Not the nicest reply, Ray, but it is honest, allowing me to see at least part of your thoughts.
Your word choice shows me that you are repeating how racism taught you how to treat other people of an undesired kind. I see a reality of divide-and-conquer in your reply. It is based on separate, separate, and then push down. You are repeating a behavior that should be in the past.
First off, replying you, I see that you belong to a race that has all the reasons to be angry about the United States. The struggle is real, the racism is real here. In this society, there is a lot of behavior that should be in the past, but isn’t.
I also do not mind that you place anger in the wrong places because that is actually a normal thing, commonly seen when folks are emancipating (not referring to the legal kind of emancipating, but the true growth of people becoming equals in a society where they are not treated as equals).
But a hand reached out to help all people becoming each others equals should not be cut. If you don’t like the hand, then declare why you do not like the hand. Be emancipated in your reply.
I hope you see I am not afraid to speak truth, and even use strong words. But see that I am speaking truth while keeping communication channels open.
Now, if you have to tell me something or you have to ask me something, then do! Give me an emancipated reply of words, not words that bind me, hit me, try to humiliate me. You can do better, Ray. Be the better person that you are. Live according to your standards that make you feel good, and treat all people with those standards in mind.
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P.S. I also lived in Mexico, where I experienced double-standard treatment. Some folks immediately loved me because I was white, others immediately hated me because I was white. Again, nothing all too strong that I couldn't handle (overall, I love the Mexicans and would go live there if my skin were the right kind), but I had lived in another society for a long time, never experiencing how the color of my skin told people anything. So, this racist treatment was definitively an eye opener how folks can look at one silly thing of mine and make judgments. When I got to the US, even white folks were discriminating me for the way I look; I got categorized. I am telling you, the Americas have a racism problem, truly skin deep. I was not brought up with that.
When I see people from Africa, they and I have an immediate understanding in as far as I can tell. They see that I am from Europe, I see that they are from Africa. My interpretation is that they and I share a not-having-experienced societal racism as it exists in the Americas. We don’t look at people the way people here look at people. Yes, I am used to it now, have overcome it some. I have been here half my life.
You can demand I subject myself to the racist reality of the US, or you can accept me for who I am. I hope you are going to be emancipated about that.
I like having both my eyes open and I want others to see what I see. In my reply to Seymour, I talk about the voting system and how it discriminates (very deeply actually). I have been really surprised how folks are blind to something that is extremely obvious to me and put all their anger and efforts in the wrong places. The ills of human behavior are made worse, far worse, because of the discriminating voting system of divide-and-conquer. We need to become a nation where the foundation of things declare that we are each others equals. Then, and only then, can we see people for who they truly are and can stop pointing at silly things like skin to decide how to respond to that person. The United States needs a makeover, end up with having ten to fifteen African-American senators, for instance, which will not happen in this current voting system. There are small steps that we can take today at the local level to start up that process.
Here is an article of mine: The Mechanism of Discrimination.
