Prometheus 6

P6, I suspect that I'm merely volunteering for some abuse here, but you seem to be a dozen kinds of twisted up in determination to find reasons to be crappy with whitey. "white folks' race issue is they don't want to be held responsible for racism." It's not that I don't want to be held responsible, but that I am not and will not be held liable for the crimes or perceived crimes of other people's ancestors.

Further, guilting white folks is getting more and more difficult as we get generations past Jim Crow. That stuff was ugly, and a lot of white folks have - largely deservedly - felt great guilt for the ill treatment of blacks. However, no one below about the age of 45 or 50 has even childhood memories of Jim Crow.

Thus, very few 20 or 30 year old white guys have EVER oppressed a black man. I know I've never been mean to someone for being black, or insisted on a black person moving to the back of the bus. Nor, to the best of my knowledge, has anyone in my family.

In short, I for one am innocent, and simply refuse to accept a package of unearned guilt.

There's no such thing as a "level playing field." In the classic words of Tom Petty, "everybody's had to fight to be free."

In fact, we've pretty well dismantled institutional racism in America, and the big majority of people are trying to do right.

However, y'all got to meet us halfway. Recognize that some of the problems come from your side of the aisle. For example, I'm sympathetic to the classic complaint about black guys having trouble getting a taxi, but do you expect taxi drivers not to notice or take into account that young black men in this country have far higher crime rates than about any other group? Do you expect them to ignore reality in front of their faces and their own physical security?

I gently suggest that at this point black folks are most often their own worst enemies. I hasten to add that I am probably my own worst enemy.

I have not found much noticeable advantage in being white. The one real main benefit of being a heterosexual white male really seems to be that we are more held to standards. When I screw the pooch, I don't get to blame it on anyone else.

The question should not be what the Republicans are doing for you, but what the Democrats are doing to you. Left wingers have spent many decades infantilizing minority groups, particularly black folks. They seem to have convinced a lot of people that they are weak and helpless, incapable of doing for themselves without the benificient help of the Democrat Party to stop the evil white man conspiracy against them.

"If white folks collectively can simply decide they have no responsibility for the racial problems we face then we are going to live with them forever."

Not necessarily. Those what are are screwing up can straighten up and fly right. Whitey CAN'T solve the problems of the black man.

'if I have to take responsibility for the ills of the Black "race"'

Well, no, you, P6 do not have to take responsibility for the ills of all black people - just your own.

By the way, what exactly would I, Al Barger, need to do or say in order be judged clean and not-racist?

Finally, a few words in defense of the lovely and fierce Miss Juliette: The issue shouldn't be how any words she says might be used, but whether her words are correct.

You're attributing FAR too much power to the opinions of whitey. The success or failure of a black man trying to break out of poverty will be largely based on their own actions, and will have little to do with what Al Barger or any other white guy thinks. Further, their success will have NOTHING to do with what whitey thinks about what Baldilocks thinks.

Let us conclude this evening's seminar on racial reconciliation by reciting together as one the wise words of Aunt Eller from "The Farmer and the Cowman"

I'm not saying that I'm better than anybody else
But I'll be danged if I ain't just as good