If African Americans face disparate treatment in America in general wouldn't that affect DU also?

[ancianita]

113. It likely doesn't stop here. But here we should try, in good faith, to sort out thought & language

habits trained into us, one of the least examined being that many of us need to see ourselves as white, attached to the habits of speech and thought that show that we're safe from a million things that exhaust the conscious minority person, including our sense of own self importance.

When every little thing has to get explained -- from definitions of racism vs. prejudice, from affirmative action, to civil rights history -- to someone who won't even do some minimal reading of African American history, or Black Literature classics, or show an awareness of how the drug war has re-created a new permanent caste system for 15% of our country, it's exhausting to even bother with talking to them. Background exposure is important to discussing.

I'd suggest that the AA group come up with a basic reading list for DU, so that members can journey here with some common language and understandings.

Everyone here has been born into this evil, rigged system -- the racist founders, documents, the myths and lies we've believed under cover of science, culture, institutional racism -- and we owe it to each other to sort that out.

Yes, we are responsible for a system we didn't make. Not to try is to perpetuate the total alienation that most African Americans feel already.

It's painful, all the learning, reading, lurking, questioning, caring. It's also a good suffering that might lead in ways we'll never know to alleviating more suffering that's all around us that we've been dreamily blinded to.