African American
Related: About this forumWHY I DON’T TALK TO WHITE PEOPLE.
By Quentin Lucas
A few years ago, I struggled through a date at an art museum, admiring, but mostly just trying to understand, the pieces comprising a feminist exhibit. The woman I was with, much more educated about the subject than I, offered informed viewpoints, helping to add a dimension to the work which I, nevertheless, never fully comprehended nor enjoyed.
However, my date said one thing which stuck with me years later:
During the height of the feminist movement, some women moved to enclaves where they started new lives completely separate from men, even beginning relationships with women though they wouldnt identify as gay.
I wish I had been alert enough that night to ask my date for clarity. Rather, I instead wondered if I could ever hate women enough to start dating men because I didnt want to be around them anymore. Presently, I dont think of hate as the chief catalyst behind women separating themselves from men. This is mostly because hate feels like clenching a muscle. Hate is work, and exhausting like the reversal of your blood flow its such anathema to our natural state. Hate is so fatiguing I find its ability to exist in perpetuity almost inexplicable.
Yet, James Baldwin supplies insight when he says, I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hate so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
Perhaps.
http://racebaitr.com/2015/10/09/why-i-dont-talk-to-white-people/
I haven't posted on DU for some time, yet I haven't left, even for one day either. I have been, for some reason, stunned to mute by what I have seen go on here in the AA forum since I made that 12 Years A Slave Oscar prediction what 2 years ago. I couldn't have known how spot on my prediction would be.
I am so grateful to bravenak 1SBM and others for the herculean effort and sacrifice they have made to educate. I have stopped talking to white people about race. I am unwilling to surrender the energy it takes to do so. Plus I am not nearly as intelligent as these two are.
This is for you. I have learned so much from you
Thank you.
OneGrassRoot
(22,917 posts)what an exquisitely poignant, brilliant read.
Thank you.
Number23
(24,544 posts)Last edited Sun Mar 13, 2016, 04:56 PM - Edit history (1)
That was literally the totality of her post, "probecito." Hidden 4-3 along with every other one of her posts.
Meanwhile, people are running around DU screaming that Hillary Clinton is the anti-Christ, devourer of children and slayer of bunnies. The Nancy Reagan comment she made was incredibly stupid but some of these folks have howled like gored mules over it, and I'm sure we're all supposed to believe that it's over the "heat" of the issue and has absolutely NOTHING to with the fact that these people howl like gored mules over every single thing that woman says and does. And not one of these ranting, deranged, profanity ladden posts have been hidden.
Once you add on that these same folks that scream themselves raw every day about Clinton's "lies" are also the same crowd posting a doctored Sanders quote pretending that he was quoting someone else when he made his infamously idiotic "white people don't know what it's like to live in the ghetto" comment -- which he STILL has not apologized for by the way -- and it just gets surreal.
But the cherry on top was when I saw a bunch of the same folks who hollered the loudest over Hillary's Nancy Reagan quote run to rec a thread where a philandering, adulterous and PROUDLY homophobic preacher endorsed Sanders. I haven't taken these people seriously in years but so many have grown so fucking ridiculous the past few months there are no words to describe it.
I'm sure that bravenak, 1SBM and others appreciate your support. Like you and Race Baitr (I LOVE that handle), I don't talk to white people about race here either, not unless they are members of this forum. We need to have each other's backs if we are going to continue to bother with this place.
BlueMTexpat
(15,349 posts)forum even though I am not AA. There are some awesome people here whom I wish I could meet in real life sometime and I am outraged about the constant alert-stalking of those you have mentioned and others for their "truly herculean effort and sacrifice" as well as their overall graciousness in their attempts at education.
I can never even imagine the AA experience in the US because I have blithely taken so much for granted in my own life. But I hope that in my own small and inadequate way, I have helped to make those I know/have known personally feel at least less alone on the edge of the chasm.
Thanks for at least letting me be here to learn. You don't have to respond at all.
Jamaal510
(10,893 posts)The Polack MSgt
(13,159 posts)But posts like this one are why I still visit.
Thanks for this.