Fellow caucasians---can you give me a minute?

[Atticus]

Last edited Tue Jun 23, 2020, 07:04 PM - Edit history (1)

I suspect that many of you, being DUers, have spent much of the past three and a half years focused on what amounts to an existential threat. Day after day outrage after outrage; the Trump regime has had us either pissed off or scared
stiff. And, without realizing it, we have gradually ratcheted up our stress level to the point where our composure is often close to snapping---like a rubber band that has been stretched to just short of its breaking point.

It seems to me that we are now experiencing just a small taste of the fear and desperation people of color have had to deal with every day of their lives. Never being allowed to relax or feel safe has to be an emotional burden that most of US can't really imagine. But, we can do our best to empathize and understand.

I think I am made of pretty stern stuff, but I am not at all sure I could survive as a black man.

I hope this is not considered presumptuous. It is just what I think. No special knowledge is claimed.

[Nevilledog]

1. I think it's a fraction of what POC deal with every day.

And that should really make you think.

[onecaliberal]

2. Yes very good points. All true.

[kimbutgar]

3. Chris Rock said he is a millionaire but no white person would change places with him in a comedy

Routine. And now after seeing what has occurred in the last 3 1/2 years I am not doubtful what he said.

[hlthe2b]

4. Well, I've certainly learned the meaning of unrelenting and escalating distress...

and of becoming a target by those who govern us. So, yes, I think my eyes and senses are much more appreciative now.

[Locutusofborg]

5. White privilege

How come a Caucasian gets a minute and we African Americans only get 30 seconds?
(Just joking) 😎

[volstork]

6. Thank you for articulating

this point. It is a valuable insight.

[lostnfound]

7. Raising a kid opened my eyes a bit

A process that is challenging / exhausting / nerve wracking at times ...and yet...I had resources and privileges that made it easier in very many ways.

I passed a woman on the sidewalk with three little kids in tow, a toddler and a boy in hand and pushing a stroller to the grocery store, in the blazing Houston heat, and I thought “damn. How stupid I’ve been. That woman there is made of stronger stuff than I ever will be.”

[2naSalit]

8. It's true.

I have the distinction of having a birth certificate proclaiming that I am white while looking like my other parent who is also declared white but neither of us are thought to be so upon first glance. As a child I was reminded that I was considered the "n" word among my peers and I had better know my place. I have had that stress all my life yet I was raised in a white environment but always made aware of the fact that I was only there because I was being allowed to be there.

When you live with that constant stress, it takes a toll on you in whatever ways it will. It's a negative aspect of life being openly denied a sense of well being, safety, security like those with pale skin.

[Solomon]

9. Being black is like suffering death by a thousand cuts.

It's relentless, constant. Small things like standing in line for a long time only to have the clerk who finally gets there, look at the white person behind you, ready to serve them, like you don't even exist. Lot of dishonorable white people will sidle up next to you instead of getting behind you because they know the clerk will instinctively wait on them first. Or waiting and waiting hoping that a white person will finally get in the line so that the clerk will finally hurry out to serve. Or waiting on a corner for cabs that wiz by you and then having to move to another corner when a white person comes out to hail a cab because they own the spot now. Being watched when you go into a retail store. It just goes on and on and on. All day, everyday.

Sometimes what we go through is eye opening. Once my wife and I were in a foreign country with a group of white friends, I don't remember which country. We were standing in line to gain admittance to a tourist attraction, a museum or something. Where ever it was that we were trying to get into, the guards came along the line and announced that everyone had to produce their passports to get in. None of our white friends had their passport or any identification at all. On the other hand, my wife and I not only had our passports, but our driving licenses and other forms of identification as well. We exclaimed that being black, we could not ever imagine going anywhere, even in our own country, without identification and proof of who we are and where we are from, much less a foreign country.

Our white friends were amazed and really took that to heart. Said they never ever thought about it, but it really opened their eyes that there are people concerned about something like that. That was years ago and every time we see these friends even today they bring up that occasion and say that it really opened their eyes about a fear that they never ever experienced or ever thought about.