I guess a lot of people are a bit bent out of shape about Attorney General Eric Holder’s remarks about race relations. Well, people have to be bent out of shape about something or else they might stop watching the news and get lives.
Holder made some good points in that speech but he was wrong to say that we are “a nation of cowards.” We are mostly a nation of people who want to do the right thing but don’t quite know how. We listen when other people tell us what the right thing is and we try but then either we’re told that we’re not quite doing it right or they change their minds and decide that the right thing is now the wrong thing and we have to learn a new right thing.
It’s understandable that the right thing might change every decade or two as new generations grow up and decide they want things to be different but it would be helpful if everyone would be tolerant and I don’t mean the officially prescribed one way tolerance of the PC crowd; I mean real, old-fashioned tolerance. That means giving people the benefit of the doubt instead of always assuming the worst intentions. If we could all do that then perhaps we could have the “frank conversations about racial matters” that Attorney General Holder wants to see.
The “self segregating on weekends” issue is one that I have thought about for years but how does one go about changing that? It’s just a matter of habit and breaking habits is usually uncomfortable whether race is involved or not. But if we can get past the fear of rejection I think most of us are willing to make new friends without regard to race.
February 19th, 2009 - 1:53 pm
Part of the “Self Segregation on weekends” issue is that, for the most part, white people have different interests than blacks, who have different interests than mexicans, who have different interests from orientals… etc… etc…
And when I get to thinking about it, there are many times I end up spending my free time with those of other races… I go trail riding with a hispanic guy every other weekend, I play Call of Duty online with a native american, I’ve had girlfriends who were indian, black, and oriental. I could even say that, with the exception of my family, I only spend my time on the weekends with one white person!
February 19th, 2009 - 2:12 pm
I don’t think that’s as unusual as it used to be. It would probably do Mr. Holder a lot of good to get out of his fancy office once in a while and spend a little time with real people.
February 20th, 2009 - 9:29 am
I agree. I knew someone who grew up in a tiny town in (I think?) Alabama, where he said it was “1/3 white, 1/3 black, 1/3 Native American” and he said everyone got along; it was in the big cities that he first saw racism.
I think also so many of us have been so scared that we’re going to “offend” someone by inadvertently saying the wrong thing (and there are no shortage of people who seem to get offended at EVERYTHING) that a lot of people don’t make the effort to reach out to others…
Then again, I’m virtually a hermit, so what do I know? I tend to segregate myself from most people, regardless of race, on the weekends.
February 20th, 2009 - 4:10 pm
Insightful post and comments. I grew up a block from the “other side of the tracks” in the 60′s & early 70′s. I never understood the racial problems when I was a kid – I saw it, just didn’t understand it. I’m a product of an integrated life, and so its hard for me to make a judgment. But I will tell you that I have noticed at my child’s school this self segregation. Also, my wife asked an African American mom if her son could join our cub scout den, and my wife was surprised by the response: No, boy scouts are for white people.” My wife is from the Philippines and she’s been here 12 years. She has not become acostomed to the racism we have here. And if you want to blame it all on white people that’s fine, its just not true.
Is that being a coward?
February 21st, 2009 - 5:24 am
Your quip about forgoing watching so much news and getting a life is well taken.
There is a perception among many I know that it is a GOOD think to “be well informed” and a sense of social obligation to regularly monitor papers, TV, newsfeeds.
But what people forget it there is so much biased CRAP out there that is really produced to sell advertisement, NOT to objectively inform.
I think it does make sense to try to keep involved in the world around us to some extent. But the day by day details we are continually bombarded with do not necessarily help.
I for one am on a news hiatus. I’m trying to figure out the events in my own pathetic life right now and I just don’t have the energy left for angsting about what some public official said or didn’t say.