Monday, September 17

Blue Gal vlog 9/17





[My mic was misbehaving you'll need to turn down the volume because my voicebox didn't.]

And oh man went over ten minutes again. Part two just invites everyone to salon tonight.

The article I reference is online: Neighborhood Safety and Stereotypes. (pdf format)

9 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:45 AM

    I know this is off topic but this is why I left the south. I don't have the energy for this shit

    OG

    Alabama Plan Brings Out Cry of Resegregation
    By SAM DILLON NYT
    After white parents complained about school crowding, authorities drew up a rezoning plan. The results: almost all of the students required to move this fall were black.

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  2. oh my, when are people going to grow up?

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  3. i'm wondering, in this new segregation, my family is white, well, sort of depending on the degree of racist as i am half southern italian american, and my grand daughter is chinese american, my niece is mexican american, hummm, are we voted off of the freaking island??? home scholed, what??? do we follow the nazi lead with 1 drop of...?

    ask them to let me know. i'm curious.

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  4. This is a wonderful post,and you are an unarguably marvelous and progressive person,with whom every right thinking person ought to be friends.

    That said,might one try and remember that America is not the name of a country,but rather that of a hemisphere?
    Love you a bunch!

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  5. absolutely correct, stardragon. I stand corrected.

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  6. Thanks for bringing this up, we do need to have a national dialogue, and have needed one for a very long time. For me the discussion begins with acknowledging "white privilege" and all that involves. I grew up in an all-white community. I'm not proud of the fact that the 'town fathers' meant for it to be that way, and would actively discourage any person of color from even entering the town (population 2000, in Indiana).

    I currently live in an area that is predominately African American. Washington, DC is 60% Black (where I work) and the small community where I live in Maryland is a mix of African American, Mexican (and other Central America countries), and a minority white population.

    Even though I'm a minority in my community, I still get a pass. I get flagged through police stops (checking ID's), I'm not asked to show my receipt when I leave the local Target, and I can drive faster on my way to work because I'm much less likely than the drivers around me to be stopped. Am I happy about this? No. Because it's not right.

    My new neighbors are a lovely couple, he is from Mexico and she from El Salvador, and the husband is a contractor who is renovating my house. They routinely have house guest, who move to the DC area for the promise of a better job, and will stay with them for anywhere from a few days to a few months. Their newest guest has been helping with the construction. We were chatting yesterday about his job searching, and he felt the need to tell me that he is "legal." He is a great guy, and I felt bad that he would think that he even needed to say this.

    It is not the responsibility of the person of color to "fix" race relations in this country. It is the responsibility of the people who hold the power -- and right now those people are white.

    They are in Congress, they run State Legislatures, they control corporations and the media. They have earned BILLIONS off the backs of people of color, and of women, and it's time for that to stop.

    I think it begins with our own family and friends. When my sister gave birth to a daughter, fathered by a Black man, my father was furious. Some of the things he said were unforgivable, so at the age of 23 I told him where to get off. My comments to him started with: "you are so goddamned afraid of what your friends will think, and why should they accept this when she is YOUR BLOOD and YOU don't accept her?" I ended with "it's clear you have no respect for your granddaughter, but if you have any respect for me you will not utter those words in my presence again."

    I left him to think about it for about an hour, and when I came back into the room he was still sitting in the same position as I had left him. He looked up at me and said "you're right, I'm sorry, and I'll never do it again." And he never did.

    It's OUR responsibility to "fix" this problem.


    BAC


    ps: Sorry for the length, but this touched a nerve.

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  7. Anonymous11:28 PM

    this is welcome, indeed!

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I really look forward to hearing what you have to say. I do moderate comments, but non-spam comments will take less than 24 hours to appear... Thanks!