I'll have to agree on that. It's setting up minefields around sensitive topics, and I think that's part of why race relations are so strained. Racism is one of the cognitive kill switches in our culture. Once that accusation flies, any other conversation stops dead. Everything then becomes about whether or not something is racist, not about immigration, not about police brutality, not about talking about our pasts, or our perceptions, it's about the racist label. So honest conversation about how to solve these sorts of problems get buried under an avalanche of words written to attack or defend given positions as being or not being racist.
The problem is real, the anger is real. As far as race relations, America needs couple's therapy, but I don't think that change is possible in this sort of climate because people don't feel safe to say what they really think. What they really think would be racist. I know because I see it all the time in my city. Nothing, and I mean nothing will get white people to a local government meeting like the threat of black people being around them. Black being sent to their kid's school, they're going to nearly riot at the school board meeting, and demand metal detectors. Expanding public transport to the county? Not happening, because everyone knows that "those people " (the ones in the ghetto of course) will get on the train, ride on the train to the county, rob their homes, and ride the train back to the city with their hdtv in tow. And white flight of course is very real. All by people who will swear up and down they're not racist, because being racist is shameful.
I'll have to agree on that. It's setting up minefields around sensitive topics, and I think that's part of why race relations are so strained. Racism is one of the cognitive kill switches in our culture. Once that accusation flies, any other conversation stops dead. Everything then becomes about whether or not something is racist, not about immigration, not about police brutality, not about talking about our pasts, or our perceptions, it's about the racist label. So honest conversation about how to solve these sorts of problems get buried under an avalanche of words written to attack or defend given positions as being or not being racist.
The problem is real, the anger is real. As far as race relations, America needs couple's therapy, but I don't think that change is possible in this sort of climate because people don't feel safe to say what they really think. What they really think would be racist. I know because I see it all the time in my city. Nothing, and I mean nothing will get white people to a local government meeting like the threat of black people being around them. Black being sent to their kid's school, they're going to nearly riot at the school board meeting, and demand metal detectors. Expanding public transport to the county? Not happening, because everyone knows that "those people " (the ones in the ghetto of course) will get on the train, ride on the train to the county, rob their homes, and ride the train back to the city with their hdtv in tow. And white flight of course is very real. All by people who will swear up and down they're not racist, because being racist is shameful.