A conversation about the speech

[gwheezie]

I watched the speech at the gym and had a conversation with a couple of other white folks about the speech. my neighbor on the treadmill made comments that obama was blaming white people who had nothing to do with past institutional racism since we passed all those laws years ago. Oh dear.
We actually had a civil discussion but what rendered her speechless is I asked her since she believes there is no longer institutional racism then what does she attribute the disproportionate unemployment rate, incarceration rate, lower income, etc etc among black folks to? I said to her so if you think we are past the effects of goverment and societal racism then do you believe that black folks are just not as smart or lazy or more criminally inclined than white folks? She was literally speechless.

[leftofcool]

1. At least you have her thinking

[Hoyt]

2. You have to wonder about folks who refuse to accept racism exists.

[Scuba]

3. Great response, gwheezie! Nicely done!

[strawberries]

4. She probably wasn't speechless

I suspect she felt why waste the energy and she just wanted to work out.

[gwheezie]

5. Lol there's a pack of us at the gym

We don't actually work out but what we do is better than sitting home alone all day.
I see the same people at the gym during the day and you gravitate to being friendly based on activity level.

[strawberries]

6. there's a pack of you? are we talk wolves here?

I also work out with a group of people and we are very friendly. We have different views, but usually if there are talks of politics I do my best not to get involved. I listen and remember why I like this person typically don't say much and continue with my exercising . I'm sure others have done that to me too.

You can still sit at home and talk politics, not sure where you are going on the sitting home alone line, but I will finish my exercise

have a nice day

[jwirr]

7. Very good answer. Most people who are saying there is not racism today think the way she does

because they think of racism as what we saw happening in the 60s. They seldom understand institutional racism which is what we see today.

[strawberries]

8. I lived through the 60s

remember watching assignation on a small black and white TV. I remember the sickening feeling in my stomach to this day. I was too young to understand a lot of things going on in those days.

You make a good point. I never thought of it like that. I will now and approach this with eyes wide open.

thank you for opening my eyes. This is why I like this board so much.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. Ask what she thinks of the unprecedented disrespect hurled at the man

who gave the speech, along with his family. Why an elected official yelled out in the middle of his first speech in front of a Joint Session of Congress? Why the Speaker of the House invited a head of state to speak without consulting him? Why his nominees were filibustered more than any before him? Or even why, outside of his predecessor, no other GOP officials even bothered to show up to underscore the (false) idea that "there is no more institutionalized racism so we are here to take credit"?



We HAVE come a long long long long way. But we still have a ways to go. It's a large country, with a large amount of people, and a large number of culture beliefs sewn into a fabric of regional identification that gets fed with negative stereotypes and perceptions of other cultures on a daily basis. It's somewhat ironic that Hollywood, normally a purveyor of some of the worst stereotypes that reach the average citizen (more than anything factual presented in a documentary for example), also presented a couple blockbuster hits that showed a black President, which seemed to almost pave a way for them "visualizing" such an eventuality (i.e., "Fifth Element", "Deep Impact" and the TV show "24&quot . And this, if anything outside of any laws (that are being slowly hacked away and retracted), seemed to help.