For The Record, I don't think Dr. Cheese is trying to rationalize away the observation at all. I've seen enough blatant racism (and as I got older,
structural racism) directed against black folks in general to pretty much agree with his point of view on many of our "TB race threads". I get the impression that he's old enough to remember (firsthand) just how far we've come since the 60's and 70's. Still more work to be done. It never ends....
Talking about it freely helps the process and I welcome the fact that he keeps on sticking his neck out there in order to start those conversations
I think the bolded part is critical. I was also in the minority in high school as a white boy in a mostly black (around 90% in the 1980's) school system - and while there were 'rumors' aplenty about how scary the black people in my school were, NONE of those rumors had any bearing in reality whatsoever. NONE. Like every school, mostly white or otherwise, there were always a few idiots - of any color - but the idea that large populations of black people are any different than large populations of white people - especially as the linked article tries to imply - is based on utter BS, fear and unquestionable ignorance
The proportions were even more extreme in the Public schools I went to. In Grade School, there were a grand total of 3 white kids out of a total enrollment of
600. One of those three happened to be the son of the State Commisioner of Education - a very principled kind of guy who refused to put his kid in Private School while he was being paid handsomely for overseeing all of the Public schools in the entire State. After his son suffered through pretty much the same things I did for a couple of years, he simply quit the job and moved his family out of the City of Trenton, never looking back for even a split second. The rest of my classmates were all black. In High School, out of a total student body of roughly 3000 maybe 100 of the students were white, the rest black. No Latino or other minority presence to speak of in those days - a very stark black/white divide with no shades of grey at all
Timing was another hugely important factor in my own experiences. Younger folks tend to overlook or unintentionally minimize a couple of things that they've probably read about in books, but don't really understand at a gut level
1 - The Vietnam War was in full swing then. Lots of tension simmering just under the surface among all sectors of society. Given that poor and Blue Collar kids ended up being unable to dodge the draft by going to college, or having Daddy wrangle a deferment out of his golfing buddy the local Congressman, the ranks of Combat Infantry (the ones who had to deal with the pointy end of the spear on a regular basis) were disproportionately filled with young black men. Inevitably, the ones that made it home at all, were pretty messed up by what they had lived through. Their bitterness and rage tended to add to the already obvious sense of unfairness and discrimination that the greater black community was already feeling. The steady trickle of cripples and body bags coming back weren't helping matters either.....
2 - The economy was in the toilet for much of this period. As usual, the "official" line coming from the Powers That Be was that everything was just peachy, but the facts on the ground were very different. The manufacturing sector of the economy was already starting to shrink and, as usual, the black community got hurt by this first and hardest
3 - In-Your-Face racism against black people was still very much a part of daily life then. NOTHING at all like it is now. These days, even the most virulent white racists are pretty much forced to resort to "code words" and certain ways of framing their opinions that publicly cover the ugliness in their minds with a thin veneer of 'civility' that allows them just enough wiggle room to escape direct confrontation over what they just said. In the late 60's and well into the 70's that was simply unnecessary. White people who were trying to stay fairly neutral used the term "colored". Older whites who actively supported the black causes of the time generally used the word "Negro" - younger white folks in that same general category ended up settling on "Black". The haters freely used the "N Word" in conversations both public and private, no matter
who they were talking to and it was simply accepted by the vast majority of white people (no matter what their personal views on the subject) as just a fact of life
4 - By the mid-60's, it was all coming to a head. In 1967, 23 people were killed in the
Invalid Link Removed. In 1968, Martin Luther King was murdered and all Hell broke loose in Trenton. The death toll from the riots in my home town was relatively low @ just
one kid, who sadly enough was by all accounts a peacemaker not a destroyer, but as the linked article makes clear Trenton never recovered. Any more than that I can't say, due to the near-certainty of running afoul of the TB prohibition on political discourse
In any case, all of these things (and more) trickled down to the kids in school. There is no way they
couldn't. I understand that now
There is 'power' in fear when applied to the ignorant and incurious. The more people educate themselves, the less power such fear-mongering will have over society.
Yes
Just try to remember the words written by Sam Clemens, so many years ago: "I've never allowed my Schooling to interfere with my Education"
Books have their uses, and so do statistics. First-hand experience ultimately trumps all, in my book
I could've ended up a Hater. Really, considering my childhood experiences it would've been the easiest thing to do, by far. Occasionally I still get into a situation where the ugliness in my early life tries to take over. Those are the times when I have to remind myself of the most important lesson I learned from those days: any time you catch yourself condemning an entire group based on the actions of one individual,
you're ****ing up and you need to remind yourself of all those times when other members of that very same group treated you better than your own
