Take A Look Around
So I realize that I’m not always the best at giving those constant, up-to-date blogs. Blogging on a regular basis is like a full time job – hats off to those who do it and do so well. I’ve been off in the world just handling some business and dipping back into my creative side yet again. It’s interesting how my creative energy intensifies when I’m in the midst of other creative spirits. Ah…and on a not so creative note, I took my GREs, and I guess you can say I’m on step closer to applying to grad school. Woot. Though truthfully, sometimes I wonder what life has in store for me and how I’m to balance my interests, talents, and desires…but that could be another post in and of itself.
No no my friends, I’ve come to you today to just put some stuff out into the universe…let me preface things by stating quite simply that I try to be in tune with my surroundings. I try to ‘feel’ and absorb the world…don’t ask me why, I just do. With that said, I think it’s suffice and rather redundant to say that America has a race issue *duh* but what tickles me is that some people seemed to have forgotten that. Michael Richardson, Don Imus, the situation in Jena (talking about the nooses AND the in-justice system), the recent revival of using nooses as a form of intimidation and hatred, and now with Dog the Bounty Hunter’s most recent outburst (though his comments were said in private)….It seems as though too many have forgotten that race is an issue in this country.
To paraphrase Marcus Mabry in his book “White Bucks & Black –Eyed Pease: Coming of Age Black in White America” he muses that while race relations have changed materially, they haven’t changed spiritually…What I take from that is that, although we minorities have access to opportunities that our predecessors did not, the larger society still has an inherent issue with us. We are still resented, feared, and looked upon as being different (as a negative). It isn’t until that spiritually ill is improved that we can say that racism and all its bastard children (discrimination, prejudice, unwarranted hatred, etc) no longer exist.
It’s all jumbled y’all…no matter how hard you work, how much money you make, you will still be seen as ‘lesser’ and as the ‘other’ by society. Any one have any ideas as to how you go about collectively working on the ‘inner man’ of your fellow human beings? I, for one, am at a loss. Race is such a touchy issue that it makes it hard for a good deal of us to talk about it rationally without getting emotional and losing our point along the way. There’s such pressure to outwardly be PC and say the ‘right things’ so as not to offend anyone, but what do is that if we really don’t fully understand why it isn’t right to say those things? Or how saying those things might make others feel? Shouldn’t we at least be able to honestly discuss what has been going on here? If you take a look around it isn’t that hard to see that opportunities and advantages in this country are skewed based upon race and a system of privilege and inheritance that was (again) established upon racism, discrimination, and slavery. It’s all connected, all linked, and so today to talk about race and discrimination without addressing past wrongs and how they have all compounded upon one another to get us to the situation we are in today is rather illogical and changes the make-up of the discussion to make it appear to be a lot less worse than it really is. Racism isn’t just an individual’s problem; we can’t just point at one person or one group of individuals as we shake our heads in disapproval, content with our own self-righteousness…we need to instead realize that the slurs and acts of hate that have been surfacing recently are indicators that the American society isn’t as accepting and understanding as we’d like to think.
Ideally, we’d all be able to sit and talk about some of these issues in a way where everyone’s opinions can be heard and we’d all be informed as to the history of discrimination, disenfranchisement, and prejudice that have helped to shape this country and American society. Ideally. I’m no fool, so to think that this day will magically appear isn’t going to do me or anyone else any bit of good. Still, a girl can dream can’t she?
