There is so much in here that is just, wow. People still do not get it.
There is so much in here that is just, wow. People still do not get it.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2017/0327/Sundown-towns-Midwest-confronts-its-complicated-racial-legacy
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2017/0327/Sundown-towns-Midwest-confronts-its-complicated-racial-legacy
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2017/0327/Sundown-towns-Midwest-confronts-its-complicated-racial-legacy
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2017/0327/Sundown-towns-Midwest-confronts-its-complicated-racial-legacy
Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism by James Loewen is a great book on the topic. amazon.com - Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism: James W. Loewen: 9780743294485: Amazon.com: Books
ReplyDeleteMy paternal grandmother, every time she watched a basketball game on tv (so, sometimes multiple times a day), would comment on the racial makeup of the teams and mention that when she was young "those people" weren't allowed in (her rural Oklahoma) town after dark. It was a deeply, deeply weird thing to be around - I was being raised with inclusive attitudes (thank you, enlightened parents) but in a monoculture town, so I didn't have actual life experience of being around different races/faiths/anything.
ReplyDelete(I knew even as a teeny kidlet that what she was saying was wrong, but my family has always espoused the "don't make a fuss" philosophy, which meant awkward silence and obvious subject changes. Man, I hated going to her house.)
The wows for me are how even the advocates make these subtly, or maybe not so much, racist comments. How even as they are working to change this whole let's pretend and try to move forward they are still trapped by those things.
ReplyDeleteLike the whole apology thing. I can't even with that. And even buried in the final remarks there's something I would want to ask the speaker about when they said, "nobody alive invented racism." What difference does that make? Isn't that just another way to excuse contemporary racism? Maybe that isn't what she meant, but it's what it looks like to me.