Prometheus 6   

I'm going to try to be nice today

Given the some of the stories I posted yesterday, my timing on working on the Racism discussion pages could probably have been better. I think I typed "white people" more times than in any other 24 hour time span since P6 began.

It really is easy to become bitter, you know. And knowing why things are the way they are doesn't always make things easier to bear. I've never really been sure whether it's "better" to feel racism as an inchoate ache in the pit of your stomach or recognize it as the result of a long series of optional choices by people who didn't know their choices were, indeed, optional. Being able to dispute people like one very knowledgeable commenter on AfricaBlog that don't know the difference between the destruction of cultural works and the destruction of cultures doesn't always help when you reflect on the fact that, regardless of the outcome of your discussion those cultures are gone (and incidentally Kelley, if AfricaBlog turns out to be a place where bunch of folks show up to talk about how Africa's problems are no different than those Europe experienced, they just have to get their act together then your visitors aren't going to appreciate me very much. I don't see that as your partners' intent but it could easily happen). To talk with people who know your people have been damaged by events outside their control who yet argue against the ethics and morality of addressing that damage has made better men than me angry as hell. Okay, there ARE no better men than me, but you get my point.

I've already had a cross blog conversation in which a guy said "When you show concern about X, then I'll take your Y seriously," like he knew me and knew somehow I didn't care about his X. And suppose I said "When you show concern about Y, then I'll take your X seriously." What makes his X more important than my Y? Should we all have these conditional ethics? Doesn't that mean nobody makes a move?

Yes, it's really easy to become bitter. Still, I'm going to try to be nice today. So if you hear any teeth grinding, that won't be coming from me, okay?

Okay.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/31/2003 06:45:05 AM |