An interesting exchange about white privilege in the comments of the DWB story I posted earlier

[tea and oranges]

88. Yes, but within the context

of individual's reactions or, as importantly, non-reactions to institutionalized racism.

A real horror show it was there in the south, folks, that intensified during the civil rights movement. I was a child watching the war on nightly news while my mother wept & my father paced.

Then, in the Johnson years, things began to look better on the frontiers of bigotry for black people, there was legislation. An act. The Civil Rights Act.

But Ron Reagan, overlord of mean people, started lifting up rocks & they crawled out. Reagan w/ his LIES about welfare queens. Women, black women. Nice. It became part of sound bite history, everyone's heard of welfare queens (never mind that WalMart takes the prize in that category) & everyone knows that means black women.

Unless you stamp on that shit, it grows. OK, sure, things have improved in many ways for minorities, but the backlash is all the way ugly pissed off. Dangerously pissed off. Black people keep getting killed by crackers. Hell, there's a license to kill black people called Stand Your White Ground.

Sorry, I do get worked up.

We can continue to ignore race as one of, if not our main national issue/s; i.e. exert white privilege or we can deal w/ it.