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Originally Posted by johnnyloadproductions
...and yet I'm still more than happy to buy Japanese cars and deal with them.
There's still grudges but you don't see aggressive acts from Jews on to Germans.
If they do deal, it's on a much higher and intellectual level e.g. potentially inflating the number of victims in concentration camps to get greater payback from wartime Germany.
...This is just another reason to be leery, do you really want to carry that baggage. Move on.
By justifying current actions from past treatment, you are only making it far worse on how people stereotype and treat you in the future.  |
One of the problems, however, is that if you are black you will have to deal with those stereotypes your entire life even if they don't apply to you.
One of my best friends is black. She is very cool, very smart, very driven and comes from a great family. A few years ago she started nursing school. The college that she went to was mostly white (like 90% white). She said that at least 2-3 times per day everyday for the first couple of months she was there she was asked if she was going to go out for the basketball team. She never mentioned basketball to anyone, she is not tall or particularly athletic, they just assumed that since she was black she was going to play basketball. She would also hear the phrases "your people" and "people like you" every single day that she was there. Most of these people were not trying to be mean. They were likely not racists. They are just ignorant. They would never in a million years think of saying these things to a white person, but they do to her because she is black. They expected her to behave different because she was black then when she didn't they were shocked and were not shy about telling her. Imagine if every day, multiple times per day, people told you that they were happy to see you weren't a black toothed meth head white person like they see on TV and when you didn't rob them or beat them up they actually mentioned how it was nice to not have to worry about that kind of stuff around you. Eventually it would start to piss you off.
She has also never gotten so much as a speeding ticket, but has been pulled over at least a dozen times for various reasons. Of course the reality is that she has always worked and always owned a decent car (nothing fancy but decent) and she is getting pulled over for driving while black. She and her husband (who is white) moved into a neighborhood that is almost all white. She was stopped by the cops four times in the first two weeks they lived there. The final time she was stopped she actually asked the officer if he would take her picture and send it to the other officers so that they all knew that there was a black person living in their town and that she does in fact belong here so they don't have to stop her. He told her it wasn't funny, but when she told him this was her fourth stop in 14 days he suddenly ended the stop and let her go.
Many black people deal with this shit all of their lives.
This doesn't forgive the violence. In many communities that are down people come together to try to pull each other up. In many black communities that are down some of the people will stomp on others to do whatever they have to in order to elevate each other. They sell drugs, shoot each other for being on the wrong street or wearing the wrong color and steal from each other. It is ridiculous.
The sad thing is that it will not stop until there is a sea change in this country. First, black people and black communities need to realize that they need to band together and help each other instead of using each other. Second, white people need to realize that black people banding together is not something dangerous. They also need to change their general thoughts and actions. The second you either forgive someone for their actions because of their race, or you expect them to act in a certain way because of their race you are contributing to the problem.