silverthorne | Observations...

There was a long rambling post here that served no purpose other than me being upset, and by proxy, upsetting whoever read it.

It's erased. So at least I've learned something. Not so sure I still won't upset someone with this, but I'm trying not to here, all right? Just trying to get a wider perspective than I apparently have.

So...okay then.

Will someone please be kind enough to tell me what would be considered appropriate ways to help fix this situation? I'm understanding the reasoning about white america needing to be held accountable for the 'crimes of the past' as well as the present, but what I'm not getting a clear idea on, is what, exactly, I can do as a person to help rectify it. Since I can't change my skin color, my racial inheritance, or what the guys who have a lot more money and power than me are doing, what can I do as a person? What are you expecting? My own ideas of treating (and thinking of, despite the examples I used first post) people as people and not skins is apparently not enough.

No, this is not sarcasm, this is a person who's been up all night reading on this and getting a lot of the 'it's our/white people's fault and we/white people need to fix it' part, but not finding a whole lot of practical application for the average person living an everyday life. Except for talking it to death. Which still does nothing to help the situation. So I'm asking for a succinct run down.

What can be done?
What do you do?
What would you want done?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

First things first: White people are not solely responsible for the way things are. Slavery, for instance, was commonplace in both pre-columbian South America under the Aztecs and many indiginous Tribes, and also common amoungst African tribes before whites came there, and VERY common in the Middle East. The Romans, in fact, took the concept of wartime slavery from the Babylonians, and from the Jews.

Whites did not invent slavery, and the enslavement of the blacks could not have happened if not for black tribesmen taking members of enemy tribes prisoner, and selling them to white (and muslim) slavers.

First thing you can do, is know the REAL history of what whites are being accused of. It's not any one race's fault, and so it's not any one race's job to "fix it". We must all fix it.

Playing into racial victimology does no good for either the 'oppressor race', or for the 'victim race'. It just engenderes mutual loathing, and codependency, and you know from a personal standpoint how that ends up. Don't swallow the racial guilt. Do what you can do as a living soul to balance the wheel, but don't buy into Original, or Racial sin, sister. That way lies hell, and nothing else.

I am also aware of all that as well. I suppose I'm looking for an acceptable and true balance, but that's hard to find until you let everyone have their say.

*hugs* I'm not feeling guilt so much as frustration. I want a real understanding.

Also...I think some of the problem, (and what makes me wince), is the idea that since it was the whites most recently (and 'most widespread'), that somehow it's just their job and their responsibility. Our examples can be drudged up from recognizable and recent history--so that makes it fair game as a reason.

Add to that the perception of whites have the highest population (Which unfortunately will also mean their most dominant in their local culture and region and most often be the folks in power because of that--sheer numbers do a lot in the arena of who can affect what), and it gets a lot harder to not present that as a reason for other races suffereing.

And there is lingering racism that effects people and how safe, equal and listened to they feel. If you're in the thick of it, you don't see past it. (and if you're not in it, and never see it, yeah, it's hard to imagine)

All of this leads to hanging it on one race--both blame and the expectation of assuming responsibility for it.

Which...at least from the view point I was trying to come from, is no more productive than the 'I did something for you, now pay me for it' attitude. Again, it shifts the problem (and hatred and fear in this case) around, but doesn't eliminate it.

I hear you. I do. And I have run into the attitude you're talking about headlong, and I understand you frustration with it.

What I'm saying, is that my solution to it is to look steadfastly forward. When someone with an axe to grind comes at me in a rage over my skin colour, I try to talk to them about what they are, and could be doing to improve the balance, for themselves, and their children. And then I tell them what I am doing to improve the balance. And I try not to let them get into games of Top My Trauma, whether personally, or racially, telling them straight out that the sins of any race are too great for any man or woman to answer to, and if things are going to get better, they'll get that way because of people thinking about the future, not the past.

Some don't like it, but I've found that they tend not to stick around once they learn that I won't accept the guilt they want to hit me with. Because people like that are usually not willing to give up their treasured feeling of oppression, and actually work it out. (Yes, generalization there, and so inherently flawed, however also containing much validity.)

Observations...

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This is just what I've been reading...

Re: This is just what I've been reading...