General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: A sober warning (and one of the best essays I have read thus far about Ferguson): [View all]Locrian
(4,522 posts)Why it's happening...
So I have lived in the America where oblivious white people comfortably think of racism that they will never face as something both puzzlingly abstract and largely overblown. An enigma lying between the Other's "exaggerations" and a truly nasty thing that is dismissed as a long-gone relic of the past. The America where millions sleepwalk around in a life of imagined safety living inside a couch-cushion fort of assumed societal stability because the perceive themselves as safe.
As I listened to the water cooler talk at work and *every* white male talked about how:
"what do you expect if you hit a cop" = worship of power
"never would have heard about it if it would have been a white person" (!) = stupidity and racism
"it's all their fault that the cops are forced (!) to react with violence" = worship of power, ignorance
"well of course now there's going to be more riots form "those" people = racism, ignorance, lack of empathy
on and on and on....