So I read this little thread (well at least for now...it’ll be interesting to see what the morning and with it the bored LSN-addicted professionals stuck at their desks all day) and I’ll have to say it was fairly interesting as far as AA threads go. I knew what to expect from Red who polices the AA board as if she were a member of the “Logic Reich”. Shaz tends to wear his heart on his sleeve and his contributions were not surprising. Kisssuicide, you being a newbie offered an opportunity for a “fresh perspective”, because after all if it’s been posted before why would we all want to hear it again. It started well, with the obligatory dig at Red and the upbraiding of Shaz for being too smaltzy and horror of horrors helping to romanticize life in the ghetto. In case you were wondering, Shaz failed. MTV be damned, I still do not want to live in the ghetto. I was with you but then there was this:
Growing up in rural Idaho there have been times that I've been exposed to racial and sexist sentiments, quite often in the form of jokes amongst classmates and co-workers. And usually they're offered with little chagrin. But growing up in such an environment puts someone like me at a disadvantage as well. For those less reflective and insightful than I am, they come to see minorities as inferior, or as a joke, or as wrong, just because of the way they are talked about in stories or jokes, from what their parents told them, and what their parent's parents told them. So being in the majority we are already socially handicapped at a young age, albeit in a quite opposite fashion than a minority would be. But it's a handicapping nonetheless, and one that is also hard to be overcame without a senstive and thoughtful intellectual constitution, or a quality education, both of which can be rare. Should we also be penalized for such an upbringing, when in reality it really isn't our faults?
Okay…so say I was of Middle-Eastern descent and I grew up surrounded by people who looked exactly like me, it would then, to follow your argument not be my fault if I were to despise white people, or Christians, or women in mini-skirts for that matter because my education was for crap? It’s a slippery slope my friend…watch your step.
Then there was this:
"There are examples of historically and socially disadvantaged races that are indeed no longer more disadvantaged than other races, especially those that are typically historically and socially advantaged"
Umm...okay how about you stop sending us postcards from Utopia and resume this argument when you’re back here with the rest of us in the real world….”races”…are you serious? More like outlier cases that are not representative of the entire race.
Yet there are instances of certain races not being, at least in some instances, disadvantaged. In this case, socio-economically. My example...a wealthy suburban black child, with college educated professional parents, herself well educated, with a trust-fund. Such examples do indeed exist, though is certainly not the norm.
Whew…thought we had lost you there for a sec…nice to have you back.
About the ghetto being romanticized....puhleeze. It's completely romanticized to the point of being tired. Every actor, rapper, musician, athelete, if they want to have "cred", plays that card of growing up on the "streets", to the point where that romance gets into the heads of bored, safe little suburban whiteys, who take it upon themselves to create an environment that mirrors the ones of their heroes, if nothing else but because of ennui
And people in the ghetto are to blame for this how…or should be made subject to your jaded perspective why? Because they of course are running multi-million dollar companies and are busy making money on their own misery. And you know what’s great about inner-city living…they then get to walk around and see all the things that are not available to them and their children. You know like parks with grass instead of concrete and schools with trained teachers and classrooms that are not…gasp crowded. But I guess they should just be happy we allow them to see it. Okay ghetto people, watch the privileged class use up all that education, look how they flock to two of the best schools in the country (I live in NY) but don’t get too close and don’t smudge the looking glass. Now take the half-hour train ride back to the ghetto and never think of it again. Don’t you know you’ve got it good? There are white people all over this country who are poor and inadvertently racist. You don’t hear them complaining do you?
So I’m bitter…sue me.
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