. I know they sometimes just say stupid things, but they are all very good and kind hearted people.
I don't know what future holds for my sister, but I LOVE my future brother in law, and I get to ask a lot of questions I don't dare to ask even my closest black friends ( I don't have many and I admit it)
Time has changed, I was born in year 1985 and reading posts in this thread make me realize how lucky I am that I don't need to experience so much hatred.
I think we are who we are through experiences, I don't think if a person say "I have never really seen racism", that means the person is lying. He/she might live a very sheltered life (like myself) or they simply don't view "race" or "racism" the same way others do. Live and let live.
I witnessed something a few months ago that totally shocked me.
Was involved in a fender bender on the way home from work. While waiting for the cop to get through, was chatting with a black woman in the parking lot, who also had a fender-bender (horrible huge intersection at rush hour has multiple accidents daily), and she had been rear-ended by a white guy.
She was a paralegal--dressed very nicely and was very well-spoken and polite. The guy who hit her apparently thought it was her fault that he hit her. He had said at the scene--if I had a gun I would shoot you n*******. As I was digesting that bit of news, the guy was leaving and drove by us with his window down and spit out "thanks a lot "j*****e b*****y!"
I was, frankly stunned, having never heard anyone say that to someone's face, and I heard it with my own ears. This is not a southern backwoods town--it is a city with a good amount of upscale, intelligent people (and obviously, some not so much). It just sounded so incredibly crude and uncivilized.
I cannot imagine what it feels like to treated like that, even by an angry motorist--and, again, he was the one at fault, but he felt it was ok to blame her and say something that made my stomach turn.
We speak of racism in very general terms in political discussions, but seeing it up close and personal is just disgusting.
I witnessed something a few months ago that totally shocked me.
Was involved in a fender bender on the way home from work. While waiting for the cop to get through, was chatting with a black woman in the parking lot, who also had a fender-bender (horrible huge intersection at rush hour has multiple accidents daily), and she had been rear-ended by a white guy.
She was a paralegal--dressed very nicely and was very well-spoken and polite. The guy who hit her apparently thought it was her fault that he hit her. He had said at the scene--if I had a gun I would shoot you n*******. As I was digesting that bit of news, the guy was leaving and drove by us with his window down and spit out "thanks a lot "j*****e b*****y!"
I was, frankly stunned, having never heard anyone say that to someone's face, and I heard it with my own ears. This is not a southern backwoods town--it is a city with a good amount of upscale, intelligent people (and obviously, some not so much). It just sounded so incredibly crude and uncivilized.
I cannot imagine what it feels like to treated like that, even by an angry motorist--and, again, he was the one at fault, but he felt it was ok to blame her and say something that made my stomach turn.
We speak of racism in very general terms in political discussions, but seeing it up close and personal is just disgusting.
Yes, an african american treating a sightless (from birth) white person poorly for the only reason the sightless person was white.
I'm a mutt and I've had several racist encounters with both younger black males, and white cops. I've had the suck end of both sides.
Quote:
The guy who hit her apparently thought it was her fault that he hit her. He had said at the scene--if I had a gun I would shoot you n*******. As I was digesting that bit of news, the guy was leaving and drove by us with his window down and spit out "thanks a lot "j*****e b*****y!"
They are not two different things. Racism and hatred are two different things. Racism starts off when the idea that some races are better than others. Racial hatred doesn't have to really assume some races are better than others.
In a way, I kind of agree with you. But I honestly don't know which one is worse.
I think a lot of white supremacists nowadays are nothing but white separatists.
ignore him. a white male telling you whats racism and what isnt is the last person i pay attention to.
I think that poster is black.
In all fairness, he is a black Libertarian, and a lot of his opinions are perhaps based on this.
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