A powerful Op-Ed to white friends who "tolerate and give power to a belligerent, bigoted tyrant"

[StarfishSaver]

Last edited Sat May 18, 2019, 01:01 PM - Edit history (1)

This speaks for me. All of it.

SNIP

Opinion: Athletes, be like Pee Wee Reese. Stand against racial division and for unity

Our cultural history is graced with goosebumps-inducing stories of white athletes supporting their black teammates in the face of racial cruelty. Some white players refused en masse to stay in segregated hotels or patronize "whites only" restaurants that refused service to their black colleagues. Some, like Pee Wee Reese, showed quiet but powerful support, sometimes just by standing next to their teammate and eloquently staring down and shaming those who tried to demean them. Sadly, last week we saw white players on the Boston Red Sox take a different approach: They all decided to go to the White House to stand and laugh and celebrate with the man whose racial insults, stoking of divisions, and immoral neglect of the American citizens of Puerto Rico are so offensive to their black and Hispanic teammates that they could not bring themselves to participate. It is disgraceful that, when faced with the choice, not one of these white player had the courage or decency to skip that spectacle, if only to show solidarity with their teammates who felt unwelcome at the White House.

But while this divide we witnessed was higher profile than most, it is not uncommon in the new world into which we’ve descended. Many minorities in today’s America feel similar feelings of isolation and abandonment at the hands of our white friends and colleagues who’ve decided to cast their lot with a racial demagogue, regardless of what we think or say or how passionately we’ve begged them not to.
...
Lately, some of my friends have shocked me into a sense of betrayal. I now avoid political discussions with them, not because we might disagree, but because I fear they’ll once again remind me that they don’t truly share the principles they’ve always espoused. And knowing that they’ll again show me that they believe and are consciously and willingly doing things to actively undermine these principles fills me with dread, frustration, and sadness.

I stay away from these discussions because I am too tempted to risk rupturing our increasingly fragile friendships by speaking the painful truth to them: "How can you look at me, a black woman, your friend, and tell me that, knowing that this man insults, demeans and rejects me and people like me at every opportunity, demonizes immigrants, encourages, embraces and is revered by racists and Nazis, treats women like objects, lies so consistently that we can’t keep up, spouts off like a bullying, ignorant child (in language and tone that should embarrass and disgust any decent person), is trampling the Constitution in our faces, is giving lifetime appointments to racist judges committed to undoing every principle you claim to stand for, and after seeing everything that he has shown us in the last two years, you not only don’t regret putting him in office, you still support him?"

You may not realize it, but what you’re really showing me is that some things – be it your financial interests or something else – are more important to you than my well-being, the safety and security of my community, and the principles you supposedly hold dear. You’re tacitly admitting that your expressed commitment to equality, justice and decency has limits and can be balanced out against and outweighed by other interests that you deem more important to the point that you will tolerate and give power to a belligerent, bigoted tyrant in order to attain them.

FULL OP ED at https://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/2019/05/17/opinion-athletes-like-pee-wee-reese-stand-against-racial-division-and-unity/3697881002/

[Beakybird]

1. Amen!!!

[spicysista]

2. Wow.

I'm saddened to say, "this speaks for me", too. All of it.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. White privilege is the hardest one to acknowledge and to give up; this country is built upon it,

and ceding even a little of it makes a person feel like they're losing status. And it's not just Trump supporters -- it's anyone on the left who says racial issues are a special interest, that it's too soon to talk about reparations or equity, that cops are certainly violent but do black people have to get so angry during a routine stop.

[StarfishSaver]

4. It's always too soon to talk about reparations and equity ... until it's too late.

How convenient.

And we know racism happens, but I don't think that's what happened here. He must have done SOMETHING.

[StarfishSaver]

5. Check out the comments section

They fully illustrate exactly the point of the Op Ed, but they're too dim-witted and mesmerized by Trump to realize it.