July 23, 2015

Two of our closest friends are from Mexico.

They're a couple. HE liked Obama in the primaries while SHE'd voted for Hillary. We all watched the 2008 Election Night coverage. We were all happy about the outcome.

We had a hilariously fun night. Everybody brought something topical for the buffet table. Arizona iced tea, Delaware punch and clam dip, Chicago-style pizza, and so forth. My contribution was the "Chocolate Moose" in honor of everybody's favorite, sarah palin.


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July 23, 2015

Anyone against Hillary will be looking for holes to poke.

It's expected. The GOP would do so, too, but they have even less of a leg to stand on here.

July 22, 2015

Well, I don't really see that as a good excuse - that one must be really really angry when

that word slipped out. Seems to me something like "race-nagging" is just cutting it WAY too close. Disrespectful. And rather reckless, seems to me. It's just such a big mistake to go there, or even hint around, being cute by half, about going there. Seems to me as though African Americans have plenty of reasons to object.

The one thing I try to do is to ATTEMPT to imagine how I'd feel in that situation. Granted, I'm white. Sandra Bland was black. But we're both women. So I've been watching all this newly released video of her encounter with that cop. And while I hear the conversation between them escalate, I keep wondering WHY he tailed her for so long, in the first place. She didn't use her blinker to signal - and she gets PULLED OVER??? Seriously???? She was not speeding. Not driving erratically as though she'd been drinking or something. Not cutting a pedestrian off mid-step or anything. Not running a red light or a stop sign. Do you know how many lane changes I see in ANY freeway trip around here on ANY day, where people don't signal first? Same thing for surface streets. AND there are cops around, too. So I kept coming back to wondering why he pulled her over to begin with, and why he began to escalate things? She sure didn't seem to be a threat to him. I'd be upset, too, if I'd been pulled over. I WAS, recently. And I had to talk to myself to keep cool about it before the officer even approached my car!

One word that's often applied to us women is "uppity." It's a VERY broad-based stereotype. I wonder if that cop immediately, unconsciously just lapsed into that with his encounter. A woman speaks up in her own defense, and she's automatically "uppity." Not allowed to stand HER ground. And on top of that, the woman here was black. Now, that makes TWO strikes against her, automatically.

July 22, 2015

Excellent quotes, 1SBM.

Painful. But excellent. I'm adding them to my quotes collection.

July 22, 2015

I know what you mean, okasha.

"I don't know whether to be relieved that it's finally out in the open or just throw up."

July 22, 2015

I haven't forgotten, either, stevenlesser.

And "race-nagging" is just a little bit too much, imo.

July 22, 2015

What a great point!

"In the beginning, MLK's time, the socialist on the left were counseling/saying, economic justice will stop the racist from denying you the right to eat at the lunch counter. I got a pocketful of money and went to that counter and I was told 'n***** you can't sit there and I don't care how much money you have.' 'And by the way, where'd you get all that money'? asked with suspicious eyes."

I think you're spot-on. Heck, I've interviewed very wealthy and successful black artists and THEY'VE spoken about how this is true - regardless how rich and successful they are. All that seems to count is the skin color.

Discouraging. I had so much hope that when we elected an African American President, it meant we'd actually turned a page on all that and had begun to pull ourselves up OUT of that old crap. All President Obama's election successes did was pull a scab off of a big wound, and let that wound start oozing and festering anew. As the cliche says - "everything old is new again."

July 22, 2015

I think I'm going to wind up starting a collection.

That one goes well with this one:

http://crooksandliars.com/cltv/2015/06/confederate-flag-parade-wait-it-0

Both of 'em make me start laughing VERY out-loud.

July 22, 2015

It is a good article.

Most thought-provoking! One really illuminating part was the one about how an Archie Bunker-type would be preferable to a purported white liberal and his/her patronizing attitudes.

"At least the former gives you something to work with, something above-board to engage and argue against; the latter tacitly insists on imposing and maintaining an illusion of non-racist moral purity which provides little to no room for genuine self-examination or racial dialogue."

Makes me think of one particular Supreme Court ruling of late. The one that gutted the Voting Rights Act because we supposedly don't need it anymore. "YAY US! Let us all pat ourselves on the backs! OF COURSE we're post-racial! We don't need no stinking Voting Rights Act anymore!" Yeah. Kinda gives a whole new meaning to the term "colorblind."

July 22, 2015

Beautiful and tragic photo essay, BainsBane.

Black Lives MATTER. It goes FAR beyond just economic issues. The best example I suppose would be Sandra Bland. She was on her way to a JOB when she was stopped, and we all know the rest of that story.

All I can do, as a white woman, is to try to relate most intensely and personally - as a mom. Every time I kiss my son goodbye, I don't have to worry as much about whether he'll come home safely at the end of the day. Shit happens, but ordinarily, that's not my inner terror. However, a black mother faces that EVERY SINGLE DAMN DAY!!! What would it feel like to have that running through the back of your mind every time you kissed YOUR kid goodbye for the day? What would it feel like to glance up at the clock multiple times a day while your boy is out, at school or a job or whatever - and you automatically start worrying about where he is, what's happened to him, is he okay, is he safe, will I see him again, ALIVE, by dinnertime tonight? I can't imagine what it's like to LIVE that. And a black mother does. Every minute of every day.

And I get that. MAN-OH-MAN do I get that.

Black fathers worry like that, too, I'm certain. But I'm not a dad so I'm gonna naturally identify more with another mom. And shit - the really awful thing there is - those black fathers are all in constant danger, too. To me, as a fairly sheltered white woman, that's a lot of what the Black Lives Matter imperative means to me. It goes WAAAAAAAAY beyond just economics.